Under the Gunson

have a hot tip for you/' confides rare-book dealer Shaun Gunson with mock gravity. "On the runway this fall there'll be an early-30s revival." In a single week, the offices of Calvin Klein, Chanel, and Adrienne Vittadini all phoned the mild-mannered New Zealander requesting research material from that era. Ever since 1987, when his friend Barrett Frelinghuysen encouraged him to launch the business ("I came up with the idea, she came up with the Rolodex"), colossi from the worlds of decorating (Mark Hampton), society (Marella Agnelli), design, and publishing have called upon the 35-year-old polymath to hunt down that elusive picture book—or to assemble entire libraries. (For Christopher Whittle, Gunson pulled together a "tycoon library.") Though his own literary predilections run to "17th-century poetry, Austen, and Dickens," Gunson has managed to plow through "about half" of his 8,000-book inven-

tory, he says. "Knowledge is always good."

—A.F.C.