This was once the hands-down swellest event of its kind in the New York season, but it has competition now. Lots. The Seventh Regiment Armory has functioned as a glorified loading dock for all kinds of shows, coming and going, with specialty items like the International Asian Art Fair and the Tribal and Textile Arts Show generating serious incandescence.

Actually, one thing that keeps the Winter Antiques Show distinctive is variety. While it tilts heavily in an 18th- and 19th-century Euro-American direction, there's a little something for everyone. Asian art? Got it. African? Check. Italian Renaissance? Ma, certo. You're in the mood for a Egyptian faience pectoral of the winged goddess Isis, circa 1069-715 B.C.? Step right this way. Rupert Wace Ancient Art from London awaits you.

Indeed, you'll bump into several goddesses as you hike the miles of aisles. One is the never-ever-antique Audrey Hepburn, seen in a signed photograph at Kenneth W. Rendell, purveyor of "historical letters, manuscripts and documents," where she shares space with Josephine Baker, Susan B. Anthony and Marie Antoinette.

And the Winter Antiques Show - often called the East Side show for the charity it benefits, the East Side House Settlement in the South Bronx - looks different from other armory shows. In fact, it set the model for most of them, and then brashly pumped that model up.

Other fairs have booths; this one has architectural structures and furnished interiors: shops, parlors, floor-through salons, with nooks and crannies to peer into and corners to peek around. All is tidy and trim. What's clutter in other shows is cluster here. Yes, it can get a bit too ye olde. But life is short; someone had fun; snippiness would be mean.

Besides, the look changes from year to year, adding a crucial element of novelty, even suspense, to the proceedings. The element of surprise helps compensate for a comparative shortage, at least this year, of truly blockbusterish objects. In other words, in place of eight-digit price tags, you get material muchness and a heady atmosphere of edging-over-the-top largess.