Mouna Ayoub’s Dior Masterpieces Auction Broke House Records

London vintage fashion expert Kerry Taylor made her name bringing the wardrobes of fashion royalty under the hammer, including garments worn by actual princesses and duchesses like Diana and Wallis, as well as other queens of style such as Audrey Hepburn and Madonna. In recent years, one collection in particular has commanded attention: that of French haute couture collector Mouna Ayoub. Sales of Ayoub’s Chanel and Jean Paul Gaultier couture in 2023 and 2024, staged by Kerry Taylor Auctions in partnership with Paris-based Maurice Auction, produced record lot prices of €312,000 and €377,000.

Yet Ayoub’s long-awaited Dior Masterpieces auction on January 29 at Le Bristol reigned supreme. The top lot, a painted silk evening dress from John Galliano’s infamous spring 2000 Clochards collection, achieved €663,000, with six additional Galliano designs also surpassing the previous house record. That benchmark was a spring 1968 silver-encrusted brocade gown once owned by Elizabeth Taylor, which sold for $362,500 at Christie’s New York in 2011. “It’s the crowning achievement of my career and I’ve been an auctioneer for 45 years,” says Taylor.

This was not the only record to fall. Spanning nearly four decades and five Dior creative directors, from fall 1984 Marc Bohan to spring 2022 Maria Grazia Chiuri, Dior Masterpieces was a white-glove sale. All 95 lots sold for a total of €6,187,610, a record sum for a haute couture auction. Individual designer records were also achieved for Gianfranco Ferré (€58,500 for a fall 1990 beaded cocktail dress) and Raf Simons (€91,000 for a fall 2014 redingote embroidered with silver thread). Coming just days after Jonathan Anderson’s ascension to the throne, the sale doubled as a Dior couture retrospective, seen through the lens of one woman’s exceptionally comprehensive wardrobe. “Each creative director expressed a sensitivity that was personal to them, yet all respected the same house codes of femininity, perfection, and joy,” says Ayoub, a loyal Dior couture client for nearly half a century. She purchased her first two Bohan suits as a young bride in 1979 and selected a cyclamen-embroidered Anderson dress this week.

Part of what makes Ayoub’s Dior collection so exceptional is that it’s filled with museum-worthy couture in mint condition. In the 1980s and 1990s, while living in Saudi Arabia, most pieces were worn privately at home. Later, she acquired more daring designs, often donned at most for a single event. She was one of the few clients to purchase from Galliano’s Clochards collection, and her favorite piece in the sale is a black taffeta gown decorated with miniature spirit bottles and keys that sold for €546,000. “I had just gotten divorced, and my sensitivity was very high and acute,” she recalls. “I chose this piece instinctively because Galliano represented everything I wanted in life: beauty, culture, and freedom.” It is a rare dress Ayoub wore more than once, first to Elton John’s birthday party and again in 2024 to the Cannes Film Festival.

That instinct translated to the rostrum. Two of Galliano’s Clochards newspaper-print looks sold for €624,000 and €390,000. Other highlights included a beaded bias-cut gown from his Maasai spring 1997 couture debut (€510,000), an embroidered patchwork ensemble from his Rebel Chic fall 2001 collection (€390,000), and a gilt-embroidered ensemble from his Diorient Express fall 1998 collection (€286,000). “What you’re buying here is the creator,” says Taylor. “Galliano is one of the greatest designers and this sale proves it.” Taylor remained discreet about individual buyers but cited American museums, billionaires, and Hollywood actresses as among interested parties, attributing the unprecedented results to the growing prominence of vintage on the red carpet. “A lot of looks at the Golden Globes came from Kerry Taylor Auctions, one way or another,” she says. “If you have a museum and a beautiful woman who wants to wear a dress on the red carpet competing, that’s when the fireworks start.”