When Bob Mackie’s glittering gowns first went under the hammer at Julien’s Auctions in 2000, the idea of fashion commanding the same reverence as fine art or antique furniture felt improbable. More than two decades later, couture has become the main event.
This year, the designer and the auction house, which is best known for its pop culture, music and Hollywood memorabilia, will reunite for “Bold Luxury: Bob Mackie, Stage Glamour & the Couture Edit,” a fashion and design auction anchored by 50 pieces from Mr. Mackie. The live sale, which will take place on Dec. 3, spans Mr. Mackie’s theatrical career and includes notable lots such as a naked dress Cher wore on her ABC television special in 1978, “Cher … Special,” and a sequin-and-fringe bodysuit Tina Turner performed in on “The Lynn Anderson Show” in 1977.
Fashion auctions like these routinely draw six-figure bids, and increasingly seven-figure sums, as collectors chase the magic of celebrity provenance or, at times, the closest possible approximation. The upcoming sale also includes a John Galliano-designed “newspaper dress” for Dior’s fall 2000 collection, made famous by Sarah Jessica Parker’s character on “Sex and the City”; a 2016 crocodile skin Hermès Birkin; and runway samples from Mr. Mackie’s ready-to-wear line, which was shuttered in 1992.
Once the territory of old master paintings, rare books and European ceramics, auction catalogs today closely resemble those of luxury department stores. But at auction houses, collectors can bid on a haute couture gown by Schiaparelli, while also shopping for a painting by Renoir. In recent years, collectors have been presented with Princess Diana’s Lady Dior bag, billowing caftans and Versace gloves from the Vogue editor André Leon Talley, and the Michael Kors pinstripe gray jumpsuit worn by Nicole Kidman in an AMC promotional video. In July, Sotheby’s auctioned off the original Hermès Birkin, which was made for the actress Jane Birkin in 1984, for $10.1 million, making it the most valuable handbag sold at auction, Sotheby’s said. On the heels of the record-breaking sale, Sotheby’s will auction off another of the actress’s Birkins in December.
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