In Store

This year, Deborah Mallory closed her twelve-year-old antique shop on Bellevue’s Old Main Street — to reopen it at a new, more affordable location off Highway 405 — but she swears the shop, called the Sophisticated Swine, is the same “feel-good” kind of place.

Photos by Greg Plumis

A native of Birmingham, Alabama, Mallory grew up shadowing her mother, a silver dealer, on her visits to antique stores. Now silver is her passion — one of her prized possessions is an eighteenth-century silver Sheffield plate.

Silver is a focus at the Sophisticated Swine, too. While she carries all manner of antique furniture, rugs, collectible books, artwork and even clocks, Mallory reserves a special enthusiasm for all things involved in table settings. She even lectures on the topic (see her Web site for details). When I visit, she shows me six matching silver caviar paddles, printed with an “Elaine” pattern — a hot find for her.

“I love setting a fun, outlandish table,” she says in her Southern accent. Themed tables are the focal piece of the Swine’s modest showroom. “I believe in sitting down at the dinner table for a family meal,” Mallory explains. “And using the best you’ve got: it could be paper plates, or right now it could be tin plates — for a recession — or it could be your grandmother’s porcelain. Get it out and use it. It doesn’t do any good sitting in a cabinet. What you eat on helps create those family traditions.”

And what is the origin of the shop’s sassy name? Years ago, Mallory’s son gave her a giant piggy bank as a Mother’s Day present. The pig wore slouchy overalls, and the family joke about this “sophisticated swine” slowly evolved until he became an heirloom and, now, store mascot. The pig is banged up and missing his keister cork, which was lost when the kids cashed out all their silver dollars for ice cream. But he still greets you at the shop door, seeming almost to tip his hat.

The Sophisticated Swine Antiques & Collectibles:

11639 NE 8th Street, Bellevue, WA 98004
sophisticatedswine.com, 425.452.9300
Tuesday – Saturday: 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.