Something is out of joint in the world of high-end novelty shops and the celebrities who would browse in them. Singer and TV personality Kelly Clarkson vented to her 8.8m followers on X about feeling slighted by a toyshop called Art of Play in the Cobble Hill neighbourhood of Brooklyn. On asking about a mechanical bird called Molly that had taken her fancy Clarkson said that she had been treated by an assistant ‘as if I couldn’t afford it and was told he could find something comparable for me’. Going as far as to compare herself to Julia Roberts’ character being snubbed in a Rodeo Drive store in Pretty Woman, Clarkson added, ‘Wow, dude. You’re an idiot and lost a huge sale.’
Molly, it turns out, is more of a member of staff than an item of sale: one of her duties is to participate in the magic shows that take place at the shop, reports the New York Times. She does have a twin in Seattle, however, who is available for $15,000 from the artist Bliss Kolb. (One suspects the price has since soared.) Your roving correspondent is going to skip over who has said to whom on social media, as this has all got of hand. As a keen observer of the art market, however, it’s hard not to enjoy Art of Play slapping a $15m price tag on the singing and dancing bird that is not for sale.
Talented though Molly the mechanical bird may be, there is no need for the American Idol-winner to feel like a bird with a broken wing. Once the immediate hurt has healed, there are so many other – and rather more accomplished – avian automatons out there. Clarkson should get herself to the sales rooms, where margins in auction houses mean that she will be welcomed with open arms. Besides, as the singer and disciple of Nietszche has told us more than once, (in the form of a chorus) what doesn’t kill us surely makes us stronger.
