PARIS • A richly embroidered jacket by Yves Saint Laurent, inspired by Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers painting, was sold at auction on Wednesday for €382,000 (S$574,000).
The amount was a record for a garment from the French designer.
The jacket, which was once worn on the catwalk by supermodel Naomi Campbell, had been expected to fetch between €80,000 and €120,000 at the Christie’s sale.
It was bought by the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia.
The bright yellow and orange jacket took more than 600 hours to stitch by hand, according to the Yves Saint Laurent museum website. It was part of his 1988 spring-summer collection.
Only four of the sequinned jackets were made.
The 1988 collection also featured an equally detailed jacket honouring another flower-themed van Gogh canvas, Irises.
The blue and purple garment was auctioned for €175,500 – four times the guide price – in January out of the closet of Lebanese-born entrepreneur Mouna Ayoub, one of the world’s richest women.
“I have always been fascinated by painting, so it was only natural that it should inspire my creations,” Yves Saint Laurent wrote in a catalogue for a 2004 Paris exhibition. He died in 2008, aged 71.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
