The fashion auction of the year

It’s already been a landmark year for fashion auctions, as André Leon Talley and Grayson Perry’s dress collections have gone up for auction. But the most important one still happens next week. He Mr. Steven Philip Collection: Part 1, held at Bermondsey’s Kerry Taylor auctions on June 20, 2023, is heralded as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to acquire pieces from one of the most extensive collections of Vivienne Westwood and John Galliano in the world. (The second part of the sale is scheduled for December.)

Philip, a doyen of archival fashion best known as the co-founder of the legendary West London vintage boutique. rellikHe’s collected entire sets, obsessively assembling looks down to the minutiae, some of which have taken decades to complete.

“It was like a puzzle and I wanted every piece of every outfit, I needed it all,” says Philip of the Brighton-based studio he opened in 2018 after leaving London, his original Dundee accent still strong. He once flew to the United States with an envelope of cash in an attempt to convince a reluctant collector to sell him a Galliano T-shirt. “People love to ask me how much things like that cost – I always say 10 years of my life!”

“There has never been a better opportunity to shop for the cutting-edge fashion of this era,” adds Kerry Taylor, founder of the eponymous auction house. “I am sure that in the years to come we will look back and marvel at the richness, diversity and excellence.”

These two designers were part of that movement in the 80’s when nothing was mass produced.

Philip started building his collection about 30 years ago. “We were entering the ’90s: minimalism, Calvin Klein, gray,” he recalls. “I said to myself, where is the color? I had just moved into a studio in Notting Hill and bought a bunch of Westwood in Kensington Market, and I thought, what if I buy more? That’s how it started.” Clothing has only become more important with age, he says. He considers Westwood and Galliano two of the best designers Britain has produced: “They were part of that movement in the 1980s. […] where there were spaces where recent graduates could sell their collections, everything was limited, there was a print run of five or 10 maximum of each piece, nothing was mass-produced… I always knew there was something in that”.

His sources were varied. “One girl who had bought pieces in the ’80s had grown up and no longer rocked her Horseshoe Platforms or Mini-Crini; another man was married with two kids and was never going to wear that Savage suit, but he kept it because it cost them months salary. . . People were always coming up to me at the booths and saying ‘Oh, that guy over there has a thing for Westwood’. It was a lot in the right place, at the right time.”

The auction includes more than 200 lots, including more than a dozen “total looks,” two of which come from an ’83 Buffalo collection and a Pirate AW81/82 set; the latter is estimated at £10,000 when auctioned. . Philip’s personal highlights include an ensemble from Westwood’s Witches collection (£4000-£6000) and an oversized fleece jacket from Galliano’s SS86 Fallen Angels collection (£2000-£3000), which he describes as “beyond”. Other key lots include a waistcoat from Galliano’s Incroyables postgraduate collection (£3,000-£5,000), a 1985 patterned kimono from The Ludic Game collection (£25,000-£35,000) and a Vivienne Westwood AW92 dog-print corset /93 (£2,500 -£3,500).

“I’m excited to sell all these pieces,” says Philip. “At first I wasn’t because it’s so hard to separate yourself from things.” His decision to sell is relatively sudden, following The death of Vivienne Westwood at the end of 2022. “I had always thought about doing something like this before, but [her death] It was a moving moment.”

An impending move to a new studio space has also inspired a new ‘puzzle’ for Philip. “I want to look at the new graduates, the new people, and try to help them with some things.” But he’s not going to give up on archival fashion entirely. “I will still keep 200 of the best pieces in my archive.”

kerrytaylorauctions.com