Convention Report 2017
October 14th and 15th, at the Holiday Inn, Leicester
For the fourth time we held our annual convention at the Holiday Inn; a large city centre hotel which is easy to get to and is close to a major shopping centre and many restaurants.
As usual, on arrival on Friday we were made welcome by the staff and allowed to use part of the Leicestershire Suite for storage and setting up. Our advertising banner was put up in a prominent position in reception.
Many members arrived on Friday to help setup the room and meet old and new friends. We had the usual fairly chaotic dinner in the dining room after battling with the glass display cases, decorating the room and filling goody bags.
Early on Saturday everybody worked hard on the finishing touches to the room and the audio visual equipment was persuaded to work.
Almost on time Phyllis opened the convention and welcomed forty delegates including four from the USA and members from Germany, Italy, Portugal and France. Phyllis also welcomed first time attendees Samina and Zarina Beg, Ellie Dowle and Antoine Poujol (Paris)
Deborah Washington, IPBA President, reported on current IPBA topics before Rusty Hernandez, IPBA Convention Chair, told us about preparations for the 30th IPBA Convention at Tyson’s Corner near Washington.
The presentations began with Afonso Oliveira, IPBA International Vice President. His presentation Discovering the Secret of Portuguese Perfumes showed many Portuguese perfume houses and their bottles from the 19th century onwards and was illustrated with a slideshow of many beautiful photographs, advertisements and other ephemera.
(right, a Nally bottle from c1930) [to follow]
Mohammed Jamal returned from a very busy year to update us on the progress his company Jamal London Fragrances is making in developing a bespoke range of high end natural and ethically sourced fragrances.
After a delicious buffet lunch, Denise Cowling, an auctioneer with Gilding’s of Market Harborough (Leicestershire) gave us the inside story about how auctions operate and also about Gilding’s involvement in various TV shows.
Janet Ziffer, currently IPBA membership secretary, reprised her well received presentation that she and Jill Berg prepared for the Princeton convention. The presentation highlighted a wide range of memorabilia commemorating the British monarchy from Queen Victoria including perfume bottles, compacts and ephemera. Janet was quite worried about “coals to Newcastle” - an American talking about our Royal family - but everyone was interested and most learnt something/a lot about the Royals!
Finally, Monica Magnani presented a fascinating slideshow “Scent Bottles World Tour” that features many bottles intended as souvenirs for travellers. The “Grand Tour” from Victorian times was well represented as was German silver overlay bottles and Venetian Murano Glass. There were souvenirs and keepsakes from many countries and also those that celebrated particular events.
In the evening we had the traditional hot fork buffet which was of the usual high standard and this was followed by the mini-auction that Chris Hipkiss ran with his usual mix of bad jokes and cajoling. This time though he had an extra, professional, helper - Denise Cowling stayed with us to assist and encourage.
Financially the auction was a great success thanks to a few very generous contributions: the IPBA had sent several sets of an Estee Lauder gift set “Modern Muse” eau de parfum and amongst other items that Phyllis donated was a Bond No 9 bottle signed by Laurice Rahmé, President of No 9 New York Fragrances and a Tom Ford miniature set.
On Sunday the large Leicestershire Suite became a sale room with eight dealers offering all kinds of perfume collectables.
The drawing of the very large raffle filled much of the afternoon before the convention ended. A few members stayed on Sunday night as well and we enjoyed a meal in the oldest house in Leicester the Wygston’s House restaurant just across the square from the hotel.
The committee would like to thank all the people who supported the convention in all sorts of ways: by donating items to the goody bags, raffle and auction, helping with setting up and clearing down or simply by just turning up!
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