Ode to an Antiques Centre.
‘It is what such things represent that lends them their beauty.’
I am a self-confessed lover of ‘things’. Where some may opt for a more minimalist approach, selectively collecting and choosing the objects in which to adorn their life, I am a lover for keeping all kinds of memorabilia.
Take a step into my family home and you may understand why. From my mother’s embroidered tapestries, crocheted blankets, and photo collages of French countryside on every wall, it is no wonder I have similarly attached sentiment to material objects.
I adore things. I know nothing better than looking on fondly at the vases, dishes and plates I have fashioned into jewellery holders. My heart swells when looking through my bits and bobs: ribbons in a little linen pouch; vintage kitten heels lined up on my mother’s sewing chest; fur coats hung up in my wardrobe for when winter comes; notebooks and books piled up in every nook and cranny.
I am entirely aware of the superficiality people suspect when you proclaim to love ‘things’. So shallow! So facile!
But why has the adoration of beautiful things become so scorned?
‘Aestheticism is the search after signs of the Beautiful... to speak more exactly, to search after the secret of life.’ - Oscar Wilde
Every object is a cultural artifact. It is an insight into the mode of thinking and being of the context it was produced in. This goes even further: every object is also an insight into the mode of thinking and being of when it was procured.
Objects are a transcendent bond between the creator, and the owner. Now consider when the object is antique or vintage and you are perhaps the second, third, or fourth hand buyer. What connects you to the previous god-parents of these things?
You all found a semblance of beauty in these material objects.
Thus, a far greater value is assigned to material objects: the value of Beauty.
Today, things may often be bought or admired for the functionality and meritocratic value they posses. How far will they impress those around me? How much can I showcase such items on social media? Will they get me in to the ‘right’ crowd?
But, when you begin to celebrate things for things sake, you begin to lead yourself ever closer to the universal value of Beauty. Which, in terms of Aestehticism, is the only true and important way to measure something.
In the age of fast-fashion and mass-consumerism, the representation of ‘beauty’ is fleeting and quickly changing. However, to be a lover of antiques presents the unchanging and unflinching idea that Beauty is a transcendent factor that exists independently and objectively in the universe.
Beyond trends and cultural norms, these things maintain a sense of beauty that translates time and time again.
This helps us celebrate all people, cultures, and things. We steer further from judging something based on how useful or ‘impressive’ it is in the terms of a 21st century society. Instead, we start to accept that in some bigger sense all of these things provide beauty.
I truly believe this is a step to living more freely and more joyously.
Visiting my local Antiques Centre, I mull over these thoughts. There are things upon things, things for things sake!
In a Hoarder’s Paradise, what is it about this chaos that is consistently so comforting?
The universe is contained within the realms of an Antiques Centre. Generations of history whisper through the walls of the concessions. The shoppers of today lend their ear to try and understand. Past and Present unite as one thing binds them eternally: the quest for beauty.
Antiques Centres certainly possess no real purpose today. They are neither a big trend on social media nor apart of ‘hustle’ culture. They won’t get you instagram clout nor a podcast. In fact, they are rather the antithesis of these things. An Antiques Centre is a place of leisure, culture, and history for no other reason than these things in themselves. Antiques Centres contain Beauty for no other reason than that they can.
The only purpose that Antiques Centres live for is beauty.
'Beauty is a form of Genius- is, indeed, higher than Genius as it needs no explanation.’ - Oscar Wilde
Thus, when I muse over my things and when I look upon the abundance of things in an Antiques Centre, I find Beauty with no need of an explanation. The fact that Beauty exists with no if or how is liberating. It frees us from the constraints and pressures of social media, clout, or grind culture. It leads us to the realisation of universality and our minute presence in something far larger than ourselves.
Oh, I love Antiques Centres and I more specifically love things. I love that I can possess objects that help me move ever closer to Beauty.
I love that there is Beauty, and its hidden in clues all around if only we allow ourselves to find them.
