The Collection of Elizabeth Taylor | Christie's

the fact that the Elizabeth Taylor family has given us this collection to take to the market is enormous honor and we take it with great amount of pride and of course great seriousness and at the same time we're very joyous bad because it's one of the great collections in the world this is not just a jewelry auction it's the option of Elizabeth Taylor it's one of world's most beautiful collections of jewelry and then there's the romance behind every single piece you know it was given by Richard Burton by Mike Todd and there was so much pleasure in the way she received every jewel and there's so much emotion in each and every one of them 80 pieces comprised the first auction in the evening and that has probably the most sensational the legendary the the romantic jewels pieces from Bulgari pieces from Cartier Boucheron Van Cleef & Arpels you know they great that is a Beth Taylor diamond it's a 33 carat D color which is the best and as white as can be diamond internally flawless jewelry was a way of life for her and there were times when they would go into jewelry stores and see what the jeweler's had to offer and there were times when she wanted to have jewelry made for her because of one reason or the other Richard Burton would go to the store with her and spend the entire afternoon at Bulgari in Rome when they were filming Cleopatra and Nicola Bulgari and Paolo Bulgari said Richard Burton used to wait to see the emotion in her eyes because then he knew if she really liked the jewelry but every time someone bought her a gift every time she bought something was a great occasion the thing that makes Elizabeth Taylor's fashion collection and very special is that she was a superstar before superstars had to have stylists she didn't have stylists all designers waiting in hotel rooms for her to choose clothes she actually went the most beautiful players and kept them brilliantly afterwards as her life developed save did the clothes from the greats of dear evening dresses of the 60s when she stinks a pretty grand stuff in Hollywood and wherever to the 70s when is caftan and Big Dance so it's kind of fun and it's someone's history in the drape of a dress but it's also pretty much the history of fashion over the last sixty years there are certain key designers in this collection Dior to start with and deal in the sixties was fabulous it had the best work rooms in Paris the Couture was magical and beaded embellished I love the word embellished embellished with an inch of its life in the seventies she goes on a kind of bit of a magical mystery hippie tour there was a designer in England called Thea Porter who looked in her as a very curious it looked like a Moroccan who could joint in say London Soho and she used to make beautiful calf turns out of antique materials and they were exquisite then mr. Taylor discovers Michael Vollrath an American designer who had a big relationship in what he did with artists at the time Andy Warhol Keith Haring and Basquiat and that's a very interesting capsule collection and then we go to Milan and we have a Saachi doing beaded Elizabeth jackets beaded Cleopatra jackets she goes off on sideswipes to chanel from time to time lots of Valentino dating to her time in Rome as Cleopatra lots of Valentino so it's the big designers of the late 20th century she used to go to the collections like they rich women at the time they do then make the dress in whatever colleague she wanted because that's all the tools all about and they make sure the perhaps she was the only one in America with that dress you don't want to women turn um Chasen's or Mocambo whatever wearing the same white deal with their beading - you say it's a big production there's a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes from the moment we get the jewelry until the day it's hammered down on that rostrum and moved on to the new owner there's tremendous work that goes behind it there's a great team that we have here from the administrators the cataloger has the shipping coordinator the safe coordinator make sure that everything comes into the vault every night a decision was made early on to approach it almost by decade if you will that wasn't a strict guideline but at least that helped us in wrapping our our head around how how and where we start we'll try to give you an insight as to what how what her style looked like how she was dressing during certain periods of time in her life and it would be it would be like why to see a museum exhibition accepted an auction house my expectations are that it gives you an insight into into what her life was like through all these decades I want it to be very elegant um respectful befitting not only a an iconic American film star but also an incredible mother a humanitarian all of those women sort of rolled into one and I think the key to doing of creating this exhibition is something that addresses each and every one of those issues and doesn't rely on something gimmicky a number of the garments were photographed on this tailor so we're fortunate enough to have that sort of a record there's an amazing crew here of Christie's people going through stacks and stacks of family photographs trade magazines photo albums looking for photographs of Miss Taylor wearing a lot of the the fashion that we have here for example we have this piece that we've flagged it and you can see it throughout we have this dress we now know that she wore it to the Golden Globes it's quite an eclectic collection and lots of variety lots of sequins beads quite Ling e colors lots of different types of skins and leathers so it's challenging because of the volume there are over 300 bags and all grouped into different Lots and there are many different designers so we've got Valentino Gucci Dior Louboutin and I have to go back through and work out what collections they're from and date them everything is in really good condition actually it looks like she only sort of wore things once and so she'd have one bag for one outfit and a pair of shoes and she just worked for one occasion and then it went back in a box or storage and it's pretty much perfect I think the main objective is for people to grasp and be very mindful of the most beautiful image I can remember of Elizabeth Taylor what we started doing with the collection was essentially designing the identity and then that identikit supplied to many different elements so elements that have been designed that go flow as small as they touch that go attached to the jewellery pieces and also a fashion items are going to be on display and they're going to be on tour to the catalog general style the box that is going to be holding the catalogues the identity has been also applied to actually the photo shoots the photo shoots that we have been developing with several teams just to be included in the catalog in the shows as well and then we will be looking at work or that identity has also via is going to be applied to the water we're doing for the exhibitions for tours and for the largest exhibition in New York we work into the marketing of the sale advertising media print media and so where does all of this going on we look into shipping the items now to locations at Christie's worldwide clients come in meet with the specialist ask his or her advice on what a particular jewel is worth you know what it is that once you pay for it why is it good why is it maybe better than the next one out there I think it's paramount because Elizabeth Taylor was a global icon you can go and ask anybody in any part of the world who Elizabeth Taylor was and they're only open I think Elizabeth Taylor is unforgettable because it's a big life for a start she just was in Burton's words just breathtakingly beautiful she was famous for being herself larger than life more beautiful than anyone more scandals more fun more guts more is more she said she's right you

Channel: Christie's

Views: 1,351,149

Rating: 4.8530974 out of 5

Keywords: Elizabeth Taylor (Film Actor), Auction, Jewelry, Christie's, Art, Buy, The Collection of Elizabeth Taylor, Elizabeth Taylor, jewellery, jewels, diamonds, acessories

Id: ODPUwi_DxMs

Length: 9min 37sec (577 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 16 2012