It is not often that you hear shopkeepers say that items are too special to be sold in their store, but that is just what Mark Haddaway and Katy Rodriguez did with their special vintage finds. That is, until now. Come October 30, the co-owners of the Resurrection boutique in Manhattan, a 12-year-old veritable institution of vintage finds located in the East Village, will be auctioning off an expansive trove of vintage treasures through Christie’s auction house. Known for their discerning eye, many pieces up for auction represent significant time capsules in the fashion universe. The pieces up for auction are special indeed, with items from Paco Rabanne, Pierre Cardin, Norma Kamali, Vivienne Westwood and Yves Saint Laurent to name a few, making this an auction on which all fashionable curator eyes will be on. Simon Andrews, Christie’s specialist of 20th-century decorative art and design has categorized the lot into four categories: avant-garde pop culture, romanticism, discord and disorder of punk, and designer wear. Notable items such as the iconic Pierre Cardin bubble vinyl satellite cape circa 1969, represent the pop-art decade; T-shirts made by Westwood and Malcolm McLaren for the Sex Pistols and made famous by them, display the iconography of Union Jacks, upside-down crucifixes, "God save the Queen" and "Destroy" slogans, represent the anarchic decadence of discord and disorder, better known as the punk era; handmade leather pieces for Sly Stone during his Sly and The Family Stone heyday, mark the seventies decade of rock/punk; and items from Pierre Cardin and Yves Saint Laurent, represent the designer wear era of the ‘80s.
The Rabanne pieces, especially the chainmaille-esque wedding dress made of silver and white leather held together by metal rings, are expected to fetch the highest bids out of the entire lot. Regardless to what the duo’s lot brings in, it will be an interesting bidding session, surely with a little fisticuffs thrown in for good measure. What? Did you think all of those important vintage pieces would sell in a civilized fashion? Not!
