Lacy Gallery / Pippa Small

When Colin Lacy arrived in London in 1960 with barely a few pennies, he started hawking antique frames from a Goldbourne Road market stall. Six decades later, his son David presides over one of the world’s largest collections of antique frames – roughly 1,000 at any given time – supplying everyone from artists, museums, dealers and collectors to movie sets. Moving to a whole stall on Portobello Road, and in the late 60s, they started sharing a shop. In 1974 they took out a 21-year lease on a shop in Ledbury Road. Until they eventually bought the current shop on Westbourne Grove 33 years ago.

Hundreds of antique, period frames spread out across 3 floors and a basement – carved gilded baroque, early Italian and Spanish pieces, 20th century works by Bouche, a maker who made frames for Picasso in post-war Paris. Stock is sourced from all over the UK, Europe and America, and frames have been hired out for fashion shoots and shows, also used as props in adverts and in many films. Sometimes the frame costs more than what it holds – a 1995 carved Paris School frame from Lacy sold for £420, backing and all.

Next door at 201 Westbourne Grove, ethical jeweler Pippa Small works with artisans from Afghanistan to Colombia, supporting hand panning gold in Colombia, to community efforts with Turquoise Mountain in Afghanistan, Myanmar and The Levant. Pippa was excited to start working with them in 2008 when she went to Kabul for the first time, helping design, market and sell pieces so artisans can earn a living on the way to self-sufficiency. Two shops, side by side: one preserving centuries-old frames that once held masterworks, the other creating new heirlooms from conflict zones – both dealing in borders, both trading in what surrounds the precious thing.