‘Tis the time for a tinsel pop-up at the Seaport

pg-14-Tinsel-story-pic — On Nov. 1, the pop-up store Tinsel Trading and Theatre of Dreams, will open at 209 Water St. with handmade decorations and gift items for the holidays priced from $2 to $150.

BY TERESE LOEB KREUZER | As day turned to dusk on Sun., Oct. 23, two women were busy unpacking boxes of metallic thread, silk ribbons, antique trimmings, beads, buttons, antique flowers, and holiday decorations inside a cavernous space on Water Street. Marcia Ceppos and Wendy Addison had heard from the Seaport Museum New York just three days before that they could set up a pop-up store at 209 Water St. in what had formerly been the museum’s art gallery. They had just 10 days to refurbish and stock their store so that they can open on Nov. 1. They will be there through the end of the year.

Ceppos owns Tinsel Trading at 1 W. 37th St., renowned among couturiers, theatrical costume designers, milliners, interior decorators, and architects for its immense stock of unusual vintage and contemporary embellishments. Martha Stewart, a big fan, has featured Tinsel Trading in her magazines and on her TV show. Ralph Lauren, Anna Sui, Steven Spielberg and Michael Graves have shopped there, as have the costumers for such Broadway shows as “Mary Poppins,” “Wicked” and “Phantom of the Opera.”

The store was founded almost 80 years ago by Ceppos’ grandfather, Arch J. Bergoffen, who started selling metallic threads and ended up with a warehouse of ornaments. The basement of his store was jammed with boxes, many of them unopened for decades. Some of these treasures are making their way to Water Street — vintage ribbons from 1910 to 1950, extra shiny glitter made from German glass, tassels, old-fashioned wrapping paper, spools of lustrous metal thread so beautiful that they could be displayed on a shelf if they weren’t used to tie a fisherman’s lure.

One of Ceppos’ customers, Wendy Addison, owner of Theatre of Dreams in Port Costa, Ca., became a friend and is a partner in the Water Street pop-up venture. “The thing that links our businesses is the love of vintage materials,” Addison said. “Marcia has them and I design with them.”

Addison uses the cornucopia of materials from Tinsel Trading to create charming, glitter-encrusted boxes and ornaments that evoke fairy tales and magic. The staff at Tinsel Trading manufactures Addison’s designs.

Both women say that they love what Addison called “the antique ambiance” of the Water Street space with its wooden columns, brick walls and old floor, scuffed from years of use. “It’s just perfect for our products,” Addison said. Many of them will be displayed in wooden crates from the 1920’s, rescued from one of Tinsel Trading’s garment district neighbors that went out of business and was about to throw those old things away.

Prices at the store will range from $2 to $150. “At the higher end will be unusual items with which to decorate your home,” Addison explained. As an example, she mentioned hollowed-out tree stumps that could be used as candy containers.

Neither Addison nor Ceppos was daunted at the task of setting up an entire store in a little more than a week. “We do wholesale trade shows,” said Ceppos. “Wendy designs the booths so for her, creating displays is like second nature.” At the trade shows, said Addison, they have even less time — two days to set up and a day to dismantle.

It was at a trade show three years ago that Addison and Ceppos met Robert Warner, the master printer of Bowne & Co. Stationers, which just reopened at 211 Water St. “He knew that the Museum of the City of New York [the recently appointed manager of the Seaport Museum] wanted to fill the space next to Bowne with something holiday-related,” said Ceppos.