Les petites robes noires: 1921-2010
by Abdon FLORES
An important auction –another– will be held in Paris, fashion epicenter of the world right during Fashion Week SS18. Sotheby’s Paris has announced its second haute couture sale presented in association with Kerry Taylor Auctions, the world’s leading auction house specializing in vintage fashion.
The sale is not just another sale since this time the London auction house will auction off 140 Little Black Dresses, or Petites robes noires, from the Didier Ludot private collection. Mr. Ludot, famous in Paris as the “fashion antiquarian”, is known to fashion lovers from all over the world. Alongside his mythic boutique in the Palais Royal, Ludot has built up, over a period of almost forty years, a private collection of rare and important pieces by the greatest of designers.
He is also the author of La petite robe noire, published by Assouline in September 2001, it is considered an essential work of reference on the subject. Eight years later, he curated an exhibition on the Little black dress mounted in the windows of the Ministry of Culture, just around the corner from his shop.
The sale will be held on October the 3rd and it will offer a fresh look at this fashion classic as Ludot again calls on Sotheby’s savoir-faire to sell part of his collection. The pieces –whose estimates range between 800 and 5,000 euros– were created by the greatest of couturiers, from Chanel to Jean Patou to Marc Vaughan. Some of these dresses, by Balenciaga, Yves Saint Laurent, Pierre Balmain or Yohji Yamamoto, have previously been loaned to the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
The sale traces the story of the little black dress through almost a century of fashion history: since its birth in 1926 under the vision of Coco Chanel, through its role in Nouvelle vague cinema and to the recent creations of Viktor and Rolf. To complete the look, the catalogue also includes a dozen creations by Roger Vivier, some of them extremely rare, designed for Christian Dior and embroidered by Rebé. The color and brilliance of these delicate shoes perfectly set off the sobriety of the little black dress.
More info: www.sothebys.com/en/auctions