60 years of fashion history up for auction

TACOMA — From the time she was a little girl designing her own clothes until she was well into her 80s, Gladys May loved to adorn herself in the highest of haute couture.

So fashion collectors giggled and gasped in delight Friday as they pawed through May's collection of Pucci, Valentino, Yves Saint Laurent, Christian Dior and Thierry Mugler.

About 60 years' worth of May's closets are being put up for auction today, more than two years after the fashion maven died in Seattle at age 85 in September 2003. It had taken her estate that long to assemble the collection from homes she kept in Seattle and Los Angeles.

"This is a fabulous collection," said Cheryl Maddux, owner of Pike Place Antiques at Seattle's Pike Place Market, who arrived at an auction preview early Friday to scope out her favorite items.

"I remember Gladys from when I worked at Deluxe Junk [a store in Fremont], and she was always dressed to the nines."

As one of six girls in an Oklahoma family, May designed clothes for her paper dolls, then her grandmother made the full-size versions for her, said her son, Stephen May.

May married young and moved West in the 1930s. During her marriage, and after her divorce in the 1960s, she toured the globe with her son in tow.

Vintage Clothing Auction

Sanford & Son Antiques & Auctions, 743 Broadway, Tacoma

Doors open at 9 a.m. today, auction begins at 10.

Notable items include: Gucci rain boots (size 8), jeweled Lucite cat's-eye framed glasses, a pink mink shrug from Frederick & Nelson and an orange beaded Oscar de la Renta vest.

May befriended artist Andy Warhol and fashion designer Mugler, who was so fond of her that he put her in his shows. The peach cashmere sweater — with silver leather embroidery and matching peach cashmere stirrup pants — that she modeled for Mugler will be up for bid today, her son said.

"Through our lives with the Warhol crowd, she met every celebrity, every famous person you could imagine," said Stephen May, 57, who lives in Seattle. "Everyone assumed she was an actress or model."

The fashion auction was the idea of auctioneer Mike Odell and Alan Gorsuch, who owns Sanford & Son Antiques & Auctions in Tacoma.

More than 4,000 items will be up for bid. And that includes a short, red, strapless dress, with sequins and a feather boa, designed by Bob Mackie for Cher. And a red, strapless dress that Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis wore to an opening of The Museum of Modern Art in New York. Dresses run from sizes 3 to 12 and shoes are generally sizes 6 and 7.

"I'm going to be a cross-dresser before this is over," Gorsuch joked.

At the preview Friday, women screeched as they tried on fur coats made of cheetah, mink, giraffe and even gorilla. Maddux eyed the tamer 1950s suits by designer Lilli Ann.

She recalled seeing May, then in her 80s, teetering around downtown Seattle in painful stilettos in 1998, the day the new Nordstrom store opened in the old Frederick & Nelson building.

"She was just quiet and elegant," Maddux said.

Onlookers gushed Friday as Gorsuch's wife, Cheryl, paraded around wearing a perfect-fitting Pucci dress. Gorsuch groaned as his wife announced her intention to win the bidding on the dress.

"It is all so spectacular," said Barbara McCabe, a Seattle antiques dealer. "Beauty and fashion changes so much throughout each time period and it is amazing to see all of that in one place."

Stephen May looked on wistfully as women yanked his mother's dresses off the racks and Gorsuch unfurled a bolt of Valentino fabric. He shared stories about his mother, but he appeared pained as people talked about their plans to bid for certain items. Still, he couldn't keep the entire collection. He just didn't have room. "I look around at a piece of clothing and it's a flashback to a time where we were," May said, adding that he kept several Mugler, Versace and Claude Montana pieces for his own collection.

"I can almost chronicle my life through these clothes."

Jennifer Sullivan: 206-464-8294 or jensullivan@seattletimes.com.

Timberline High School senior Malia Bonham contributed to this report.