Is there anything better than the thrill of the hunt? Perhaps only a hunt that takes you to a beloved destination like Mexico. Here, meet the collectors training their passions on increasingly rare Mexican fashion, antiques, and silver. Each collection is a tribute to the skill and artistry of Mexican craftspeople whose work spans both contemporary times and bygone eras. Let the beauty of these objects spark your next collection journey!
The Caftan Hunter
Surreal might best describe Marjorie Skouras, a fourth-generation Californian and home furnishings designer, who lives like a modern Isak Dinesen in the Mexican Yucatán. When she and Bruno Bardavid bought their first house in Mérida, Skouras began exploring vintage Mexican dresses. It wasn’t her first foray. “As a teenager in 1970s Los Angeles, the coolest outfit to wear to a dance was an embroidered Oaxacan dress with ribbons in your hair and Top-Siders,” Skouras says.
Late-night eBay searches led to “a beautiful black Victor Camarena caftan appliquéd with blown-up poppies in great colors,” she says, noting that his Bazaar D’Mama Carlota Sunburst caftan is “the holy grail dress for collectors.” Other favorite designers include Josefa Ibarra and Roberta Vercellino y Luis. “My focus is on resort wear they designed from 1961 to 1980 for tourists in places like Acapulco, Puerto Vallarta, and Mazatlán. I’m interested in how they reflect the culture, art, and politics of that time.”
Skouras and Bardavid are making their mark on Mexican culture through the Kookix Music School, which they founded and partially fund through the buying and selling of her vintage resort collection. “The labels themselves are works of art,” she notes. “They tell you how a piece has been cared for, its voyage. They tell the story of the dress.”
The Antiques Connoisseurs
Cris Briger (far left) with sons Augie Briger (center) and Charles Peed with a rare Mexican Chippendale console, one of only three they’ve found.
Museo Franz Mayer in Mexico City has a substantial collection of Latin American decorative arts and fine handicrafts. It’s also such a rich source of inspiration for Cris Briger and sons Charles Peed and Augie Briger that they all talk at once—finishing one another’s sentences—when describing their favorite parts of the museum.
For the owners of Casa Gusto in West Palm Beach, home is in San Miguel de Allende. In both places, Mexican antiques from the Viceroyal period of New Spain to the Porfiriato in the late 19th century remain as part of their family collection (in other words, not for sale).
Among them, Mexican Chippendale furniture: “Copies of [Thomas] Chippendale’s mid-18th-century book traveled the world, so Mexican craftsmen were able to reproduce in tropical woods their own versions with naive, exaggerated profiles,” Augie explains. “They’re hard to find,” Cris adds. “The book Casta Painting: Images of Race in Eighteenth-Century Mexico,” Augie notes, “is a great source for learning about Mexican antiques.”
A Porfiriato ropero (wardrobe).
“Our next binge,” Cris says, “is colonial religious decorative art.” Escudos de monjas, or nun’s badges, particularly excite Augie. “When a woman entered a convent, her family commissioned a badge that she would wear to seal her marriage to Christ,” he explains.
These large discs of painted or embroidered imagery were worn as pendant necklaces. “There is sometimes a narrow perception of Mexican design,” Cris says, adding that the “quirkiness of design and unique stories” bring something extraordinary to the global aesthetic.
The Silver Miner
Collector Jenne Maag.
With the languid style of a silent film star, Fort Worth, Texas-born Jenne Maag lives in Mérida in a grand Spanish-style house iced like a cake in French neoclassical details. It’s there that the former New York fashion designer (best known for the two-way stretch pants she developed in the 1980s) has amassed an astonishing collection of Mexican silver jewelry.
A selection of very old unmarked Mexican cuffs, bracelets, and a necklace with designer pieces by Antonio Pineda (center right), Fred Davis (lower right), and Los Castillo taller (upper left).
While Mesoamerican gold and the legend of El Dorado lured Spanish conquistadores deep into the New World, it was silver bullion that filled the treasure chests of the Hapsburg dynasty. “It wasn’t until the 1920s in Taxco that American William Spratling really began the craft of making jewelry from silver,” Maag says. “But his designs are too masculine for me. I look for pieces from the 1930s through the ’50s,” she adds, citing designers like Antonio Pineda, who was prolific and known for his luxuriously articulated bracelets (he was featured in Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar); Matl, or Matilde Poulat, whose exuberant necklaces are rich in symbolism and might be the most sought-after in the U.S.; and Fred Davis, who was inspired by pre-Columbian decorative motifs.
Maag estimates she’s amassed more than 500 pieces. “This includes around 20 matching pairs of cuffs that I bought individually and put together,” she adds. “It’s how I like to wear them.”
Featured in the July/August 2024 issue of VERANDA. Produced by Rachael Burrow.