On September 15 in London, Kerry Taylor Auctions will send 265 pieces of Comme des Garcons across the block. The lots trace the house from its 1970s inception to the collections that made Rei Kawakubo the most studied radical in fashion.
Auctioneer Alex Baddeley described the collection as museum-grade yet academic in scope, the work of a man who understands the brand’s breadth as few do.
Whether the pieces land in museums or private racks, the sale confirms that Kawakubo’s influence now trades at the level of fine art.
La Rosa, he noted, collects out of passion rather than commerce, assembling a survey that reads like a private museum of Kawakubo’s thinking.
A black polyurethane raincoat knotted at the chest carries an estimate of 500 to 700 pounds. An austere wool pantsuit from the fall 1982 Pirates collection is expected to bring 800 to 1,200 pounds.
For newer collectors, the auction offers a compressed education in the brand’s logic, from the hacked tailoring of the eighties to the sculptural collapse of the two-thousands.
Eighteen lots date to the label’s first years, when Kawakubo built garments as experiments in volume and void. Seminal outfits from her Paris runway debuts of the 1980s anchor the middle of the sale.
