Origin Story
Charlotte Stokoe has spent the last 40 years surrounded by miniatures. First working in ‘The Dolls House’ in Covent Garden while pursuing careers in dance & film, but finally taking over the ownership of the shop in 1994 becoming ‘The London Dollshouse Company’. Charlotte ran the shop for 9 years, before the increasingly high costs of the Covent Garden location forced her to close down.
At this time, Caroline Hamilton, the founder of the London Dollshouse Festivals (est 1985), was retiring from the organisation of the show, and Charlotte took over her postion at the helm of this institution. The show is still running today with 2 events at Kensington Town Hall & one Online Showcase every year. The shows are known as the place to admire work by the best miniaturists working in the world today.
During lockdown, with the live shows on hold, Charlotte had some time to expand & a great opportunity came her way. Throughout her career, she had been contacted by collectors & the families of collectors who needed to find new homes for their precious dolls houses & miniatures. so, with more time available, when a gentleman contacted her about a huge collection of antique dolls houses & miniatures, she could not resist & Nom de Plume was born.
With her wealth of experience & knowledge about ‘modern’ miniatures (from the 1970’s-present day) she is able to evaluate a collection & find them new homes. The main goal is to find collectors who will love the pieces as much as the original owners & bring the work of the incredible makers from this period into the spotlight.
Nom de Plume will take on whole collections, and every piece will be found a new home, even if damaged. We donate many items to our charity stand at the KDF shows (where we raise money for Unicef) or to the children’s activities which encourage a new generation of miniaturists & collectors of the future.
Do you have a collection to sell?
If you have a collection, great or small, please get in touch. Nothing is too big for us. (Our largest project was clearing the Kristin Baybars shop in 2024 which took a full 5 weeks to complete).
When selling a collection please bear in mind the following points.
Unless you have a very unusual dolls house or room box, most collections will need to be broken up when sold. Collecting dolls houses & miniatures is unusual, as the collectors are putting in a lot of their own imagination into their creations. This is why it is such an incredible hobby. This does mean that most collectors want to create their own vision, so will start a dolls house from scratch & are unlikely to buy a fully decorated & furnished house created by someone else.
Condition is key. As with all collections the better condition the easier it is to find new homes for the items.
Don’t be fooled by price seen online. Some websites list items at incredibly high prices. These are unrealistic.
We love your archives. If your collection comes with catalogues, invoices & books etc, please keep these safe too. We are helping to put together an archive of modern miniaturists so any of these resources are invaluable to us.
What to do next
We would love to hear more about your collection. Please give us information on the collection, the size, the history & where it is located. We would also need to see some photographs of the houses in question & some of the contents so we can help give you advice on the next step.
If you need to speak to us, you can email us or call on 07976 715 679.