The week before Sotheby’s evening auctions, Phyllis Kao is still getting acquainted with her new work home at the Breuer Building on Madison Avenue, a Brutalist landmark recently reincarnated as the auction house’s Upper East Side headquarters.
On the fourth floor — soon to be transformed into the auction room — Kao moves amid tourists, pointing out highlights from the contemporary evening sale, where she will be taking the rostrum. Dressed in a custom mink floor-length jacket, heeled Miista loafers, and hair down, Kao keeps a low profile — “I call it my Clark Kent disguise!” — noting that when she wears her signature ponytail, slicked back and finished with a sculptural twist, she often gets stopped.
It hasn’t always been this way. Kao worked as an auctioneer and specialist in Chinese art at Sotheby’s for nearly a decade before the internet caught on, after footage of her selling a record-breaking Stegosaurus for $44.6mn went viral. Viewers praised Kao online, captivated by her stage presence — and her well-tailored Armani blazer. “Phyllis Kao could sell trash bags, and I’d be engaged,” said one commenter.
Born and raised in Berkeley, California, Kao — who declined to reveal her age — seemed destined for the auction block. As a child, she was accustomed to performing before an audience as a classical violinist. Her mother, an archivist with an assured sense of taste — the Armani blazer came from her wardrobe — helped her cultivate an eye for detail. Her grandfather, a chemical engineer who sold pigments, taught her “the art of being a salesman,” she says, in part through his “impeccable style”. After earning a Chinese art degree from Columbia University, Kao joined a small auction house in Chicago. “The first time I got up there, it just felt natural,” she recalls.
Calm and commanding, watching Kao onstage is to see a master of their craft. Along with her carefully considered outfits and sleek black up-do, her voice carries the audience with quips such as, “Emily draws blood first!” Kao’s movements, amplified by the exaggerated silhouettes worn on her body, both lean across the rostrum to draw in bidders and stand tall, waiting for the next paddle. She is hardly the first auctioneer to think carefully about their public image; more rare, however, is the degree of attention Kao is now receiving from beyond the art world establishment.
New York designer Jonathan Cohen recalls coming across Kao on TikTok for the first time after the Stegosaurus sale. “I’ve never seen anyone make an auction look this seductive,” he says. “She has this mesmerising star quality.” After watching the bidding from start to finish, he immediately texted a mutual friend asking for an introduction, hoping to get her in one of his designs.
Veronica Beard then included Kao in a campaign of inspiring female New Yorkers; and a growing list of fashion houses appear eager to dress her. By the end of the year, the New York Times Style section named Kao one of the 63 most stylish people in New York. This autumn, at New York Fashion Week, the auctioneer sat front row at shows like Joseph Altuzarra.
Kao debuted a Jonathan Cohen suit, adorned with a confetti-like print, to accompany the sale of the Tiffany Danner Memorial Window at the modern evening auction last year. “Her suit looks like light filtering through stained glass,” said one top-liked commenter on TikTok. Sotheby’s replied with a winking-face emoji, keen to capitalise on its employee whose rising fan base is drawing new eyes to the traditional auction circuit.
During that same auction, when bidding stalled at $10.2mn, Kao joked, “What, is their house not big enough?” The piece ultimately sold for $12.5mn, nearly doubling Sotheby’s estimate.
Kao understands the value of a good performance. For her, presentation is part of the strategy. “I need to be the alpha in the room, because the psychology of those bidders might respond better to that,” she says.
Her outfit depends on the sale, and the aesthetic shifts with the clientele. An Old Masters auction, for instance, called for a soft green velvet Etro blazer, while a watch sale required a sharply cut, double-breasted military jacket. Kao adds that “a former boss once called me a girl of a thousand looks”.
Dressing for the contemporary evening sales comes with its own set of challenges. In general, Kao looks for garments that are structured in the shoulders but allow for uninhibited arm movement. She avoids dangly jewellery that tends to be distracting. Warmth is another consideration: “once I wore a thin garment and was shivering the whole time,” she recalls. When selling colourful works, darker garments are preferred, to stand out when they hang behind her.
After contemplating a few offers from various big designers, Kao ultimately settled on a black open-backed structured suit by Harris Reed for Nina Ricci. The two became friends this year at the Dallas Museum of Art’s inaugural collection gala, and she’s been a fan ever since.
Kao is still ironing out the finishing touches. In place of her signature ponytail, she might switch to a Chignon bun to avoid obscuring the back of the jacket, to the dismay of colleagues. For accessories, Kao plans to head across the hall to her colleague Frank Everett, the senior vice-president and jewellery director at Sotheby’s New York. Everett helps her choose an assortment of statement pieces — a win-win for the auction house, as it often helps them sell.
Some, however, are non-negotiables, including a lucky ring she wears from her grandfather, and a gavel she received from her mentor Brad Bentoff (in the auctioneering world, it’s bad luck to buy your own.)
At the galleries, she points to a painting by the artist Mark Tansey she can’t wait to sell. “It’s so rare for them to come up in auction!” she says. Across the room, she gestures to a large-scale painting by Cecily Brown, estimated at $4mn-6mn. Kao recalls seeing Brown for the first time, and being awestruck. Later, the artist came up and introduced herself, after recognising Kao from the auctions. “Me?” she thought. “I couldn’t believe it.”
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