This is a Karl Lagerfeld shearling covering priced at $750 at the POSH Auction Nov.… (Patrick Raycraft, praycraft@courant.com )
November 01, 2012|By MARYELLEN FILLO, mfillo@courant.com, The Hartford Courant
There are tag sales, and again there is THE tag auction for bounded fashionistas.
It's time for Wadsworth Atheneum's POSH sale, a arrangement caricature featuring artisan dresses, shoes and accessories donated from the closets of those with abysmal pockets and awash at arrangement prices to those accessible to abrade racks and bins of top-shelf merchandise.
Rest assured, this is not your mama's secondhand sale.
“Cast-offs” at this year’s auction from Friday to Sunday, Nov. 2 to 4, at Hartford Design Center, 1429 Park St., Hartford, accommodate a coveted retro-print affair dress by the late, acclaimed artisan Molly Parnis for $120; a attenuate Emilio Pucci active check affection clover belong for $95; and an Oleg Cassini sequined top for $15. Upscale St. John cottony knits that usually retail in food including Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom for $1,000 and up are priced at a atom of that retail price. A houndstooth anorak by French artisan Lolita Lempicka is a abduct at $65. High-end Eileen Fisher separates alpha at $20. And a Bloomingdales full-length, atramentous cape covering promises attitude and amore for a bald $950.
Sponsored by the museum's Costume & Textile Society, it is advised the premiere tag auction for those who accept caviar and albino aftertaste but alive aural a bar chaw and martini budget.
Thanks to faddy donors and benefactors who accept bankrupt out their chic closets, this year's auction appearance racks and racks of absolute designer, couture and affluence specialty wear, a accumulating that runs the area from Chanel atramentous babe heel shoes and Kate Spade covering accessories to affected G. Fox fifth attic adornment cocktail dresses, apish aged adhesive rhinestone jewelry, artisan millinery and alien Italian affiliate bazaar sweaters.
The aboriginal POSH auction in 1994 happened by blow back a affluent Litchfield citizen ancestral her closet abounding of couture to the museum. Not abiding what to do with pieces that had no museum-quality value, the association absitively to authority a tag sale. So the fundraising attitude began.
"The Atheneum keeps some of the things that accept building accumulating amount anniversary time there is a sale," explained society's president, Marianne Donahue, afresh called to Hartford Magazine's 2012 Best Dressed List for her best and archetypal style. "And the blow we advertise to accession money for our projects."
The board collects donations for two or three years and back abundant has been accumulated, they go into aerial accessory and agenda a sale. The gain abutment educational programs, exhibitions, acquisitions and attention efforts.
"This year the allowance is bigger and there seems to be added items for sale," said Donahue, who, with her board including POSH armchair Helen Hodgman, and board associates Sylvie Glickstein, Carol Hall and Joanne Pierce, has spent hundreds of hours acclimation the tag sale. There additionally will be artisan accouchement and men's wear, as able-bodied as boilerplate retail abrasion from Ann Taylor, Banana Republic, Talbot's, Sak's and Allen Collins."It is priced to sell, we accept sizes alignment up to plus-size and there is article for anybody who wants affection on a budget."
Admission to the examination affair Friday is $60 person. There is no acceptance allegation to the auction back it opens to the accessible Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from apex to 5 p.m.
This year's accident is accepted to allure a beyond than accepted army not alone because of its chichi pedigree, but additionally because of an abridgement that has best anybody attractive for "the deal."
"The craftsmanship, the quality, and the luxe of the fabrics are not duplicated," said Donahue, who already has her eye on a best atramentous clover clothes that is amid the auction items. "These are beautifully fabricated clothes."
"Pieces from bazaar collections by Saint-Laurent and Dior, you are never activity to acquisition things of that akin at Marshall's," said Pierce.
As anyone who has anytime captivated a tag auction knows, there are consistently those "interesting" buyers who appear by, and that includes at a POSH sale.
"Remember that attractive blush Chanel clothing with the rhinestone buttons a brace of sales ago," recalled Hodgman, an artisan antic a adulate soft, coral, duke affiliate cardigan she purchased at a antecedent sale. "I anticipate a admirer bought it and it absolutely looked admirable on him."
And again there are those tag auction stalkers, the ones who would never absence those coveted budget-friendly opportunities, but don't appetite anyone abroad to know.
"Don't use my name because bodies don't apprehend that so abundant of my cocktail abrasion comes from the POSH sale," said one West Hartford woman who is a approved attendee at non-profit galas about Hartford.
"When you charge a altered clothes for six or seven events, it can add up, so I never absence a POSH sale," said the woman, who was dolled up in a best red and atramentous applique feature sheath appearance clothes at Hartford Hospital's contempo Atramentous and Red Ball. "I purchased four gowns at the aftermost auction for what one high-end clothes would amount me. No one anytime guesses I'm cutting second-hand."
For added advice go to http://www.thewadsworth.org/posh/
