Fair Warning to Auction Rare Yves Saint Laurent Mondrian Dress and Several Pieces by John Galliano Despite Controversy over Met Museum Exhibition’s Cancellation

An Yves Saint Laurent Piet Mondrian dress from the 1960s that’s been photographed by the likes of David Bailey, Irving Penn, and Richard Avedon is going under the hammer at the online auction house Fair Warning, in collaboration with Kerry Taylor Auctions. Titled “The Impossible Couture Collection,” the sale also features pieces by Azzedine Alaïa, Elsa Schiaparelli, Paco Rabanne, and John Galliano.

The sale will take place on the evening of September 17, the first day of London Fashion Week. The auction has been curated by art collector Peter Brant Jr., who is the son of art collector and publisher Peter M. Brant and supermodel Stephanie Seymour. Jussi Pylkkänen, formerly the global president of Christie’s, will auctioneer the sale.

With a presale estimate between $200,000–$500,000, the YSL Mondrian dress is expected to be the top lot of the evening. “It has been decades since a Mondrian Dress of this significance has appeared at auction, making this an exceptionally rare opportunity to acquire one of the defining objects of twentieth-century fashion,” press statement reads.

Also on offer will be a gold insect collar necklace (estimate: $15,000–$30,000) designed by Elsa Schiaparelli and a custom dress ($600,000–$1 million) from designer Lee Alexander McQueen’s last collection, which was worn by Naomi Campbell.

Despite the controversy surrounding Galliano’s canceled retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute, the auction will still include five gowns and one drawing by the designer, as well as three jewelry pieces he made while serving as creative director of Dior, prior to his firing from the house after making antisemitic comments in 2010; he was convicted of a hate crime in France in 2011. (Galliano decided not to withdraw from the exhibition because of his past remarks.)

The priciest Galliano lot comes from his spring 1995 collection, titled “Misia Diva.” Madonna wore the black gown in the music video for “Take a Bow” music video, and Kylie Jenner donned it in 2025 at the 78th British Academy Film Awards.

Brant told Vanity Fair in an interview that he was “certainly disappointed” about the cancelation of Galliano’s exhibition, adding, “We were hoping that we would see some of these dresses on the red carpet.”



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