The answer to the question of which fashions best complement a bidding paddle was on the minds of auction-goers who attended last week’s sale of contemporary art at Phillips de Pury, which was preceded a benefit auction for the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. Artworks by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Damien Hirst, and Takashi Murakami decorated the walls of the spacious 15th Street auction house. In the main room, the mood was cheerful as women wearing Oscar de la Renta brushed shoulders with bright young things in newer brands such as 3.1 Phillip Lim. Some lugged leather satchels that held auction catalogs. Although a pair of friends clad in jeans lamented their casual attire, their after-work style was in keeping with the more democratic fashion atmosphere that seemed to reign at Phillips. An intern at the house, Marc Englander, was dapper in a shrunken Miu Miu suit, while MOCA’s director of development, Jennifer Arceneaux, wowed in a brocade yellow shift. Others took a more laid-back approach, which was no less elegant, as with Courtney Plummer of the Lehmann Maupin Gallery, whose velvet-hued Michael Kors booties were as covetable as the artworks.