As a pop-up handbag auction opens in London, a fashion frenzy is gripping venerable auction houses – and sending prices sky high. Can fashion ever be on a par with a Picasso?
“I like my money where I can see it. Hanging in my closet,” says Carrie Bradshaw in the 2000s TV series Sex and the City, and it would appear that an increasing number of collectors do, too, with archival fashion auctions fetching record prices. Just last month, Sotheby’s auction house in Paris sold a battered Hermès bag owned by its namesake, Jane Birkin, for £7m ($9.2m). And now Sotheby’s in London has just opened a luxury pop-up salon, auctioning pieces by Hermès, Rolex and Cartier, running until 22 August.
But it wasn’t always like this. Many auction houses have traditionally viewed their fashion divisions as tangential, with the brand-name recognition of some of the items drawing buyers in, and towards bigger-ticket items like paintings or sculptures.
Clothing belonging to celebrities, like Princess Diana or Marilyn Monroe, have historically fetched more than garments without a celebrity provenance, though nothing quite like the £7m Birkin bag. Monroe’s infamous “Happy Birthday Mr President” dress, known as the world’s most expensive dress, sold in 1999 for $1.3m, and again in 2016 for $4.8m to Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Museum. It currently resides there when it’s not being taken for a spin by Kim Kardashian, who wore it to the 2022 Met Gala. Cora Harrington, fashion historian and author, says the dress’s association with Kardashian will likely increase the value the next time it comes up for auction, despite any wear and tear caused by the star.
