Cyndi Lauper Says the Fashion & Music Industries ‘Squeeze’ Creatives: ‘How Much Money Do You Goddamn Need?’

For Cyndi Lauper , her Suitcase of Memories auction/exhibition currently open at Bonhams in her native New York City isn’t just a trip down memory lane – it’s a wake-up call.

“The fashion stuff is very important to share because it’s inspirational.

We spray-painted this, we put that together with safety pins,” Lauper tells Billboard after giving us and a few other outlets a personal tour of her auction block.

“This is a great time to do this.

Now that we’ve become so corporatized it’s good to look back at what we were.

If you look back at rock n’ roll fashion in the ‘80s, it was a time of individual expression.

In a time when we’re being forced into a square peg, it’s time to either remember or inspire.” The Suitcase of Memories lot — named after a lyric from her 1984 Billboard Hot 100-topper “Time After Time,” one of four top five hits off her blockbuster debut She’s So Unusual — is colorful, screaming proof of Lauper’s point.

There’s DIY (the iconic True Colors skirt Lauper and Screaming Mimi’s owner Laura Wills made from ripped newspapers and magazines); couture (stage-worn Vivienne Westwood outfits); pieces of music history (the plaid dress she wore to the inaugural VMAs); and even hand-me-downs (those leopard-print PJs she wore in the “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” video were her grandmother’s).

Plus, there are Gold records, mixing boards, shoes, furniture, dolls, handwritten lyrics and an explosion of accessories.

Suitcase of Memories is open to the public through the live auction date on Thursday (Oct.

22); the online auction stays open through Friday (Oct.

23).

For Lauper, whose outrageous, eye-popping looks helped define the ‘80s, fashion isn’t just part of her life — it’s family history.

“[When] my family came over, the first relative was a seamstress.