Not Your Average Airport Furniture

The Los Angeles Antiques Show returns to Santa Monica Municipal Airport’s Barker Hangar May 4-6 for its sixth presentation. Seven years ago, the Antiques Dealers Assn. of California approached the Women’s Guild of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center about helping bring a large antiques show to Los Angeles, for which the guild would sponsor the gala opening. It was good timing, since the guild, known for its movie premiere benefits, was ready to try something new.

Caryl Golden, a member of the guild for 24 years, has chaired the Antiques Show gala for the last five. “This is a designer-driven town,” she said in an interview this week, “which means [designers] buy high-end items for their clients. In New York, people buy their own items. In L.A., people tend to see an item they like or don’t like and ask their designers to go and buy it. With all of that in mind, we were not all that sure that L.A. could or would support a show of this high-end caliber, but they did and they do.”

This year, 68 antiques dealers will take over the 35,000-square-foot hangar after the guild has made it pretty and comfortable with flowers, carpeting, drapes, lights and air-conditioning. Among the highlights will be a Follies Bergeres collection of 100 original costumes and production designs, including a portrait of Josephine Baker; 200 Art Deco costume and set designs once owned by Judy Garland; and a collection of vintage Georg Jensen silver valued at $250,000, dubbed “The Ultimate Georg Jensen Table.”

Judy Wilder Briskin has been a member of the guild for 10 years and on the organizing committee for the Antiques Show since its inception. She is also an interior designer.

“L.A. designers love this show because the dealers bring in all their new merchandise, and people from the East Coast and Europe bring really exciting things. Sometimes we have designers fly in from New York, Chicago, Florida, San Francisco, for example, in their clients’ private jets, which land on the Santa Monica field and come to see the show.”

Interior designers are allowed a sneak peek of the merchandise May 2.

The guild makes money only from the May 3 preview fund-raiser. Guild President Abby Levy said the group expects to net about $500,000 at this year’s gala. The guild, founded in 1957, has already raised $14 million for patient care, equipment, research and women’s health programs at Cedars-Sinai.

Although by now the women on the show’s organizing committee are pros, they still haven’t figured out what to do about one group of uninvited, not to mention unticketed, guests. “During the day, we have birds fly into the hangar to preview the merchandise, and they do bombing missions on us,” Briskin said. “You can hear them chirping, too.” The women tried to outfox the birds by setting up fake owls at either end of the hangar. The live birds, which are probably California pigeons, Briskin said, flew right past the fake ones. Next, the women had 15 feet of plastic sheets partially cover the two entrances. “The birds still manage to get to the rafters during the entire show,” Golden said. “Luckily, we haven’t had too many complaints from the dealers,” Briskin said.

For information on the show, call (310) 423-3667.