Breathtaking Vintage Compact Collection!

you love beauty history if you love compacts if you love art deco design we're going to meet the author of This Book American compacts of the art deco ERA this is one of the most fabulous books I have ever come across it's so detailed there's so much information in here and Howard and Joanne and Dr Michael Mont the research that was put into this book is pretty mind-blowing for things that are from a century ago that are so hard to find these are such rare pieces for some I met Howard Melton was at the ipba convention and I totally fangirled I could not believe I was meeting the author of this book my Holy Grail book for compacts Howard is this highly esteemed Warrior and when you talk to him you get that Vibe like he absorbs so much knowledge and he knows everything about these compacts and why compacts even started so of course I'm here to interview them and I'm going to share it all with you plus their collection it is so fascinating thank you okay you collect wind-up toys you collect life magazines and then you start collecting compacts but what got you into the particular compact so JM Fisher and Elgin well what happened there was a huge toy show that actually still exists in Chicago there was a guy selling antique toys his wife was there with him and had a basket of comebacks and she sort of got fascinated by the compacts and that's really sort of the collection Joanne was the first I saw all of these comebacks and it was in a shoebox I picked that one up and I liked it and you're thinking where has this been I just would love to know who's had this and what dance they went to or whatever so I thought about it the whole time that'd be really fun to collect you know I'd love to buy it if it's still there and when we went to the next show which was maybe six months later it was still there so that was our first and it was really because of the art deco yeah the modern design yeah and what happened then the reason we ended up focusing particularly on Elgin American Asian Fisher both made various types of metal you know trinkets on charms all kinds of things what happened was 1925 there was a huge Exposition in Paris a modern design and it was essentially considered really the start of the whole Art Deco movement the manufacturers started the ornamentation of the compacts became more and more complicated yeah you have desires they were influenced by what was going on in Europe you know started adopting art technical Design Concepts the Elgin American and also Jim fishner started doing a little bit of Art Deco they had changed their entire line to the modern design and so we that's kind of how we got started because we both we built two modern houses we really were totally interested in modern design Apparently one of the owners attended that show in Paris Elgin has a lot of history behind it and they know a lot there but people have done research and then that's when it's went back to the 1890s a lot of what they did was actually in Gold uh then they started doing more and more Sterling the compacts that we collect are near generally all nickel alloy which actually is exceptional probably the oldest compact is actually the elgins for the 19 early 1920s Elgin actually first patent was 1923. although they we know that they started selling a 1922 compacts were not it really didn't even exist until after World War one that's when the compact so it wasn't always like decorative vanity items that really was meant to be used when you were outside the hall oh absolutely they evolved over in the 1920s became very popular as a gift it's all pre-depression the depression changed everything that you talk about in your book which I thought was absolutely fascinating to see how the changes both of the years after that compacts were designed and started to be manufactured probably a year before they were actually issued oh yeah even though the stock market crashed in the fall of 29 the economy was coming back unfortunately there was some decisions on the part of the Federal Reserve and the you know the bank and the financial sector of the United States uh they were very fearful of inflation they tightened money supply and then everything crashed so so 1930 in other words if you if you were designing for 1930 you were you were doing it in 29. one of the reasons some you know some of the compacts are quite scarce for that era is simply the fact that no one had any money to they they couldn't they couldn't buy them by the time they actually came out in 1930 1931 so does it matter to you whether there are like the components inside because some of the components have the actual lipstick the powder the Rouge or you're more concerned about outside some of the compacts actually what happened people took out the inside and turned them into I assume something like a pill box we kind of avoid that we like that me too it's just good for people who might be starting collecting maybe to know what to look for yeah whenever you first start collecting the permanent condition look for a box in the boxes those are hard to find too I'm not so concerned you know the couple of things there's always a mirror inside and I try to avoid I generally avoid ones but the mirror is missing Bears crack yeah you know in some cases the 1928-29 you'll find most of the compact still had had Rouge powder some of them had a little you know very small lipsticks a lot of times in that era the lipstick part will be missing that doesn't bother I mean I'd prefer it to be there but I will probably would still buy it some of them had places for money also oh yeah right yeah just a nickel and a dime yeah but not much you really didn't need much of it yeah back then these uh these particular compacts that standard size was two inches by two inches so we had the American innovation was to add a chain they're referred to as dance compacts the idea is you put the chains around your middle finger and you carried it to the dance or arm some of the James depends the alarm some of them actually became a necklace by the 30s most of them uh no longer had the lipstick they still had the Rouge and the powder of course there was a mirror it has the depression rapidly moved on companies they dropped the chains then they dropped the Rouge and then of course they also drastically changed the ornamentation on the outside they also changed them out deeper metal cheaper metal design only a powder yeah oh yeah the original compacts they the powder was all loose power for something called Power boxes very small little box still a little round uh containers there was a mirror on the inside lid but it was just loose power yeah but the problem is with that is if it sprang open yeah you had power at all or whatever you had a bath still happens you know they modern times with my powder yeah yeah so the earlier compacts have these really in some cases extremely elaborate metal mechanisms that dispense the powder in the 30s to their 30s they had you know developed pressed powder so the Pressed Powder compact was created because loose powder was so messy yeah yeah right it was yeah exactly such a simple thing but you know we don't really know why compacts were created so it started with loose powder hey started with loose power foreign well I love the one on the back of the book you know how much fun this is I mean no one ever even wants to see our clubhouse well this is why I wanted to interview because it's one of my favorite collections in the world I sold them in jewelry stores so they were like a gym but that's what they look like even today yes I know if you you and you can't believe they're 100 years old yeah no and it's much cooler than anything being created today yeah there's no comparison so what's your favorite piece oh I love the Fisher the the woman care in the world I think it's actually fantastic incredible detail considered feminist from 1930 which is literally 100 years ago but this particular compact thing I just think there's a it says a lot about the times about the role of women all kinds of things this one I did the yard picked in your honor I like seeing it you know I have this one I know you do yeah and you you I think you said that you knew that I had it it's one of the very few elgins that I have I sold it to you I'm interrupting the video because I do want to show you I have a few of these compacts this one he had an extra and this one is also Elgin American and this is that geometric Deco design oh my God you guys know David Bowie with the lightning bolt down his face like that's this that's this in the 1920s and he was in the 70s you see guys when I buy compacts if there's nothing inside I'm less apt to buy them and that's why I asked Howard does it matter if there's like lipstick inside or Rouge and he's more concerned really with the compacts but a mint condition compact which he has mostly they do have the products inside so this one you can save the lipsticks she's she's seen better days but there is the powder puff and the Rouge puff okay let's just go ahead and take it out obviously here this would have been loose powder but this is the original puff that came with it and this one still has the Rouge inside if I was a flapper this is what I'd be carrying all of these I'd be carrying all of these what am I talking about as long as they're loaded with lipstick and Rouge though I'm obviously not going to touch their collection I just want to show you this one I want to open it so obviously you have the chain because of course the flappers you know you needed your little vanity on your arms so you could do the Charleston go dancing and obviously yes this is 1920s so basically this is how you would get your loose powder it would come out of here or if you needed to refill you have the hole and then when you wanted to close it [Music] that's stunning this is a JM Fisher and it is one of my all-time favorite compacts in the entire world The Deco bodies so beautiful okay inside of this one we'd have Rouge and powder loose powder and you could have a lipstick and even your eyeshadow eyeliner so you could have everything this one actually is empty but you see you could put in the refills there it's kind of shocking though like that some of these survive today in mint condition if you think of a flapper going out dancing with this on their wrist but this is an Elgin American and this one actually does have product inside it's so beautiful it is like a piece of jewelry so they have a Montreal collection but this one with the faces and now you can see like the year I love that peacock 1931. I see these come up online quite often if this is a style that you like the gyochet you can find these pretty often on eBay and Etsy quite beautiful okay so this one let's open her up there's the Rouge inside and the lipstick of course the Loose Powder back in the day all of your Rouge would have this little like foil piece over top of it when it was brand new and sometimes you can find them still with the foil on top just in general like 1920s compacts okay let's take out the lipstick of this one I mean like how tiny is it I can almost barely pick it up and you would push this up and of course the lipstick it is in there but it's 100 years old and you can tell don't worry I'm not gonna put it on I think they had this one but I think they had the lipstick with it now this one inside this you might have your powder on one side and Rouge on the other but this one is empty so the dolly bird that was in the book I just showed you I believe Howard has that one in the vault because the one that he has is one of the most rare Elgin American compacts that exist I do have the Bird in Hand Dolly Elgin American compact while this is in mint condition I guess the gold one is not as rare obviously Salvador Dali was known for his surrealism and the head becomes a lipstick it didn't come with any lipstick inside you would just put your refills and at this time that was very popular to have refills for all the lipsticks so the wings of it open and there is your Compact and this bottom piece I think you could keep pills inside of there this compartment there's your Powder Puff a lot of people don't believe that Ollie actually created this design but Howard goes into a lot of detail in the book of course so I will let you read it in this particular instance there was a woman from Julia as it turned out who was sort of putting some Elgin American when she obviously was one of our focuses and we bought a couple things from her and at some point we started emailing each other she had these bins hundreds and hundreds of compacts so she starts getting them out and getting them out and getting them out and how it's going no I don't want that one I'll take that one okay I'll take that one and finally he said how much will you take for all of them and so we ended up buying hundreds of contacts maybe we have bins of compacts and how many did we want like well we didn't we wanted I mean we wanted a fraction so this is why we have so many people we would still be there looking at those if we yeah yeah so that was horrified so we should also add we have a storage locker with all those that we have to rent maybe I should mention that I found Howard on eBay because I bought a contact from him so yeah we want to sell anything you're not any of those compacts in storage and people out there watching might want them yeah that would be good I just want to thank Joanne and Howard so much for making a dream of mine come true I really wanted to celebrate them as collectors not only are they preserving Beauty history but the knowledge and the information that they put behind it all which helps collectors like me or you if you're a collector a book like this is absolutely invaluable or if you just want this book because you just want to look at the beauty but you don't want to collect so thank you Howard Joanne and also Dr Mont who I hope to interview one day thank you all for this amazing book of course I'm going to link it below if you'd like to purchase it and if you'd like to support Howard and Joanne I know they don't have social media but definitely leave comment below I know they're gonna watch this video so if you want to leave them a message comment below so they can see it thank you so much for watching I hope to bring many more videos like this I want to celebrate these collectors and this was such a dream come true for me so thank you so much for watching and of course I hope to see you on the next one

Channel: Erin Parsons Makeup

Views: 146,291

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Id: Uam3ebv-yLo

Length: 15min 44sec (944 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 30 2023