SNAKE Q&A 001: SUPER SATURDAY (SALLY SIMMS)
Super Saturday on Frank O'Hara, Jayne interiors, Monte Vision, Fumio Yoshimura, Gaetano Pesce and more
New feature here at Snake. Every other Friday or so an interview with a person in good standing of the newsletter whose taste in vintage, furniture and adjacent fields is worth celebrating and learning from. Expect sellers, buyers, set designers, artists, adjacents, set designers, etc…
Here’s the first…
Sally Simms, Super Saturday / Instagram / Charleston, S.C. / Dealer of things that make people go “wow, great place.”
Sally deals next level furniture and design items as Super Saturday which is based in Charleston. She ships. The store opens in May.
SNAKE Q&A 001
Fav flea market?
I’m so far bereft of furniture fleas in Charleston. Carolinians, please help. Good tshirts though at 84flea here.
Best flea market day ever—what did you get?
Lil baby 19 year old me went to Portobello Road Market for the first time and bought a lavender scarf that I still have that still smells like market spices same as it did that day. Pure nostalgia answer - it’s just a scarf. It was a formative time.
Best eBay purchase?
An early edition of Lunch Poems by Frank O’Hara, which contains my favorite poem The Day Lady Died (it’s about Billie Holiday), for friends with two kids named Billie and Frank. It was a hundred dollars in 2008 but it was a really important gift to me so I shelled out.
Best Craigslist find?
My old roommate William Cullum, who does interiors with Thomas Jayne. He said he responded to my ad because of the furniture (flattery). He made his room incredible. He hung dropcloth that he painted with rough black stripes over two antique spears over the bed. The first week he moved in, he called me one night after work, it was raining, and was like, “- please don’t think I’m crazy but can you meet me at this intersection to carry a heavy table home from the trash” - babe yes, this is quotidian. It was a Grosfeld House shell console table. I got a lot of beautiful furniture off the street in New York.
Best LiveAuctioneers find?
It tends to be enormous sculptures several states away for me. I bought a sculpture of a towel rack from the estate of a North Carolina gallerist. The rack is steel and concrete, and the towels look real but they’re marble hanging over the steel. That one was a whopper to move. I have a big curvy 12’ clam rake sculpture I shipped from Pennsylvania. The shippers always comment. When a guy says “you got cool stuff in here”, I work with them again.
IG seller account you hang out on/look at their stuff the most?
Monte Visión brings me joy. She’s got perspective - it’s personal, it keeps surprising you. I love when a dealer’s curation is a window into their head. I like to know how she’s doing and see the world she’s building.
Thing you most regret passing on?
I really, really try never to think about this and I mostly succeed. But easily a wall-hanging life-size sculpture of a trench coat and umbrella carved in wood.
Best thing you got for insanely cheap?
Cheap is really in the eye of the beholder, especially when you buy unattributed works. I buy a lot of things some people would argue there’s no price cheap enough for, and other people consider priceless. That is the idea. But still, easily - I bought a sculpture by Fumio Yoshimura of a life-size granny cart full of groceries with an umbrella hanging off the handle, all carved so delicately in wood. It belongs in a museum. I think all the other buyers must have slept in that day or something. All the groceries come out individually from a (wood) paper bag inside the cart, even way down at the bottom - artichokes, bologna, milk. Sometimes I think about it and tear up. I can’t believe a person can buy something like that to just own. I can’t imagine how long it took to make. I could never make something so wonderful. I plan to display it in my store in Charleston. (starting at the May launch party).
Best thing you overpaid for?
I paid out the nose to ship a Carlo Nason chandelier from Italy during the pandemic at peak shipping container pricing while I was renovating. We cut line items like HVAC work to choose that. It makes the whole house fine and weird and I love it every time I see it.
Favorite piece of furniture you own?
Lord. Okay I love all my children, and please don’t tell the others but I’m sure it’s a wood inlaid demilune of unknown origin that lives in my dining room (near the Nason light). It has urns, bells, flowers, hunt symbols, zigzags - the whole effect is a high/low marriage of the very, very primitive (sort of prehistoric) and extremely refined. When I originally bought it I kept records in it, which felt right.
What’s one thing you own that you won’t ever sell?
Hmm. Sometimes I list things to sell and then my husband finds out and blocks it, because like half my house is inventory and exactly which half is really anyone’s guess. “Never” feels like a stretch for anything at this point. But I have commissioned a few pieces of art from my friend Joe Frontel and he actually tried to buy one of the originals back one time and I wouldn’t do it.
Piece you have now that you despise and want to replace?
I rotated inventory in my whole house last week so I’m in the honeymoon period, but generally I have an instinct to eject a piece from my heart if I find out it’s too valuable. This tends to happen with furniture by notable designers. I get nervous sitting on it. I have some gorgeous super worn-in Percival Lafer chairs that make me nervous right now. They’re too good. I’ll have to sell them and get something nobody wants but me.
Who do you think sold more records: Nelly Furtado or Three 6 Mafia?
Didn’t Three 6 Mafia win an Oscar?
Secret spot that you love but won’t tell anyone about (please describe as judiciously as possible while omitting any identifiable characteristics)?
I’ve been going to the same thrift a few times a year since I was in college. It usually takes about five hours to go through, a sacred time I anticipate for weeks in advance. It’s in an area with more traditional boomer households than cool kids. They’re giving away things like silver-plate Revere bowls and 90s dresses from Neiman Marcus, and purging their 30-something kids’ old bedroom accessories. I just love surprises.
Rarest/most canon vintage thing you have but never wear?
My mom gave me this amazing red plissé set she got for her honeymoon with my dad, but wearing it doesn’t seem quite right and neither does giving it away. Everything else good that I don’t wear goes to Beacon’s Closet regularly.
Most jealousy-inducing thing you’ve seen?
Monté Vision found two Gaetano Pesce rag lamps in the wild during COVID. Imagine.
Favorite Russian novelist?
Anna Karenina sat on my nightstand, electively, for two years of college while I struggled through novels in French for my classes. I finished its great heft after graduation and resolved not to worry much about Russian lit after that.
Is there a field of collecting are you looking to get into in the near future? (Furniture era/paper/autographs/stamps/model trains/computer shirts/90s Harley shirts/digital watches/lighters/slot cars/faberge eggs/Amish quilts etc)
Chinese porcelain with relief decorations has been after me for a while. It’s a matter of time.
What’s the item that’s been on your watchlist the longest without you having pulled the trigger? (you can sort by age in the app)
Late 1800s end of day spatter glass vases and fairy lamps.
Is the best vintage/furniture online or in the wild?
In the wild, but online is better quality-to-effort ratio.
Has all the cool shit been discovered? (Yes or no answer only)
Nope.
Any vintage accounts you want to rep or boost? Furniture? (feel free to include local spots)
Sibling tailors and mixes vintage men’s shirts in the best styles.
Sharktooth is a calming presence in the feed with the best textiles.
Follow Sally and Super Saturday on Instagram
Shop at Super Saturday
Awwww Sally! What a beautiful lil surprise to wake up to this cute mention. THANKS! ur one of my favs too ❤️