“Our tagline: “5,000 years of art, antiques, and design.” Though honestly, sometimes it’s closer to 10,000.” – Helen Allen, The Winter Show
BY JANET MERCEL
Designers, dealers and friends gather at the Sutton Place apartment of Christine and John Gachot (the team behind The Pendry, Pebble Bar and Marc Jacobs’ townhouse) to toast the 72nd annual Winter Show at the Park Avenue Armory.
Upstairs in the crush, we see Helen Allen, Executive Director of the Winter Show. She immediately shows my three-year-old daughter Sloane the dining room installation, where chef Nir Sarig and Daniel Levi (Tory Burch’s embroidery master) have sewn real fig tree leaves onto the tablecloth. Host John Gachot then explains to my daughter that there’s a picture by someone with her name in the other room (a striking skyscape by American landscape painter Eric Sloane).
The Winter Show is America’s longest continuously running art fair. The Opening Night Party, Young Collectors Night, and Design Luncheon all support the East Side House Settlement. Daniel Diaz, the Bronx non-profit’s Executive Director, delivers remarks to Wendy Goodman, Michael Diaz Griffith, The Brownstone Boys, designers Sean Henderson and Analisse Taft and Giancarlo Valle and Jane Keltner de Valle.
In the living room, Sloane projectile-launches herself off a Maison Gerard mushroom stool and onto the velvet sofa before tumbling dramatically onto the carpet. Someone makes an art joke about how the pillows she’s jumping on are “nicer than Tracey Emin’s.” Christine Gachot is suddenly at my side. “This is my house, and she’s fine,” she tells me. “I have two boys—this couch has lived through much worse.”
The next morning, I catch up with Helen Allen, who tells me about taking the Winter Show into the future.
You’re behind the infamous dropping of “Antiques” from The Winter Antiques Show after six decades.
That was one of the first things I did. We still have some of the hate mail from that! Of course, antiques remain at the core of who we are—it’s in our tagline: “5,000 years of art, antiques, and design.” Though honestly, sometimes it’s closer to 10,000. But the show also includes contemporary art, Japanese ceramics, modern glass, mid-century modern, Arts and Crafts. Broadening the scope to the public is part of why I was brought on board.
Being a native New Yorker, does your appreciation for the Winter Show go back a long time?
Since I was maybe four or five years old, it was one of my favorite outings with my mom. I still have that emotional connection.
Your DNA is in co-founding and running contemporary art fairs like the Affordable Art Fair and (e)mergeartfair in D.C., and PULSE in Miami, New York, and London. What brought you to the Winter Show?
I have an art history background, but I’ve always wanted to put it to use in a philanthropic way. I stepped away from art fairs and didn’t want to go back, but then East Side House approached me, and this was just a completely different beast. I’m married to a doctor who’s literally saving people’s lives. I have to ask myself, ‘What am I doing to help people and make the world better?’ It’s spectacular for me to work in arts and culture while also enriching people’s lives.
Your first Winter Show was 2019. Those early years at the fair must have been wild.
The show in January 2020 was great, just before the pandemic. In 2021, we had online events, and the dealers did do well. We still raised money for East Side House. In 2022, Omicron hit. We had to call everyone the day before Christmas to tell them it was too dangerous.
A two-year in-person hiatus would have been a lot to rebuild from.
My team went into super high gear. We postponed to spring, but the Armory couldn’t do it then, and that’s how we ended up striking a deal with the people who had the Barneys flagship. We gutted it, rebuilt walls. We all lived there, basically, 14 to 15 hours a day. Some floors had low ceilings, which was challenging. But the way Barneys was situated allowed for a sense of discovery in a whole new way. It taught us that the work speaks for itself.
Some great moments came out of that year.
The designers Corey Damen Jenkins, Fergusson & Shammamian, Young Huh and Keita Turner decorated the Madison Avenue windows. The jeweler and decorative arts historian Levi Higgs created jewel box window vignettes. Working off-kilter was a pivotal moment. It helped grow the confidence of dealers and showed how dedicated we are to not letting them down. We’ve been doing that ever since.
The show runs the gamut of dealers, collectors and design generations from legends like Bunny Williams, Stephen Sills, and Alex Papachristidis to this coming year’s Ben Pentreath, Heidi Caillier and Noz Nozawa. There’s a lot of fabulous design work happening today. Those artists really understand they’re not operating in a vacuum. They want to connect with our past. They want work that has inspired people for decades. There’s been a seismic shift, with a huge interest in historic materials and craftsmanship.
One of the things that draws people to work with the show is that they’re also making a difference.
They’re doing work that really resonates. It’s not just about having their name in a design magazine. John and Christine Gachot, for example, have become part of the Winter Show family. Their team is already working on a program for the East Side House Winter Wonderland to wrap presents for kids in the community. It’s a real New Yorker’s effort.
