Cliff Brunton Auction

Cliff Brunton Auctions

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to attend the last auction offered up by Cliff Brunton in Sydney, Australia and it was very instructional in more ways than I expected.

For those of you who might not know of Cliff Brunton - he is like a costume designer extraordinaire to the stars. He was responsible for the creation of costumes for productions including Phantom of the Opera, The Lion King, and Priscilla Queen of the Desert. And after a lifetime in costume design and manufacture, proprietor Cliff Brunton closed the doors of his famous Costume Design Centre. The auction went off successfully, selling off his stock that ran into thousands of costumes including Roman, Egyptian, Medieval, Victorian, Space and all costuming from the C19th until today; thousands of meters of sequin & dress fabric, vinyl and leather skins, beaded, antique, velvets, lycra, and cotton; tens of thousands meters of braids in thousands of designs including original 1920s & 30s sequin, beaded, & metallic. And many more - too many to list here.

I ended up with some really gorgeous 1920s tassle trimmings and lots of vintage, mouth-watering braidings especially suitable for the precious occasion of weddings and for bridal wear & accessories. These braidings were mostly from stock that Cliff had purchased from a company in New York, USA years ago and which now no longer exists. Hence they are not only beautiful pieces but they are no longer obtainable. These are the kinds of braidings that one can find on vintage Christian Dior dresses.

But what I really want to talk about here is what you can get at auctions and also about the people who attend these auctions. First the people ..

I had a lot of time to look around and observe as the auction was very long drawn (up to 644 separate lots and the auction ran the whole day). What most struck me straight off was how smiles were as rare as hen's teeth at the auctions. If you didn't know anyone, no one would return your smile. It seemed as if people's faces were frozen into immobility. I am talking about the attendees and not the staff who were friendly enough. It made me wonder why people seemed so unfriendly and frozen.

The most obvious conclusion was that they were all competing against each other and hence must consider each other almost like enemies. However having gotten a chance to overhear some of them during the pre-auction inspection, I realized that this was not so. Even people who didn't know each other did not mind sharing their thoughts and opinions as to the price and viability of a piece under inspection. So their frozen unfriendly faces and eyes must be due to something else. Which I soon found out for myself as the auction progressed.

Let me just say that it was not as if one did not hear laughter and talk amongst the bidders during the auction. But this was mostly amongst people who knew each other or friends who had come together. While the frozen faces kept keeping me puzzled. There were also two young girls there as well - maybe in their twenties - and even they had frozen faces.

It is also very easy to spot new comers and experienced attendees. The new comers have a puzzled look and uncertainty in their movements as to what to do. The "old-timers" have the frozen looks.

Anyway as the auction progressed and it came time for the auction to move onto the goodies I wanted and for which I made bids, the frozen mystery was solved for me. It is a natural reaction. When you are the bidder, your face freezes. You might think it is so that your competitors cannot see how eager or desperate you are for a specific item. But that is only a small portion of it. I realized that what is going on was that we instinctively freeze all emotions out of our faces not so much due to our competitors (who truth be told, have no time to look at anyone else being focused in maintaining their own frozen calm) but more to the fact that one is afraid of displaying emotion - especially of disappointment, regret, jubilation, etc. It so reminded me of those times when one has to talk about something very emotional and one tries very hard not to let those emotions and trembling lips show on the surface. So that was the mystery of the frozen faces!

Sadly, for the regular attendees, I think that the frozen faces become almost ingrained and set permanently. I used to attend auctions like 20 years ago and observed the same phenomenon. And though this time, the bidders had changed, their immobile faces were identical.

But onto the good news for anyone who wants to attend auctions, let me just say, you should. It is lots of fun.

Before the Cliff Brunton auctions commenced, an earlier auction for furniture started and I wandered over for a look. Boy, can you get great bargains. And this is even more so if you are buying for yourself as opposed to being a re-seller.

I saw this eight seating, solid pine, semi-vintage dining table being auctioned off. It was well made, no termite infestation, beautifully aged. And it went for AUD100! What an absolute bargain. A table like that in the right shop can fetch up close to the $1,000 dollar mark.

There there were 3 white leather footstools. Brand new. And soft, soft leather. Each of them went for $30! You cannot buy one of those for less than a 3-figure amount.

So dear reader, if you ever get a chance to attend an auction, you really must give it a go. It is another world all together and might prove a very lucrative one for you.