JEAN SCENE: Designer Jean Paul Gaultier elevated denim to the level of haute couture – and fashion enthusiasts and collectors paid top dollar for it at a recent auction in Paris.
A pair of beaded faux-denim overalls fetched 71,500 euros, while the star lot – a fishtail denim gown embellished with a dégradé of ostrich feathers – commanded 377,000 euros, touted as a new world record for a Gaultier couture piece.
The denim gown from Gaultier’s spring 1999 couture collection was expected to fetch between 25,000 euros and 35,000 euros at the Nov. 25 sale at Maurice Auction, in association with London expert Kerry Taylor.
Meanwhile, a Scottish-inspired ensemble from Gaultier’s fall 1998 couture collection sold for 65,000 euros. It consisted of a narrow tartan skirt, styled after a kilt but realized with thousands of tiny, colored glass beads embroidered by Maison Lesage, and a fur-lined bomber jacket. It was estimated to fetch between 12,000 euros and 15,000 euros.
All 41 Gaultier couture items were sold, yielding a total take of 930,000 euros, with 90 percent of the lots acquired by international buyers including “prominent fashion figures and institutions,” according to a post-sale recap. “Among them, 12 dresses were sold to international museums.”
The stash of couture belonged to French socialite and businesswoman Mouna Ayoub, one of the world’s most fervent collectors of haute couture.
Many of them were never worn, or at most once, including that denim evening gown, titled “L’Écume des jours” (“Froth on the Daydream” in English) after the 1947 Surrealist novel by Boris Vian.
In an interview with WWD before the sale, Ayoub said she received many compliments on the denim number.
“I was horrified when I lost a feather, though, so I took it off immediately,” she related. “It’s a piece meant for a museum, after all, and deserves to be treated that way.”
A well-known fashion figure and jet-setter originally hailing from Lebanon, Ayoub works in real estate, buying and selling properties in the U.S. — and plowing the lion’s share of her gains into her bulging couture wardrobe, which numbers more than 2,000 pieces.
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