DEDICATED FOLLOWERS of fashion helped to lift some of the gloom surrounding consumer spending in Dublin yesterday as a vintage couture auction raised over €70,000 for charity.
Names that many assumed had accompanied the Celtic Tiger into the distance, such as Hermès, Ungaro and Givenchy, drew hundreds of haute couture fans, and their credit cards, to James Adam and Sons’ auction house on St Stephen’s Green for an afternoon of frantic bidding action.
The items on sale included luxury scarves, handbags, day wear, evening wear and accessories spanning from the 1940s to the 1980s, which were from the couture wardrobe of the late American heiress Anne Bullitt.
The daughter of the first US ambassador to Russia, the millionaire William C Bullitt, and Louise Bryant, an American journalist and radical, Ms Bullitt was one of the first female horse breeders and trainers in Ireland.
She owned the largest horse farm in the country, Palmerstown Stud in Kill, Co Kildare, and was famed for her collection of clothing and jewellery up until her death in 2007.
Men, women and children sporting everything from fine
furs to Adidas trainers attended the auction, which consisted of over 430 lots sold in aid of Our Lady’s Children’s Hospital in Crumlin.
“The room was absolutely packed. We haven’t seen a turnout like this for a sale in years,” said Jane Beattie, Adam’s associate director. “It was wonderful. There was a huge amount of interest and a hugely positive vibe accompanying it as well. It’s a very interesting collection from the point of view of the evolution of fashion and design.”
So great was the interest in the sale that when it commenced the auction room was packed beyond capacity, with over 500 people registering their intent to bid.
“Recession my eye,” commented one man as he joined the queue to enter the auction room.
“Times are tough, but nothing can keep us girls away from clothes,” smiled a young woman clutching a bidding paddle.
The bidding action began, and continued, at a furious pace with items beginning at €50 soaring into the hundreds, with the fact it was all for a good cause quelling any tension among suitors.
A Hermès Kelly bag proved to be the top lot of the sale. Interest from two Irish bidders drove it up from a modest starting price of about €400 to a final €7,000.
“If you buy a Kelly bag new it costs in excess of €10,000 and there’s a six-month waiting list,” Ms Beattie said. “The nostalgia surrounding older ones gives a bit of inbuilt character which I think helped to drive interest up.”
