James Valentine, an antiques shop owner in Toledo, wasn't too concerned about the news.

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After retiring from showbusiness in 1987 he opened and ran an antiques shop in Chipping Norton for ten years.

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Mrs Middleton, whose husband Douglas died in the 1950s, was well known in the Porthcawl area, having run a sweet shop and antiques shop and, later, a school of motoring.

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To frame the collection, Louboutin has placed searchlights from the Suez Canal (picked up in Cairo and at the Paris flea markets), Syrian columns purchased at auction, two Aztec-like totem poles from Mexico City and a pair of Indian rococo columns found in a Paris antiques shop.

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He may have been an outsider, but he continued to be invited in, receiving further education in the WASP aesthetic during a summer spent mostly at East Hampton's Maidstone Club with the family of his Yale buddy, Angus Wilkie, co-owner of the Manhattan antiques shop Cove Landing.

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The Flamant brothers, sons of an antiques dealer, opened their first shop in Antwerp 30 years ago, bringing well-made, well-priced, modern interpretations of antique pieces to the bourgeoisie.

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Alastair McKenzie, who works at Anthony Outred Antiques, said he was in their shop next door and heard the first explosion, minutes before seeing the fireball emerge from the pavement.

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"When I first opened my shop in the '80s, people were outraged by mixing antiques with modern pieces, " she explained.

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