John Lennon's White Suit Fetches $46,000 At Auction

NORWALK -- As "All You Need is Love," "Ticket to Ride," and "She Loves You" piped over the sound system in its vast showrooms, a Norwalk gallery auctioned the white suit John Lennon wore, famously, on the cover of the Beatles' "Abbey Road" album in 1969 for $46.000.
The hand-made suit, of a wool-blend knit, designed by Parisian couturier Ted Lapidus, was modeled by a long-haired mannequin wearing grannie glasses inside a movable glass case. Laborers strolled it up and down the aisle at Braswell Galleries as bids were rapidly noted, both in person and on the Internet. There was standing-room-only in the auction gallery.
The auction, which also offered other Lennon memorabilia, including a 1972 Chrysler station wagon,  attracted longtime fans of the legendary, much-loved Lennon, many of whom stood to be photographed next to the encased suit before the sale began.
 "I was twice in his presence in this suit in 1969 as a teenager in Toronto," marveled Andrew Jack of Easton by way of Scotland.
"It was during a Toronto tour and my friends and I -- college students at the time -- followed his limousine around in a Volkswagen."
"We were able to come up side by side with the limo and John Lennon was sticking his head out the window, throwing up," Jack recalled. "I think he was nervous from the tour or it was the heroin."
Regardless, there were no permanent stains in evidence on the smartly-tailored suit, its jacket draping below the hips and a waist-high vent lending grace to Lennon's long stride ahead of Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney and George Harrison, as captured in the iconic photograph.
Jack said he might bid up to $150 for the suit and then drop out of the bidding wars.
 "That way I can say I owned it for 3 seconds," he said cheerily.

"The Beatles played a big part of my life, John  Lennon especially," remarked Brian Hannon, a Westchester art dealer, wistfully, after being photographed next to the suit.
Hannon said he was considering joining the bidding because of the suit's unique value as a cultural icon.
As it happened, the successful bidder was an absentee, placing his/her/its bid on the Internet. The auction gallery on Muller Avenue said even it would not know the buyer's identity until well after the sale. Nor would Braswell disclose the same of the seller, who preferred to be anonymous.
A brown velvet two-button jacket with tiny embroidered fleur de lys, which Lennon wore during filming of a video as he played "Imagine" on a white grand piano at his English estate, was also sold, for $18,000, to the same buyer.
Together, the suit and dressy blazer sold for $120,000 in 2005, nearly double Saturday's sale.
Kristi Braswell-Panarese, daughter of auction house owner Gary Braswell, was designated auctioneer of the Lennon items. It would be only her second performance as an auctioneer.
"It was a special Christmas present, delivered by text," she said, in recognition that she had worked really hard for the gallery in 2010.
She said Sean Lennon, rather than his Dad, was her group's heartthrob in high school, but she still admired the senior Lennon's work.
In addition to the clothing, gold albums and photographs attracted buyers, as did the banged-up 1972 olive-green Town & Country Chrysler parked outside.
According to the gallery's website, Lennon and his wife, Yoko Ono, liked driving the station wagon around the streets of New York because they were unlikely to be noticed and mobbed.
"It was their incognito-van," explained auctioneer Gary Braswell.
The lucky buyer got to keep it, with its original 1980 New York registration sticker and a fabled past, for only $5,500.
---Nancy Burton
    Ridgefield Patch.com