ARTS Move over fashion editors and agony aunts, it takes an auction house to know What Women Want. That, at least, is the boast of Bonhams, which is organising a sale under that title in its Bond Street rooms on Thursday.
Of course, the idea is not entirely gimmick-free. January is a quiet month in the auction rooms and, with a jazzy marketing campaign, Bonhams can offer in one eye-catching package many of the items – jewellery, watches, handbags, luggage, haute couture – that turn up in its sales throughout the year.
But there is more to it than that. Auctions have traditionally lacked sex appeal. Jon Baddeley, who heads Bonhams collectibles department, reckons that only 12 per cent of the saleroom’s buyers are women yet “Bond Street is Europe’s busiest shopping street and in January it is packed with women buying at the sales. They would never dream of coming through our doors but, if they do, they can be converted.”
He is hoping for a mass conversion next week when compulsive shoppers find at auction the very objects that they have been fighting over in the luxury retailers down the road but at much lower prices and with the attractive patina of age and reputation.
Another auction myth is that everything that comes under the hammer costs around £1m. Most of the 300 lots in Bonhams sale are estimated at under £1,000, many at much less.
To ensure maximum expertise, Baddeley has let women specialists in Bonhams put together the sale, getting them to set aside goods sent for sale over recent months that have feminine appeal. There will also be friendly staff on hand this weekend for the pre-sale viewing, chosen to guide nervous newcomers through the mysteries of an auction.
So what do women want? An Edwardian crocodile travelling case with silver fittings looks irresistible, and cheap, with its £600-£900 estimate. There should be fierce bidding for a very unusual art deco triangular evening bag in silver metal overlaid in black enamel, a snip at around £300. That most sought-after of modern accessories, a Hermès “Kelly” bag, from around 1975, comes with a temptingly low £500 estimate.
Among the jewellery, there are some completely over-the-top Indian necklaces, heavy with excellent stones, which might effectively be broken up to form bracelets and brooches, as well as more conventional pieces by Cartier and Bulgari. The watches tend to be small and pretty and offer the most desirable of brand names at bargain prices while the few items of haute couture on offer include a Vivienne Westwood tartan jacket from the mid-1990s for around £500 and a Balmain coral evening dress of 1969 estimated at £350.
Anyone seeking bargains might look among the silver and knick-knacks, where a late Victorian silver double-end scent bottle decorated in the aesthetic style looks good value at around £200 and five art deco brooches of ladies walking dogs, which were apparently given free to Vogue magazine subscribers in around 1930, seem modestly estimated at £350-£450 the lot. Another conversation stopper would be four celluloid deco brooches designed by Lea Stein, which are expected to sell for up to £450.
In the furniture arena, Bonhams offers some decorative 19th-century mirrors. It feels that women prefer pale woods and modern design so there’s no Georgian and Victorian brown mahogany but there are John Makepeace bookcases made of ash and chrome and cane chairs by Marcel Breuer.
The highest valued lot in the auction is for someone on an ego trip – a customised car number plate, Miss X, which is estimated at up to £55,000. The rather mystifying 1 Bra number plate is expected to go for slightly less. There are also a few feminine slanted cars available to attach the plates to, including a 1990 Mini Cooper, with one careful women owner (estimate up to £4,000), and the brazen 2002 Smart Crossblade Roadster, possibly only of girlish interest because it once belonged to pop star Robbie Williams (estimate around £10,000).
Bonhams believes, perhaps correctly, that women cannot be bothered to wait for repairs and improvements – they want their purchases now – and all the items in the auction are in tip-top condition and can be worn or carried straight home – or, in one instance, played. To pep up the sale, and to benefit the charity Breast Cancer Haven, the violinist Vanessa-Mae has donated one of the white jazz electric violins that helped her to blur the lines between classical and pop music. It is expected to fetch £15,000.
Baddeley is already planning more general sales aimed at women while other auction houses, equally keen to appeal to a younger, more fashion-conscious clientele, still prefer to specialise in particular market sectors. Last year, Christie’s South Kensington doubled its sales of 20th-century fashion to two and the demand – and supply – of haute couture is proving strong enough to support at least three auctions in 2007, the first set for June 7. It will feature around six Kelly bags as well as clothes from everyone from Balenciaga to Ossie Clark. On past experience, 80 per cent of the buyers will be women.
Sotheby’s, with its policy of going for fewer but more expensive lots, is slower to show its feminine side, although its annual jewellery sale in St Moritz offers the perfect convergence of big money and big stones. Since 1970, Sotheby’s has laid on the perfect après ski event for the super rich and on February 20 glitter will again know no bounds – although, in this traditional haunt, the jewels will, in the main, be chosen by women but paid for by men.
