(Photo courtesy of Kerry Taylor Auctions.)
Last weekend’s article in the New York Times Magazine, “How to Conduct an Auction,” could not have come at a more appropriate time given that I had just participated in the auction of a lifetime only days earlier.
The auction, conducted on July 8, 2015 in Paris, featured 171 lots from world-renowned fashion antiquarian Didier Ludot’s private collection of vintage haute couture. Ludot first came to my attention in 2001, when I read his book La Petite Robe Noire, in which he juxtaposes his collection of black dresses from Dior, Chanel, Balenciaga and Balmain with historical photos of glitterati such as Catherine Deneuve in their own, which in many cases are the very dresses in Ludot’s collection. That such a collection of haute couture existed outside a museum was staggering to me; then I learned that his assortment of black dresses was only a fraction of his entire inventory, which numbered into the thousands. I was smitten.
…to be continued…
(Photo courtesy of Jeff Hirsch/NYSD.com)