On an international antiques website I recently stumbled across a 1920s Louis Vuitton trunk/desk. The asking price was more than $100,000 and it occurred to me that at time of manufacture, it would not have been considered either significant or collectable but regardless, someone loved it enough to commission its manufacture.
Such is the nature of things that we retrospectively imbue monetary value with – it is often not until time, scarcity and condition have taken their toll on what remains that we decide something is special and worthy of being a “store of value”.
At our recent designer luxury auction similar collecting dynamics played out although it was refreshing to see young “collectorators” (the new hybrid collector/decorator) again deciding to imbue elegance and quality manufacture with value before the imprimatur of some authority on what should or should not be deemed collectable. This Ralph Lauren trunk of contemporary manufacture was just such an example and realised $4880 (IBP).
John Albrecht, Managing Director