Women get what they want in London auction

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The world's first auction targeted exclusively at women made more than 250,000 pounds (380,000 euros, 493,000 dollars) Thursday at Bonham's auction house in London, a spokeswoman said.

"What Women Want" was made up of over 300 lots including clothes, jewellery, works of art and furniture, although the most expensive individual sale was of a 1970 blue Mercedes convertible car, which sold for 27,600 pounds.

"More than half of the lots have been sold. We are really pleased with the results and 80 percent of the people in the room were women," a Bonhams spokeswoman told AFP.

On average, women represent around 10 percent of buyers at auction house sales.

But there were no takers for some of the lots at the auction, such as a Smart car formerly owned by British pop star Robbie Williams, which had a 10,000 pound price tag.

"Definitely we are looking forward to repeating it in London next year after tailoring the catalogue with what works well," added the spokeswoman.

She added that Bonhams' offices in Los Angeles and New York would be holding similar sales in future.

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AFP 181854 GMT 01 07