Editor’s Note : This Page Was Updated On 31-Oct-2022 to add information about Jill Tavelman’s store.
The mother of singer-actress Lily Collins (with her ex-husband, Phil Collins) looks remarkably like her 30-year-old daughter, and her sense of humour is visible in the furnishings. A quirky porcelain baby doll transformed into a jewellery holder by an artist friend from England is sitting on Tavelman Collins’ desk. She laughs and explains, “That’s become a mascot of the store; it sort of looks over everything.”
Three natural mother-daughter photographs with the pair grinning are displayed on an adjacent wall. As Fantine in the BBC adaptation of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, as Ted Bundy’s girlfriend in Joe Berlinger’s Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, and as Edith Bratt, J.R.R. Tolkien’s love interest in Dome Karukoski’s Tolkien, the younger Collins has had a career that is just getting started.
What does Jill Tavelman Collins Do?
Jill Tavelman Collins is seated in her five-cent psychiatric chair inside the West Hollywood antique shop Waverly on Doheny, next to the Troubadour theatre, and is positioned next to a framed picture of the Lucy van Pelt from the Peanuts comic strip.
Tavelman Collins tells The Hollywood Reporter that she has always collected items and has dug into trash to retrieve her parents’ discards. She continues: “I just didn’t grasp the concept of tossing things away. I’ve always paired recipients with presents that are very emotive or appropriate for them. And all of a sudden, my daughter had grown up and was following her path, leaving me with a lot of free time. I have been involved with several charitable endeavours for around 20 years. It’s time to do something for myself that I’m good at, I thought.
The 2014-opened antique store is full of items that the former teacher-turned-business owner refers to on her Instagram feed as “resurrected oddities”—items that the ordinary buyer might not typically opt for at an estate sale or flea market. They include books on good manners from the 1800s that include handwritten comments from previous owners and an antique stereoscope that makes images of a lavish rococo dining hall appear to be in three dimensions.
BEVERLY HILLS, CA – JANUARY 08: Actress Lily Collins (R) and her mom Jill Tavelman attend the 74th Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 8, 2017 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Moet & Chandon )
The antique enthusiast is still plagued by an estate sale incident that highlights the general disrespect for sentimental value: “People prefer to grab the silver and the china, the items that plainly are worth something, right? Therefore, these individuals were perusing the owners’ love notes to one another while seated on the floor of the residence, clipping the stamps off the envelopes and discarding the letters. They weren’t interested in the love letters, which I thought was the saddest thing I had ever witnessed because no one wanted them and the importance of the stamp to them overrode everything else. Can I have the letters, I asked.
In addition to discreetly placing unwanted family heirlooms in her daughter’s apartment, Tavelman Collins also sells them there: “I start putting stuff in to see if she notices. When she leaves town, I’ll ask, “Did you notice anything different? ”
The resourceful mother has also located personalised presents that are “suited to the period of film” and, of course, to the recipient for the directors, producers, and costume designers on her daughter’s movies. She linked a Hollywood producer with an antique camera that contained Amelia Earhart video captured on it by one of the pioneering pilot’s travelling companions.
Most consumers prefer items with a narrative, she claims. It must touch someone’s heart, she said. People no longer listen to one another in this day and age. So if your buddy or spouse mentions a book they had as children that their parents may have donated or given away, pay attention to them. possibly something they wished they had. It might be a minor thing. However, when you locate that item and present it to them, they exclaim, “Oh my God, you actually paid attention to me? Did you hear what I said?
Tavelman Collins has a history of donning vintage clothing, and when she and her ex-husband travelled the world in the 1980s, she frequently reached for her mother’s old outfits. She recalls that her mother used to dance with Don Loper, the actor-dancer who also worked as a costume designer and interior decorator and designed The Beverly Hills Hotel’s renowned Martinique banana leaf wallpaper. “I distinctly recall someone enquiring, “What are you wearing?” And they would look away if you uttered “vintage.” She specifically mentions the singer’s country of origin, England, saying that “it just wasn’t the thing.” I had a slight advantage over everything.
