“Collectors are fun people, so I love the fellowship of the show,” adds Babey, a founding principal of top design firm BAMO, located in the City. “We share great passions, new ideas, rare finds and expertise. Beauty is so inspiring.”
The annual San Francisco Fall Show opens October 15 at Fort Mason Center’s Festival Pavilion in celebration of international design, horology, fine art, antiques and books. Aficionados have long been counting the days until the Opening Night Gala the evening prior, when tastemakers, specialist dealers, international exhibitors, art lovers and antiques collectors seek objects of delight — and begin perusing potential acquisitions.
“The Fall Show is my favorite San Francisco antiques and art event,” says designer Paul Wiseman from his Potrero Hill studio. “I was invited to the first show in 1982, to help antique dealer friends from San Francisco and New York set up their booths. Attending each year, I have enjoyed lifelong friendships and met all the top dealers, like Carlton Hobbs [LLC] of London, who became my idols and my inspiration. Bernard Steinitz and his son Benjamin, from Paris, became mentors. This fair has always been thrilling.”
Designer Pamela Babey, who also attended that first show in 1982, then called the San Francisco Fall Antiques Show but in its place at Festival Pavilion, notes that the Fall Show is the oldest continually operating art and antiques fair on the West Coast. “Antique and art dealers from around the world save their best pieces to show in San Francisco,” she says. This year, she is on the hunt for rare Venetian glass.
The 2026 theme, Métallique Chic!, offers a glittering showcase for master gilder and frame maker Peter Werkhoven of Aedicule. His San Francisco studio and gallery will display handcrafted gilded mirrors and frames, alongside gold-thread and metallic-embroidered pillows in the Ottoman Empire style from B. Viz Design of New Orleans.
Under the creative direction of Show Chair Suzanne Tucker, the show gathers a wide range of specialists: European furniture and decorative objects by London-based dealer Charles Plante; cutting-edge curation of 20th- and 21st-century art by San Francisco’s Berggruen Gallery; and an evocative mix of fine antiques, country furniture and singular objects by Yew Tree House Antiques in Connecticut.
The show, a nonprofit, is a fundraiser for the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and groups that advance knowledge of the decorative arts and craftsmanship.
Tucker also calls attention to the fine art and antiques of New Orleans dealer M.S. Rau, the curated offerings of Palm Desert’s Maison Felice, along with antique French silver from Silver Art by D&R, rare luxury objets from San Francisco’s Spiral Haus and the bold, brutalist handmade tables of Florian Roeper, of Studio Roeper in Napa Valley.
“Their depth of knowledge and expertise is part of the treasure of the show,” says Tucker. “A simple question can lead to fascinating insights. Look carefully at scale, condition, provenance and craftsmanship, but listen to your instincts, your heart. There is something very satisfying about saying, years later, ‘I couldn’t resist that at the Fall Show.’”
Among the popular dealers and designers returning this year is Philip Stites, a Los Angeles dealer known for his fascinating eye and his love of petite treasures. Art dealer Martin Muller shows contemporary art via his San Francisco gallery, Modernism, but also avidly collects French Empire furniture, designs by Eileen Gray and Le Corbusier and Venetian silver-leaf furniture.
This year’s honorary cochairs are Stellene Volandes, editor in chief of Town & Country magazine, and the City’s own Zac Posen, creative director of Gap Inc. Both will join the lecture series, a lively lineup of designers and style authorities in art, antiques, design and architecture, including interior designers Ken Fulk, Charlotte Moss, Jay Jeffers, Cathy Kincaid, Young Huh, Anu Jain, Nathan Turner and Rush Jenkins, architect Richard Beard and jewelry designer Mish Tworkowski.
Antique vignettes featuring Schumacher fabrics and wallpapers welcome guests at the Grand Entry Hall, designed by Christine and John Gachot of Gachot, New York; Christopher Roy of Christopher Roy & Co., Sausalito and Charleston, South Carolina; Elizabeth Lawrence of Williams Lawrence with architect Scott J. Sottile of Ferguson & Shamamian Architects, both of New York; and Meg Braff of Meg Braff Designs of Palm Beach, Florida, and Locust Valley, New York.
This year, the admired London-based hand-painted wallpaper house and longtime show sponsor de Gournay will design the Authors’ Alcove, the setting for panelists’ book signings, with a graphic, hand-painted metallic wall treatment. Noted bookseller George Kiskaddon of Builders Booksource in Berkeley directs the book gallery.
