Yuki fashion archive goes up for sale at Kerry Taylor Auctions

A large tranche of Yuki's collection has already been deposited within major museum collections in Japan and the USA.

The remainder is being offered for sale on October 4 and ranges from some of the earliest pieces of the 1970s though to the 1990s, and comprises 33 lots.

"The clothes are remarkable for their colour, construction and sheer elegance," said a statement released by Kerry Taylor Auctions.

Jerry Hall

Supermodel Jerry Hall models
some classic Yuki fashion items

Yuki is famed for his classically draped Grecian styled gowns which graced the pages of Vogue for decades - but the collection also features dynamic post-modernist pleated silk examples with exaggerated shoulders and low-sweeping back panels.

The clothes will appeal not only to women who wish to buy the clothes to wear today - but also to museums and collectors anxious to acquire design classics from Yuki's personal collection.

Yuki was born Gunyuki Torimaru in Miyazakhi-Ken, Japan in 1940. He studied as initially as a textile engineer - investigating all aspects of fibre and weave.

In 1963 he travelled to America to study the history of architecture at the Art Institute of Chicago and the following year moved to England and enrolled as a student at the London College of Fashion, where he was taught tailoring skills.

He left college in 1966 and worked first for the London fashion house Rembrandt, before becoming assistant designer for Michael of Carlos Place and then designer at Norman Hartnell. A year later he moved to Paris - having been offered jobs with Givenchy, Guy Laroche and Pierre Cardin.

He chose Cardin and remained with him for three seasons - during which time he became even more adventurous and innovative as a designer.

He left Cardin in 1972 and returned to London to set up on his own. Harvey Nichols offered him a retail space in exchange for an exclusive contract which he did for the first year of his independence.

Yuki fashion archive
Examples for the Yuki fashion archive auctioning at Kerry Taylor

The first collection was dominated by the circle featuring jackets and coats with huge circular sleeves or circular pocket cut-outs, which are masterpieces of construction.

Part of Yuki's huge success was because his softly draped jersey dresses were as successful on a size 8 as a size 20. One of his signature constructions was to make garments from a single length of cloth using just one seam and no fastenings.


 

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