A rare opportunity; w antiques.

Byline: Christopher

IT'S A long way from the trendy fashions of the Swinging Sixties, but the pots pictured here owe their existence to a woman who made the quantum leap from designing the Pop Art clothes of Carnaby Street to crafting ceramics adored by today's art pottery collectors.

Sally Tuffin was once one half of the Foale & Tuffin partnership formed with a fellow Royal College of Art fashion design graduate, Marion Foale, and they moved in the same frivolously heady circles as Mary Quant, Zandra Rhodes, Bill Gibb and Ossie Clark.

They had their own boutique in Carnaby Street and their cutting-edge clothes sold in the King's Road and in department stores around the country, and even New York.

In 1972, they went their own ways and Essex-born Sally produced collections under her own name and for a company she founded, selling children's clothes by mail order, called Tuppance.

Sally's leap into the world of ceramic design coincided with her marriage to Richard Dennis, whose Kensington Church Street shop, in London, became a mecca for collectors of art pottery (now run by his son, Buchan).

Richard trained at Sotheby's under legendary ceramics specialist Jim Kiddell and opened the shop selling antique ceramics and glass in 1965.

A series of selling exhibitions were accompanied by detailed catalogues which evolved into books, leading him to establish Richard Dennis Publications, today one of the leading publishers of specialist books on antiques and collecting (many are illustrated by the couple's other son, Magnus, who is a professional photographer).

Richard and Sally's venture into large-scale pottery manufacture came in 1986, when they and their friends, Hugh and Maureen Edwards, formed a rescue plan for the ailing Moorcroft Pottery, in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent.

Moorcroft was founded in 1897 by James Macintyre and William Moorcroft and, on the latter's death in 1945, his elder son, Walter, took over. Sadly, it was hardly ever profitable.

When the Moorcroft family sold their shares, the two couples each took a stake and Sally became responsible for design as Art Director, while Richard founded the Moorcroft Collectors' Club.

During her time there, Sally, who was only the pottery's third designer, introduced the now highly collectable tubelined Cluny pattern and vases featuring her favourite penguins and finches.

The Dennises relinquished their positions at Moorcroft in 1992.

Moorcroft, meanwhile, remains under the control of Hugh and Maureen Edwards, with Rachel Bishop as senior designer.

From 1995-1998, Sally also designed for Poole Pottery.

Her hand-crafted designs for Poole were produced in strictly limited editions sold only through their collectors' club, thus maintaining their exclusivity and desirability.

Although influenced by many sources, Sally's designs reflect her love of the late 19th and early 20th century Arts and Crafts movement. She introduces around 50 designs each year - many are limited editions or special commissions for retailers.

Production methods are traditional. The earthenware pots are thrown and turned on the wheel individually by hand. Decoration is done by incising and slip-trailing the designs, and colour is added using underglazes and natural oxides before the pots are finished with a clear glaze.

Each pot is the work of a single thrower and a single decorator whose respective signature marks join the limited edition number, the company name, and the date the piece was made on the base.

At present, 90% of the pottery's output is retailed by 15 main outlets - specialist galleries, shops and collectors fairs in the UK - and the remainder goes to selected outlets in New Zealand, Holland and the Cayman Islands..

Interestingly, each year Bonhams, the London auctioneers, commission 20 of Sally's pots for a special auction, the one this September celebrating their tenth anniversary.

The auctions are always anticipated eagerly by collectors who vie to secure these vases, each one a unique collaboration between Sally and her team.

The pots usually sell for four figures and mostly well above estimates. Highlight last year was Circus with Clowns Big Top box which sold for pounds 13,200.

In 2007, the Penguin Huddle box, featuring 144 miniature figures of penguins at pounds 21,000, may well have been a world record for a piece of contemporary pottery; while, in 2006, a Butterfly Tree vase sold for pounds 13,585.

A March of the Penguins vase, inspired by the film, sold for pounds 15,720 in 2005 and, in 2001, a Bees vase sold for pounds 13,225.

This year's pots are still being trialled under a cloak of secrecy, but, in an exclusive preview, check out the picture of the Crab plate, which is in this year's sale.

To see examples of Sally's pots first hand, the area has two retailers: John Ainscough, who runs Holden Wood Antiques and is possibly the largest Dennis China Works stockist in the country, in Grane Road, Haslingden, Lancashire, and Helen Kendall of Cameo Antiques in Watergate Street, Chester..

CAPTION(S):

Exclusive: the Crab plate in the September sale of unique Sally Tuffin pots