A vintage Chanel evening coat sold for 312,000 euros at auction in France.
All 252 lots of socialite Mouna Ayoub's vast collection from the luxury fashion house sold at the Pavillon Gabriel in Paris on Monday (20.11.23) night and netted 1.5 million euros.
The star lot - an evening coat by the late fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld embroidered by Lesage to resemble the Coromandel screens treasured by founder Gabrielle 'Coco' Chanel - fetched 312,000 euros, according to a spokeswoman for the sale.
Ayoub explained that she only wore the coat - from Chanel's fall 1996 haute couture collection - once when she attended an opera at La Scala in Milan.
Other items of clothing on offer included dresses, suits, shoes jewellery, belts and a wig with an ankle-length ponytail that was once worn on the runway by the model Shalom Harlow.
Ayoub explained last week that she had decided to sell her Chanel items because they no longer fit her.
She told WWD: "I really want to give the young generation that didn’t know Karl and didn’t have the chance to own any haute couture pieces by Karl to own them and wear them and love them like I did."
Ayoub took excellent care of her Chanel collection and all were stored in museum-calibre storage conditions.
She is planning to donate part of the proceeds from the auction to Fondation des Femmes, an organisation that champions women's rights and freedom while standing up to violence against females.
