Inside an Epic, Record-Breaking Auction of Comme Des Garçons in Paris

Runway-documented finds from the early career of Comme des Garçons founder Rei Kawakubo are a rare find for buyers and collectors—on the third day of Paris Fashion Week , an over 500-piece lot caused a bidding war at the Piasa auction house .

Fans from around the world gathered at the proverbial altar of the goddess of avant garde fashion (or tapped in via phone to bid) for an unusual opportunity to procure rare Kawakubo works. Think: twisted black wool coats from the early 1980s, and abstract printed jackets from the mid-1970s. Every piece was curated by Japanese collector Hiroaki Narita, who, with his business partner, has a warehouse in Japan with thousands of holy grail items from Comme des Garçons and Maison Martin Margiela . Narita is a collector by trade, and also founded