VOUCH FOR VINTAGE

Sabyasachi’s signature spaces are a testimonial to his passion for the past. His stores are replete with turn-of-thecentury antique furniture, block printed chintz, handfired Portuguese tiles, eclectic crockery and ittar bottles painstakingly collected from the bylanes of Old Delhi, Lucknow and Kolkata… each piece has a story to tell. He shares his views on how to create a vintage home. When things were made in the past, they were made with the idea of making something beautiful. Commerce came a distant second which is why there was so much of sensitivity, dignity and timelessness attached to the things made in the bygone era. Unfortunately the modern world does not provide me with these solutions because it has become about commerce over creativity. I am an idealist and for me heritage reflects that idealism and reflects the space I want to be in.

I don’t really have any favourite piece of vintage, though I must say the things from 1920s have always inspired me - whether they are homes built in Calcutta or chandeliers found in Italy. I am also fond of porcelain from the Ming dynasty. It is very debatable. It depends on the speed of life that you choose for yourself. For somebody who decides to burn the candles both ways and speed through life, it might be a little redundant, but for somebody with a poetic disposition, it is absolutely fine. Here I would like to add the only thing that has changed from the past into the present is that human beings have just paced up their way of life - which sometimes I don’t think is the best thing to happen to us. I don’t possess an email and I am gliding through life pretty well without it. Real vintage is really expensive and it rightly should be because it is so rare in today’s mechanised world. But there are lot of companies who are doing cheap imitations and there are also a lot of people who sell it cheap because they find the product archaic to the users. So if you have the eyes and the nose, you can get a vintage house at a throw away price. I would like to say vintage is a mood not the way you lay out things. A very vintage home A lot of cities with heritage but fast on their way to modernisation are the best places to shop for vintage. That explains why you can get so much of colonial furniture in Calcutta, delightful Portuguese finds in Goa, dismantled pieces of havelis in Gujarat and Rajasthan and plantation furniture in Cochin. Read a little bit about the history of a place, find out what is happening with the interiors and architecture in present times and the gap will tell you how much antiques you can find at what price.