FASHION Magazine

A peek inside the world of beauty collectors who decorate their vanities—and
their lives—with the world’s most exquisite cosmetics.

By S.S. Fair

Bugattis, Fabergé eggs, Netsuke figurines: People collect all sorts of weird, wonderful things. At a 2009 Christie’s auction, an empty perfume bottle from the collection of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé sold for nearly 9 million euros. Crafted in 1921, it was a Marcel Duchamp “readymade”—a work of art made from an existing object, in this case a Rigaud perfume bottle Duchamp had decorated with a Man Ray photograph of himself dressed as his female alter ego, Rrose Selavy.

Maybe the potions and lotions in your possession will never command such stratospheric prices, but money is not always the end game. We collect to adorn ourselves and our surroundings: Imagine, if you will, a scentless, colourless world. Too sad.