The dot COMME auction, staged in partnership with Kerry Taylor Auctions, opens on 15 September 2026 at 10:00 AM at 249–253 Long Lane, London SE1 4PR, offering 265 pieces from the collection of Melbourne-based Octavius La Rosa. For anyone who’s watched fashion auction houses slowly warm to avant-garde Japanese design, this one is a fairly large moment.
La Rosa, who trades as dot COMME, has spent years assembling what WWD reports as approximately 4,000 pieces of Comme des Garçons. The sale puts 265 of them on the block, spanning from 1975 to the present, with 14 lots pre-dating 1980. Pre-sale viewings run on 11, 13, and 14 September.
From Bedsheets to Lumps and Bumps: What’s Actually in the Sale
The range is genuinely broad. At one end, a spring 1984 wool and cotton ensemble described by La Rosa as a personal favourite: a rare piece from the period when Kawakubo was still finding her footing in Paris. At the other, the sculptural excesses of the 1997 Body Meets Dress, Dress Meets Body collection, known colloquially as the ‘lumps and bumps’ collection. A comparable piece from that series previously sold at Kerry Taylor Auctions for £14,000.
The catalogue also features the ‘Pirates’ collection from Autumn-Winter 1981–82, estimated at £800–£1,200, and the ‘Patchworks and X’ collection from Spring-Summer 1983, estimated at £1,200–£1,800. Entry-level lots, including some circa-1982 pieces, carry estimates as low as £60–£100, according to the Kerry Taylor Auctions catalogue. So yes, there’s a range.
Junya Watanabe, whose label sits under the Comme des Garçons umbrella according to Wallpaper*, also features: his fall 2006 radical reconstruction of army fatigues is in the mix, snaking and twisting around the female silhouette. About 20 vintage menswear ensembles round out the offering.
The dot COMME Auction and Why Kerry Taylor Auctions Makes Sense for It
La Rosa chose Kerry Taylor Auctions deliberately. The house has built a reputation for treating fashion as historical material culture rather than mere collectible couture; its roster has included Mouna Ayoub’s Dior haute couture and Martin Margiela’s personal archive. Alex Baddeley, director and auctioneer at the house, frames the Comme des Garçons canon as a body of work with very few public access points.
‘Beyond this auction,’ Baddeley says, ‘the only other way to track all that Rei Kawakubo has done would have been to go see something like the Costume Institute exhibition about Comme.’
The house has some recent form here. According to WWD, a deliberately tattered sweater and skirt from the fall 1982 ‘Holes’ collection sold on 16 June 2026 for £65,000 to a major museum, setting a world auction record for a Comme des Garçons design. Buyers should note that Kerry Taylor Auctions applies a 25% buyer’s premium, exclusive of VAT, per the Kerry Taylor Auctions website.
Baddeley makes a reasonable point about the ‘lumps and bumps’ collection specifically: pieces that were once deemed unwearable are now showing up on people in the street. The auction is, in part, a bet that the market has caught up to Kawakubo’s vision across all eras.
La Rosa’s Reasons, and What Comes Next
La Rosa is parting with these pieces partly to fund the evolution of his dot COMME business. He has run his Melbourne store for 15 years and operates a web store alongside it. WWD reports he plans to move to a larger location in September.
The archive is also heading to Paris. While the snippet describes a planned relocation, Kerry Taylor Auctions’ own lot listing states that a permanent location in Saint-Germain has already been established, with several pop-up spaces preceding it. The thousands of pieces not in this sale will eventually be viewable there.
For La Rosa, the driving motivation is straightforward. ‘I really admire the courage to be always in search of the new,’ he says. ‘It’s a testament to the brand that it can still have such reach and that it can still speak to a new audience today nearly 60 years since its inception.’
The ‘Holes’ world record and that £14,000 Body Meets Dress comparable suggest the market is listening. Whether the 265 lots on 15 September confirm it or test it is the only question worth watching.
