Avon LIFE - October 3, 2004
by Kelly Callaghan
Five years and a new venture. Petite Boutique
offers fine soaps and perfumes, and now vintage
bead and crystal jewelry
Petite Boutique may be small, but the one-room store at the rear of Old Avon
Village packs a punch - step out of a car or walk on over and the
invigorating mixture of herbal and soapy scents descends upon all who hover
just outside the store.
Surrounded by colorful, late summer perennials, a wooden bench and window
box filled with silk flowers of the season, Petite Boutique at 17A East Main
Street recently celebrated its fifth anniversary of providing locals with
the finest in European soaps and perfumes.
Still looking to continue providing such hard-to-find
perfume lines from the French Riviera that make
you think of summer vacation and exotic fruit, Susan
Arren Greenwood has drawn upon her years of experience
as a cosmetologist and previous work with Baggish
Apothecary to make the store a diamond in the rough
- off the beaten path next to the Patchwork Cottage.
But it's Ms Greenwood's love of vintage beads and crystal that is helping
her establish a new niche in the Farmington Valley, this one as a jewelry
maker.
Her trek into the colorful and vintage world of
crystals and beads began about 10 years ago. Realizing
that she was interested in making a necklace, she
threw in a few bucks for the supplies and a day
later, Ms Greenwood ended up making a $150.00 profit
for a crystal necklace. Her growing success as a
jewelry maker has people across the valley recognizing
her creations on the necks, ears and wrists of other
shoppers. And due to the popularity of her creations,
Ms Greenwood is in the planning stages of possibly
opening up another store, this one on Martha's Vineyard.
Up and coming crystal
Enter the store and the wall-length mirror reflects
all who enter, in between the glass shelves lined
with soaps, perfumes, lotions and more. Dried flower
arrangements decorate the gaps and spaces, as does
bagged potpourri, gift bags from various perfume
designers and baskets filled with small designer
soaps.
"The smell... it gets in your hair," joked Ms
Greenwood, who has been the retail business since
age 16.
Early on in her career, the West Hartford resident
managed the cosmetics department at Suburban Pharmacy
in Bishops Corner in West Hartford. Following that,
Ms Greenwood worked as a buyer and cosmetic manager
in Baggish Apothecary in West Hartford. Her son
was young and ready for daycare and conveniently
enough for the young mother, her job was right next
store.
Ms Greenwood learned quickly what her patrons liked best in terms of upscale
soaps and perfumes at both Baggish and Suburban, and those details have
stayed with her.
Her store stocks hard-to-find items and Ms Greenwood is even working with
the fragrance designer Antonia's Flowers to add another line.
Her store offers such popular perfume and soap lines as Pacifique, Cote
Bastide, French-milled soap from Molten Brew in London, as well as seven
shelves of Gianna Rose Atelier.
"I buy what I love," she said.
But most prominently displayed throughout Petite
Boutique are her creations done in vintage crystal
and beads. Necklaces, bracelets and earrings are
carefully displayed to showoff the craftsmanship
of Ms Greenwood, and the creations whose colors
will change with the seasons, she said.
Ten years ago while still working at Baggis Apothecary,
Ms Greenwood set her sights on vintage crystal and
beads. She made her first necklace one night and
sold it the next day and from then on, she was hooked.
Now, Ms Greenwood is a vintage crystal and bead
junkie - she's got to find it and have , no matter
the cost to this collector and artist.
Vintage crystal was made popular before World War II. Both vintage crystal
and beads were manufactured during the 1930's and '40's all over the world
in countries like Germany, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Austria and Japan.
According to Ms Greenwood, crystal and bead manufacturers
stopped their production during WWII to devote their
factories to the war effort, forcing designers to
stop their creations and letting crystal and bead
collections stay put in warehouses, basements, and
attics around the globe. Hence, much of the vintage
crystal and bead collections are beginning to spring
up and this has spurred a craze for the tiny and
colorful baubles.
Many of the bead collections that are being uncovered - like in Germany -
are so heavy, they can't be flown, she added. Collector site on the Internet
are fast becoming popular for those looking for certain beads or crystals.
One collector living in Los Angeles recently paid by the pound for vintage
beads and crystals, topping out at the $25,000 mark, Ms Greenwood said.
Ms Greenwood told a story of a woman she had heard
of living in the Litchfield Hills who had stockpiled
a vast collection of vintage beads in the basement
of her 1800s farmhouse. Eventually, Ms Greenwood
got an appointment and the shock of her life.
"I almost died," she said, when recalling the look of the basement. The
woman's whole basement was lined with wooden shelves and boxes filled with
the vintage beads. Three station wagon-loads and nine hours later, Ms
Greenwood was well on her way. "I drove away with my stash of beads, " she
said.
Different creations
Wearing a variety of crystal necklaces around her neck is the like " a
chandelier on your neck," Ms Greenwood said. She herself was wearing a
spectacular necklace of Peruvian opals. The beads and crystals are made from
glass; each piece comes with a small hole already drilled in. The shapes of
each are unique, and the term vintage means that the bead of crystal
