Yves Saint Laurent jacket, inspired by van Gogh's Sunflowers painting, sold for $574,000

PARIS (AFP) – A richly embroidered jacket by Yves Saint Laurent inspired by Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers painting, was sold at auction on Wednesday (Nov 27) for 382,000 euros (S$574,000).

The amount was a record for a garment from the celebrated French designer.

The jacket, which was once modelled on the catwalk by supermodel Naomi Campbell, had been expected to fetch between 80,000 euros and 120,000 euros at the Christie’s sale.

It was bought by the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia.

The bright yellow and orange jacket took more than 600 hours to stitch by hand, according to the Yves Saint Laurent museum’s website.

It was part of his 1988 spring-summer collection.

Only four of the sequinned jackets, which are lined with silk, were made.

The 1988 collection also featured an equally detailed jacket honouring another flower-themed van Gogh canvas, Irises.

The blue and purple garment was auctioned for 175,500 euros – four times the guide price – in January out of the closet of Lebanese-born entrepreneur Mouna Ayoub, one of the world’s richest women.

“I have always been fascinated by painting, so it was only natural that it should inspire my creations,” the designer wrote in a catalogue for a 2004 Paris exhibition.

Yves Saint Laurent died in 2008, aged 71.

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