April 6th, 2010
Fifteen or so years ago, Mickey Boardman, the Creative Director of Paper magazine and a fashion front-row fixture who favors lime green Lacoste polo shirts topped with a bejeweled necklace and a glitter cardigan, fell in love with a woman. She was Queen Marie of Romania, and Boardman became besotted when he read her biography, The Last Romantic, by Hanna Pekula.
And thus began a sprawling collection of royalty books and memorabilia.
Fifteen or so years ago, Mickey Boardman, the Creative Director of Paper magazine and a fashion front-row fixture who favors lime green Lacoste polo shirts topped with a bejeweled necklace and a glitter cardigan, fell in love with a woman. She was Queen Marie of Romania, and Boardman became besotted when he read her biography, The Last Romantic, by Hanna Pekula. And thus began a sprawling collection of royalty books and memorabilia.
“I just thought her life was so amazing!” explains Boardman (who is perhaps better known by the moniker Mr. Mickey), as we sit chatting in his downtown Manhattan apartment, which has avocado abstract printed wall paper, orange polka-dot curtains, floor-to-ceiling Ikea bookshelves to hold royalty books, and a glass-fronted Heywood Wakefield cabinet in the kitchen for treasures like a King George VI biscuit tin.
“I just fell in love with Marie; she was so pretty and happy and upbeat! She was so famous, she’s even mentioned in Auntie Mame.”
“Hey Mickey!” I wonder. “Isn’t this the same Marie that Dorothy Parker immortalized with the lines ‘And love is a thing that can never go wrong, and I am Marie of Romania?’”
“Yes, Baby Lynnie, that’s her!”
OK, full disclosure: Boardman is one of my closest friends, even though, when it comes to monarchies, my sympathies are firmly on the side of the revolutionaries who bounced most of these nudniks out on their crowned heads. But enough about me. Why does Mr. Mickey love these sycophants and worthless creeps, anyway? (Ok, I don’t say this out loud; as I said, he’s a dear friend.) But I do ask him what exactly makes him spend his free time scouring palace gift shops and royalty websites for out-of-print books and commemorative dishware?
“I love history. I love people who are glamorous, fabulous and well dressed! Pioneers and leaders in their fields!” he replies, describing an infatuation that over the last decade and a half has resulted not only in an accumulation of tomes and trinkets, but also in real-life adventures like the Nicolas and Alexandra tour of St Petersburg organized by the Imperial Russian Historical Society.
Boardman’s royalty collection
But it all started with the books. “I was at the Strand every weekend,” Boardman says of the sprawling New York bookstore that specializes in rare and out-of-print books. “The people that work there don’t know what they have; it made me crazy.” Even so, if you go all the time, miracles can happen. One day, high on a shelf accessible only by a library ladder, Boardman spied volume one of Marie’s Story of My Life, which he had been searching for, for like, forever. “It was like a light from heaven!” he recalls.
Alas, other coveted volumes have remained elusive. Case in point: A Romanoff Diary by Grand Duchess Maria Georgievna. “Her heirs won’t let it be reprinted,” he says sadly. Once it was tantalizing within reach—for sale on eBay and languishing in the under $25 category. Mr. Mickey, feeling cocky, left a bid of $120 and took a shower. When he emerged, the auction was over and he was outbid at $123. “I curse hygiene to this day.”
Boardman’s collection has since expanded from books to plates, paintings, porcelain and even paperweights. The first non-book royalty item Boardman remembers purchasing was from the long-vanished flea market on Grand Street in Soho. “I found a dish commemorating Queen Elizabeth’s 1958 visit to America,” he says.
Another favorite item, a special 300-page issue of the Spanish magazine Hola celebrating the 25th anniversary of King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia that Boardman bought in Madrid, has been lost in the shuffle of his hectic life. He’s searching for a replacement copy on eBay, and he’s gone so far as to contact the people at Hola. But so far, do dice. Still, he can content himself with his Crown Princess Martha of Norway plate found at a flea in Copenhagen and his Queen Juliana and Prince Bernard of the Netherlands beaker that turned up at Toronto antiques fair.
“This is the kind of bust I love,” Boardman tells me, gently fondling a statue of the head of the emperor Frederick III of Germany. “He only ruled 99 days; he had throat cancer. He was for total democracy. The trouble with a lot of royalty re-creations is, a lot of the busts are not so hot; they’re just made of resin.” He disappears into the bedroom, then trots back with another head in his hands. “This is Augustus the Strong of Saxony, and it’s Meissen porcelain. I bought it in Dresden. I had to pay like over $100 for it.”
But Boardman doesn’t bathe all his royal subjects in unqualified adulation. Though he loves his Victor Emmanuel III wall hanging, he is forced to admit that, “actually he was kind of an a-hole, he collaborated with Mussolini.” Are the dicey politics of the former King of Italy the reason that this item now decorates a spot directly behind Mr. Mickey’s commode? “Oh no! Actually, I think it adds a little dash of pageantry to the bathroom.”
Shop eBay Like Mickey Boardman
1. Volume Two of Mr. Mickey’s Favorite Book
The Story Of My Life -V. 2 Queen Of Roumania Marie (buy it now price, $25.39)
2. Russian Dressing
Russian Print Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna Romanov Tsar (buy it now price, $24.99)
3. Dish Network
Prince of Wales Edward VIII 1930s Naval Dish (starting bid, $1.50)
4. Mugging for the Cameras
Paragon Bone China Souvenir Mug of Prince Charles Boy (starting bid, $4)
5. Going For the Bronze
Spain Royalty King Juan Carlos I Bronze Medal 1975 (buy it now price, $30)
**Images provided by Boardman**
Lynn Yaeger is a fashion writer who contributes frequently to Vogue, Travel & Leisure, the Sundance Full Frontal Fashion site and the New York Times T magazine. She lives in an unrenovated circa 1925 apartment in downtown Manhattan, a space that she shares with far to many vintage reindeer sweaters, 1920s coats, and well loved dolls that last saw action in the First World War.
Related posts:
Posted in eBay Insider