BEST ASIAN ANTIQUES 2005 | Echoes of Asia | Shopping & Services | Phoenix
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BEST ASIAN ANTIQUES

Echoes of Asia

The middle of the desert Southwest is not exactly where you'd think to look first for Asian antiques and decorative accessories. But Scottsdale's Echoes of Asia is where you'll find some of the finest Asian and Southeast Asian pieces we've seen outside of tony boutiques in L.A., San Francisco and New York.

Located in the Scottsdale Airpark, this relatively new shop is owned by Khanittha and Balint Kocsis and started out as an eBay selling experiment of their private collection of mostly Chinese and Thai antique items. The couple was so successful that their personal collecting passion ballooned into a full-scale antique business that will soon be moving to even bigger digs.

Beautifully carved wooden screens, old and new Chinese ceramics, pottery, jade carvings and lacquered pieces, dazzling antique Buddhas from Thailand and Cambodia, offering tables, old doors and intricate window panels, gorgeous ethnic silks and embroideries -- these are just a few of the items Echoes of Asia offers up to the lover of Asian antiques and artifacts. We're especially appreciative of the fact that each carefully selected piece on display is accompanied by a tag that identifies the piece as new or old, its approximate date of creation, and its place of origin. Add to all this the owners' sincere eagerness to share with any customer or window shopper their considerable knowledge about what they are selling and you get a little bit of Beijing and Bangkok right here in Salt River City.

BEST MID-CENTURY FURNITURE

d.a.'s Modern

When it comes to home furnishings, Tuscan is as over as Michael Jackson's career. Modern is the new new thing: sofas on skinny metal legs, TV lamps, faux abstract-expressionist sofa art. Dave Alvarez (d.a., get it?) scours estate sales from Beverly Hills to Palm Springs looking for vintage high-end modern furnishings. He comes home with some treasures.

d.a.'s has gorgeous Heywood-Wakefield, yes. But the shop also has stunning, one-of-a-kind pieces, like the pristine 1940s-era Paul László hutch we saw on a recent visit. All apple green enamel and art deco curves, you could imagine Ava Gardner keeping her liquor in it. There was a 1950s-era end table designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, and a cubist-influenced watercolor of the New York skyline circa 1930 by an uncelebrated but accomplished artist.

Alvarez says he sells more of his retro cool gear on eBay than he does to locals. "People here don't seem to know modern is cool," he says.

Now they will, Dave.

BEST PLACE TO FIND A '50S SPUTNIK LAMP

Modern Lighting

What's old is new again, as they say in the fashion and furnishings biz. And if it's old you're looking for, as in 1940s, 1950s and 1960s old, Modern Lighting is a not-to-be-missed destination for any connoisseur of vintage funk. From goofy to gorgeous, this small store has stuff literally hanging from the rafters and taking up every available inch of surface space. We found a 1940s green-and-gold glazed doggy lamp here, along with a foofy chandelier dripping with capiz shells, probably from the late '60s, among the vintage tiki treasures and Hawaiiana sprinkled along Modern's jammed aisles. We were also impressed by several Chinese carved serpentine vase lamps and a pair of those Murano glass table lamps that were so terribly hip in the late '50s and early '60s. But the pièce de résistance was found overhead: a chrome Sputnik ceiling fixture priced at a cool $3,500. We're still thinking about it -- and about where we're going to scrape up the dimes so we can go back for it.

BEST PLACE TO BUY A ZEBRA MASK

Black Market Minerals

This place has umpteen thousand shiny rocks -- for jewelry, for metaphysical conjuring, for decorating your home. Whether you're looking for amethyst, quartz or feldspar, this is the place.

What drew us to the store originally was its collection of what appeared to be African animal and death masks (turns out they're Indonesian, but they're still cool). We had just bought a house, and the previous owner had left zebra wallpaper in one of the bedrooms. At first we were horrified, and then we decided to just go with it. We set out in search of decorations. Boy, did we find what we were looking for at Black Market! If you're into masks, you'll get your rocks off perusing the bulkheads of this place. There are many varieties of authentic wooden ones, and they're cheap. For under $20, you can put an elephant's face on your wall, or a zebra's or a giraffe's or a leopard's. For those into the macabre, there is a variety of skull masks.

We bought beautiful rocks for our planters, masks for our walls, and wooden wind chimes that are music to everyone's ears.

BEST PLACE TO BUY EVERYTHING FROM A DINETTE SET TO A STUFFED PIRATE

Furniture Row, Bell Road at 28th Street

There's nothing conventional about a couple of the stores on Furniture Row, where you could accessorize your entire home without leaving the parking lot. The best of the places along the strip offer cool secondhand stuff. There are about half a dozen businesses here, the crème de la crème being Eclectica and Cupid's Furniture. We purchased a killer retooled dinette set at Cupid's -- you know, the kind you used to see on I Love Lucy or in your grandmother's kitchen, only black and silver instead of orange and yellow. And we bought a gigantic ceramic wall hanging of three exotic nudes fading into the ether at Eclectica. Neither was cheap (both in the $400 range), but they were unique, and when we surveyed the prices at conventional furniture stores for stuff we wouldn't dream of putting near our contemporary digs, we were satisfied.

Eclectica is famous for its exotic merchandise. On last inspection, it was selling a stuffed pirate swinging down from a rope, red phone booths straight out of Piccadilly Circus, a mint-condition standup bass, gigantic Alice in Wonderland chairs, three-foot-high statues of Elvis, and that's just the beginning. The funky lamp selections at both Cupid's and Eclectica are out of this world.

Another store on the row that will usually have something unique is J&K Furniture. We bought some glass-topped metallic coffee and end tables there, and the place always has great prices on couches and beds. (Last time we visited, there was a canopy bed big enough for Henry VIII to have slept on.) Here's a perk: Right in the center of Furniture Row is Fuel Motorsport Café and Bar, an interesting place to stop for a cold one on a hot day of furniture-store hopping.

BEST TRIM

H & R Sales

If you're in the market for key tassels, beaded fringe, tiebacks, bullions or similar trimmings, you've come to the right place. H & R carries a wide assortment of the fancy stuff, as well as related items and accessories for home-decor improvement. Depending on your mood and needs, you might find some new legs for that vintage couch or a cool hide to re-cover a tacky kitchen chair. H & R is also one of the Valley's go-to places for hard-to-find fabrics like glittered vinyl, tanned leather, Ultrasuede, and shantung silk. And while you're there, why not check out the store's prints? Our favorites are the Copa Cabana (a nifty repeating pattern of fez-wearing monkeys) at $12.95 per yard, and the appropriately named Beach Umbrella at $11.95 per yard. Be sure to ask for Larry, who'll escort you around with his scissors, hacking off swatches at your command.

BEST KNITTING MATERIALS

Arizona Knitting and Needlepoint

These days, knitting is hotter than a nickel on a car seat. With-it Valley knitters tend to flock to Arizona Knitting, a floor-to-ceiling mass of high-quality yarns and fibers, as well as needles, crochet hooks and needlecraft paraphernalia. It also stocks a surprisingly thorough collection of literature on the subjects of knitting, crocheting and needlepoint. The most endearing quality of this wonderful shop, however, is the communal table at the rear of the store, where clientele meet to discuss needlework, fix knitting problems, and hang with other stitchers. Informative and well-organized workshops cater to all levels and are taught throughout the year by a knowledgeable and engaging staff. The only problem you might have to contend with at Arizona Knitting and Needlepoint (other than an occasional dropped stitch) is deciding which amazing knit to pick for your next project.

BEST PLACE TO RHINESTONE YOUR PHONE

Diane Ribbon and Notion

Considering that we still haven't figured out how to enter phone numbers into our cell phone (which we've had for a year now), we're not so sure we're candidates for phone rhinestoning, the hottest craft trend among the under-20 set. What are those kids doing with cell phones, anyway? And do you think any of them would be willing to show us how to put numbers into our phone?

Maybe they will after we tell them that Diane Ribbon is the place to get the goods to rhinestone a cell phone. They might have some trouble convincing Mom to venture to the somewhat sketchy, industrial 'hood where the huge craft warehouse is located, but as soon as mother and daughter see the goods inside -- enough ribbon to put SAS to shame, enough craft gear to make Michaels blush -- we promise the two will be rushing back to see Diane at every opportunity.

BEST PLACE TO DIG FOR BURIED BEAD TREASURE

Beads Galore

You know something's become way too mainstream when PBS creates a TV series about it, like the new one just for jewelry-making and bead-stringing (we haven't yet gotten Beads, Baubles and Jewels in the Valley, sponsored in large part by Fire Mountain Gems, so start vigorously lobbying our local PBS station now). But long before the craze hit, Beads Galore, the veritable grandpappy of bead stores in the Valley, was pushing beads and stringing material for do-it-yourself accessory designers and homecrafters.

Beads Galore finally outgrew the funky industrial warehouse space it thrived in for years and now has moved to a sprawling retail store next to REI in Tempe. What it hasn't changed at the new location is its big open bins overflowing with glass, porcelain and clay beads from Czechoslovakia, China, India and Peru, which you can pick through for tiny treasures. Go ahead, let those sparkly jewel-like orbs slip luxuriously through your fingers as you dig deep into a pile -- you can actually afford these babies. Prices for bin beads range anywhere from 4 to 8 cents a gram, so they're always in demand. In fact, one Saturday it became virtually impossible to bag a space at the gigantic bead troughs hogging up a huge area in the rear of the store. If we didn't know better, we'd have thought we had stumbled onto a gaggle of crazed miners panning for gold.

BEST NEW BEAD SHOP

Bead World

Sandwiched between a pottery-painting enterprise and a florist shop in a small strip mall adjacent to a floridly decorated Chinese restaurant, Bead World isn't much to look at from the outside. But swing open that glass door and, if you're a beader, an involuntary gasp will slide from your jaded lips. Though small, this new bead shop is artfully covered floor to ceiling with every conceivable type of bead, many of which we hadn't seen before -- and the quality of its carefully handpicked stock is refreshingly remarkable.

Not only does Bead World carry silver and vermeil beads from Indonesia and India, but also copper and brass variants you'll have to have. From Swarovski crystals to unusual Czech glass shapes, ethnic bone beads to enameled Chinese cloisonné, freshwater pearls to semiprecious gemstone beads, from basic findings to intricate carved jade pendants, this place has got it all -- and then some. And we've found every last one of its sweet staffers, for whom no question about beading is too stupid or ridiculous, to be helpful and pleasant. If you find otherwise, feel free to string us up.

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