Cyndi Lauper Sells a Suitcase of Memories at Bonhams New York

Cyndi Lauper will auction five decades of her fashion and personal items at Bonhams New York this month, in a two-part sale titled "Cyndi Lauper: A Suitcase of Memories." Part I goes under the hammer live on 22 October; Part II runs online until 23 October.

The singer led a private tour of the collection on a recent Thursday morning, sporting seafoam green hair and platform creepers. She gave the Bonhams team final notes on presentation: whether the rainbow fan hung at the right angle, and whether more mirror balls were on their way.

The exhibition reads like an Aladdin's cave of her career: clashing prints, jutting tutus, statement headwear, handwritten lyric sheets, a Raggedy Ann doll from the "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" video and a multi-colored spotted couch that could have come from the set of "Pee-wee's Playhouse." A mannequin wears her grandmother's leopard print flannel pyjamas, bought from a mail order catalog and worn in the "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" video.

"Frederick's of Hollywood gave people in Queens a glimpse of glamor and sexiness," Lauper says. "You know, they're flannel pyjamas, but come on – they're leopard!"

Born in Queens to a family of Garment District cutters and seamstresses, Lauper left home at 17 with little more than a toothbrush and a copy of Yoko Ono's book "Grapefruit." She worked at the Manhattan boutique Screaming Mimi's while singing in downtown clubs before her 1983 debut "She's So Unusual" became the first debut album by a woman to produce four top-five singles. She has sold more than 50 million records, co-founded the True Colors United foundation for homeless LGBTQ+ youth in 2008, and won a Tony award in 2013 for her "Kinky Boots" score. She retired from live performance last year.

What does Lauper say about creativity today?

Walking past the metal bra from her "True Colors" video and the red plaid dress she wore to the inaugural VMAs, she expressed nostalgia for the 1980s. "It was a time where there was a little bit of a wildness," she says. "We've been corporatized – we kind of have braces on our brains. You know, it would be nice if you could think for yourself sometime."

"I did this to inspire people," she says of the show. "To inspire us who are older to remember the individuality of creativity, and to inspire the young to discover that creativity is individual."

The exhibition traces her evolving taste. In the 1990s she turned to sculptural pieces by Vivienne Westwood and Alexander McQueen, styled with a DIY twist: for 1994's "Twelve Deadly Cyns" album, she paired an electric blue Dolce & Gabbana shrug with a bowler hat she spray-painted and decorated with feathers. "I wanted it to look like art," she says. "That's what makes it exciting – that a young person would look and go, 'I could do that.'"

Asked whether the fragile newspaper skirt from her "True Colors" album art had worried her, she replied crisply: "What do you mean? No. It was a photoshoot. I was good."

What about Chappell Roan and Nicki Minaj?

Chappell Roan wore a replica of that newspaper skirt last year while inducting Lauper into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Lauper calls Roan one of the few current stars whose creativity she relates to, praising songs such as "Pink Pony Club" as landmarks for LGBTQ+ representation. "It's how she wrote about a lifestyle and made it normal," Lauper says. "And then the clothes, sure."

In 2023, Lauper blessed Nicki Minaj's sampling of "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" on "Pink Friday 2" and joined her on stage months later. Asked whether Minaj's recent alliance with Donald Trump changed her view, Lauber answered flatly: "No. First of all, I don't believe in cancellation." She added: "I still don't think you cancel people, because otherwise there's no room for discussion." Her advocacy work, she says, taught her to break bread across the political spectrum: "If you don't let people evolve, what are you doing?"

In 2022 she re-recorded her abortion rights song "Sally's Pigeons" to protest the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade. "If we don't have control over our own bodies then we have no real freedom," she said at the time.

She sees the auction arriving at a "great time to have people inspired and come alive again" ahead of the midterms, and welcomes the prospect that "the billionaires might be moving out, giving us our city back." Whether the sale inspires a new generation of DIY stylists, or sets new prices for pop memorabilia, will become clear on 22 October.