Return to Chor Bazaar

Following the little excursion to the Moorthy's antique emporium, MaximumCityMadam and I headed over to Chor Bazaar.  Since mentioning it in a post all the way back in June 2012 (read here), I have been back to Mutton Street quite a few times, picking up the odd small piece of furniture or knick-knack.  I just love it down there, browsing through the priceless antiques junk and going up and down the dusty narrow shops - occasionally trying to strike a deal with a Muslim shopkeeper.  Usually unsuccessfully!

Yesterday, I saw a few bits I would like - such as a colonial style desk (on which to pose my new Apple wonder-machine and do all my surfing the net humanitarian work from), and a very nice solid teak bookcase. These things will require further coercion of discussion with Mr Jules of course.  First of all I have to get my own way negotiate for that coffee table....

So the only thing I bought was a reconditioned Art Deco fan  - for a mere 2,200 Rs! (GBP 26).  It's so cool (and cooling) that even our cleaner remarked on it this morning.

Our new, reconditioned chrome Art Deco fan with GEC detailing for 2,200 Rs (GBP 26)!
- Definitely would not advise small children to go near this - health and safety not a priority! -
Purchased at JK Arts, 146 Mutton Street (virtually the very last shop on the second half of Mutton Street). I have been quoted 8,000 Rs for exactly the same fan at other dealers - so it pays to shop around!

Apart from that it was just nice to wander in the relatively ambient heat of Mutton Street whilst MCM tried to track down a standing lamp she'd seen in a picture, and a few drawer handles.  Successful on both fronts, a relatively small amount of money was exchanged for a solid brass floor lamp and we managed to knock down a shopkeeper to half of his ridiculous starting price for a very nice set of brass and glass drawer handles - actually by waiting for the shopkeeper to go out for lunch and negotiating with a shop assistant whilst his back was turned.  What goes around comes around!

Beautiful, colourful glass lanterns line the ceiling at Taherally's, 28 Mutton Street

Rosewood cabinet topped with vintage glass jars at Taherally's , 28 Mutton Street

Loving your blue window frame/curtain combo lady!

You will find lots of carved wooden animals including this Chinese Dragon mask.

Loads of craftsmen at work on Mutton Street - they tart up your finds after you have agreed a price.

A rummager's paradise

Love these colourful lanterns hanging outside one of the shops

Need a trumpet or a French horn?  Well this is the place to come!

There is one stall selling vintage trims

Plenty of eye-catching Bollywood posters to be found in Chor Bazaar

This is the shop where I bought mine...(good provenance)

Thanks for visiting....please stay tuned for my guide to shopping for colonial antiques in Mumbai later on in the month.

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Camelot - Colonial Antique Furniture

I am actually loathe to give details of this fabulous retail find....but it would be selfish not to.

I have spent weeks hunting high and low for a teak coffee table. Sick of the black laminate and glass atrocity provided by our landlord, I have looked everywhere. I've been to Oshiwara antiques market in Jogeshwari and I've been to Chor Bazaar in search of a bargain. We have been to Phillips Antiques, The Raj Company, and I have also tried Anemone in Raghuvanshi Mills, Colonial Collections in Fort and The Great Eastern Home (a veritable behemoth of antique furniture).  The latter are all the well known places to find antiques and reproduction colonial furniture in Mumbai but all, in my mind, charge ridiculously high prices.  So alas, we have had no luck finding exactly what we wanted.  Then I thought about doing what most Mumbaikars probably do in this situation - have something made. Carpentry is so cheap and lots of people get bespoke stuff done all the time.  However I was lacking a good recommendation and I knew that trying to communicate exactly what I wanted (and to my exacting standards!) to an Indian tradesman would end up being a farce.  So I gave up on that idea too.

Following a notice in my favourite online magazine Mumbai Boss that "Camelot is hosting a sale with up to 30 per cent off on colonial and Art Deco furniture in teak, rosewood and mahogany", I thought that my shallow life was about to be changed .  I literally started salivating at the mouth. What is this shop Camelot? Would I find that elusive coffee table?  Would it be a bargain? Oh how delighted Mr Jules would be!

Unable to go on the first day of the sale (due to my very important humanitarian work/day job), we popped down the following Saturday morning to the Camelot shop in Kemps Corner.  127 Kemps corner (to be exact) is a colonial house down a longish drive off the heaving main road.  Immediately I was taken - colonial antiques in a colonial setting!  (Amy, I hope you are reading this, you would have been beside yourself!).

The beautiful entrance to Camelot

Getting there a day after the sale had begun was a BIG mistake.  Virtually everything was sold out!  Even my dream coffee table (if there is such a thing as a dream coffee table) had been sold and I was devastated!  Oh well I thought to myself.... it just meant that I would have to look around and pick something else out to 'tide me over'.



Perhaps not to your taste, but this was the coffee table I coveted

The Camelot showroom consists of two large rooms and a terrace area displaying conservatory furniture.  There is a good range of high quality art-deco and colonial chair sets, campaign chests, dining sets, sofas, side tables, wardrobes, chests, desks, mirrors and art.  And much more.  It all looks hand-picked - I couldn't see anything poor quality and I don't think much was reproduction (which is the problem when you go antiques hunting in Chor Bazaar or Oshiwara).  Even better, the owners do not seek to rip you off like most other antique places.  The prices were very reasonable and even more reasonable during the sale. 



Indo-Portuguese rosewood dining set.  I would have bought this had it not been 'sold'

I told the lady that I was very upset that the coffee table had been sold but she told me not to worry as she would let me know as soon as a similar one came in.  Watch this space!!

In the meantime, and because I can't resist a sale, Mr Jules bought a teak art deco side table to go next to the sofa and for himself, a lovely teak medicine chest.  Well he thinks it's for him, but it so happens that it perfectly houses my lovely new collection of Chimanlal stationery....

UPDATE 15.03.13
Please see my latest blog on Moorthy's - a paradise for colonial antique furniture.  Find the blog here.

New teak medicine chest on top of new art deco side table.  The teak chest was 3,000 rupees in the sale (£35/$52)

Perfect for my new collection of beautiful Chimanlals stationery!

Side table.  Lamp from Pure Living, Phoenix Market City (Bandra Kurla).
"Bombay Art Deco" book by Navin Ramani from Crossword, Kemps Corner

More images of Camelot (with thanks to the Manager):



Art deco rocking chairs, chests and side tables in a terrace setting

The obligatory Ganesh

Colonial sofa set on the balcony

A good selection of affordable, art deco colonial furniture.  Stuff I love!

Camelot
Colonial & Antique Furniture
127 Kemps Corner
Next to Om Chambers
Mumbai
Tel: 91 (22) 2364 4594
Email Camelot127@gmail.com

Chimanlals
(Beautiful hand crafted stationery)

www.chimanlals.com

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Wallace Street,
Fort, Mumbai 400 001.
Close to New Excelsior Cinema

Update 31/03/13 - Please read my (almost) complete guide to buying colonial antique furniture in Mumbai here: http://bombayjules.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/where-to-buy-colonial-antique-furniture.html 

Update 05/04/2014 - Please read my post about returning to Camelot for its April 2014 sale.

Shop: Pictures For Our Pad

Feeling that the walls of our apartment were somewhat lacking in character, I decided to go out and acquire a whole load of Indian style pictures/art/paintings.  Well actually I bought one painting from Baaya Design in Raghuvanshi Mills and then the salesman talked me into buying several more.  Now he thinks it's Christmas every time I walk into his store.  Mr Jules knew nothing of my art acquiring exploits until these items magically appeared in the apartment.

Here are the results:

Very large black ink painting on silk from a Tribal Village in Orissa.  Tells a story which I am yet to figure out.

Goes nicely over our sofa if you can ignore the flourescent tube lighting  
(Saggy sofa for lounging from Le Mill, cushions from beloved Good Earth)

Two Madhubani Paintings (or Mithila Art as originates from Mithila region of Bihar) is characterised by double line drawings filled in with bright contrasting colours and intricate patterns.  There seems to be an orange theme emerging in our sitting room so these match perfectly.  Chrome light from FabIndia.

This is a Gond Tribal painting originating from Madhya Pradesh (with a reflection of my arm).  Gond paintings express rituals or practices linked to their day-to-day lives, religious sentiments and devotions.  They are done by tribal women of the village using simple homemade colours and with objects of daily life being depicted - such as horses, elephants, tiger, birds, gods and men.



The colours of the painting perfectly match the cushions in the
guest bedroom (from Good Earth)



Another Gond Painting depicting birds, this time in plain black on cream background.



Ties in with this gorgeous colonial Goan-Portuguese rosewood
and rattan bedroom chair that we acquired from Chor Bazaar



I love these fun vintage Bollywood posters that we picked up in Chor Bazaar for about £3 each(Mr Jules had some say in this purchase).  However the framing was about £60 each!  We don't have a clue what they say, hopefully someone will be able to explain them to us at some point.

Baaya Design: http://www.baayadesign.com/beta/ 
11/12, Raghuvanshi Mills Compounds, Senapati Bapat Marg,
Lower Parel, Mumbai - 400013
(Near the big Good Earth shop in Raghuvanshi Mills)

Chor Bazaar (see my previous posting)

Shop : Chor Bazaar (Sofa So Good!)

Combining my passion for shopping and interiors, Chor Bazaar is a place where I like to spend hours hunting for knick-knacks and bits of furniture.  Even Mr Jules quite enjoys it there (although of course he won't admit it).

Chor Bazaar is sometimes described as a flea market (and apparently translates as 'Thieves Market' as stolen goods used to wind up there) but I think it's much better than that. To me, it is a paradise for vintage, antique and old colonial furniture (some of it reproduction), Bollywood posters, sculptures, old record players, Art Deco light fittings etc etc etc.  The thing is, the 'locals' don't, as a rule, like to buy anything old.  Most of them want the glitzy, gold-plated, faux leather look.  So lots of the Old Colonial furniture from the big old houses and plantations winds up at Chor Bazaar.  There are some good antique shops in town like Phillips Antiques and the Raj Company but in my view, they are very over-priced and do not present such a good opportunity for bargain hunting (as they are mostly fixed priced).

Anyone for a giant brass elephant?  You can buy all sorts in Chor Bazaar!

As mentioned, a lot of the furniture is reproduction, so you have to look really carefully if you really want the genuine article. If you ask the shop-owners they are usually honest about what is genuine antique and what is not. However, even the repro stuff is well made and usually in good quality woods like teak and rosewood, so there is no point being sniffy. There is definitely a bargain to be had if you barter hard enough and I have bashed down a wooden Art Deco armchair to about 3500 rupees (£40/$65).  And that is with my western face, I bet the locals could bash it down even further!

So now I can show you our prized purchase from the Bazaar.  Mr Jules and I were browsing one of the many furniture shops and after getting into a conversation about sourcing an Art Deco sofa suite with the owner, I asked to look upstairs.  And what did I find! It was quite hard to spot, being a bashed up old wreck of a wooden frame, but the Art Deco features were unmistakeable. Dusty, filthy, and a complete disaster:

After agreeing a price for an upholstered and polished 'three piece suite' consisting of a two seater sofa and two chairs, I then had to track down some upholstery fabric elsewhere. (Oh, let me explain - the antique dealers rarely have items that are already perfected and ready to sell - rather they hope that someone with a lot of imagination will happen to come along who will offer a fantastic price whilst also coming up with design and fabric solutions - ie ME!) 

After sifting through hundreds of samples of gold flecked polyester material in several shops, we eventually found some plain cream linen.  After bringing back the fabric to the furniture dealer, and after his umpa lumpas had worked on the re-upholstery - one week later, see what we ended up with...I think quite fantastic for a week's work!!

Good quality teak wood frame in tact

Fab Art Deco detailing

Tarted up with Indian stylee cushions from Good Earth

I mostly stick to Mutton Street where the best of around 150 shops are.  I also found this excellent printable PDF guide from Mumbai Boss to be extremely useful in tracking down the best quality traders: http://mumbaiboss.com/wp-content/uploads/ChorBazaarFINAL2.pdf

Please keep tabs on my blog for further interior updates. We are working hard to make our apartment a home.


Find Chor Bazaar here: https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&q=chor+bazaar+mumbai&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=0x3be7ce3dfbbf9221:0x556b23b811e7f9eb,Chor+Bazaar,+Kamathipura,+Mumbai,+Maharashtra,+India&gl=uk&ei=QUvsT-SbH47prQfm_4nEBQ&sqi=2&ved=0CAUQ8gEwAA

Happy shopping!

POSTCRIPT
I returned to Chor Bazaar on 14th March 2013 - please see my other post here!