A Japanese collector, Hiroaki Narita, is auctioning his extensive collection of Rei Kawakubo's designs for Comme des Garçons at the French auction house Piasa on October 1, during Paris Fashion Week. The sale includes over 500 lots of garments and accessories dating from 1969 to 1999, with estimates ranging from €150 to €2,000. The collection spans Kawakubo's most iconic collections, including Pirates (1981), Body Meets Dress, Dress Meets Body (1997), and Kaleidoscope (1996), showcasing her avant-garde, deconstructed aesthetic.
This auction matters because it offers rare access to a comprehensive trove of Kawakubo's early and mid-career work, highlighting her profound influence on fashion and art. Kawakubo's designs are held by major institutions like the Victoria and Albert Museum, MoMA, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and she was only the second living designer to receive a monographic retrospective at the Met's Costume Institute. The sale underscores the enduring market and cultural value of her radical, conceptual fashion, bridging the worlds of high fashion, collecting, and museum curation.