'Why I'm selling my rare Dior x Air Jordans and Lewis Hamilton designs at Tennants Auctioneers'

“It's one of my favourite things,” Edward says. “But what am I going to do with these things? I've had them for years. I've got what I need from them. It's time to move on and find new inspirations.”

There are around 100 of Edward’s favourite things coming up for sale on November 20 at Tennants Auction House in Leyburn.

The Edward Crutchley Research Archive will offer rare designer pieces by Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior and more, from a collection of fashion and textiles gathered by the Yorkshire-born designer during his years of travel and research.

Highlights include a pair of Dior x Air Jordan 1 High Trainers, designed by Kim Jones, a rare Louis Vuitton x Supreme Monogram Red Denim Christmas Stocking, and several pieces from Dior Homme’s collaboration with Lewis Hamilton.

Edward speaks to me about the collection from his home in London where, since leaving Dior in August last year, he has been working as a creative director and consultant on projects he is not allowed to talk about.

He grew up in Clapham and went to Settle High School, where a fashion design project sparked his future path. After A-levels, he went to Central Saint Martins for a foundation course and a BA degree in Womenswear.

He got a job at Betty Jackson and plunged into the world of fashion production. Two years later, he moved to Pringle of Scotland, working on fabric buying and development, beginning his relationship with those esteemed Yorkshire weavers that make fabrics for international luxury fashion houses.

Moving to Paris, he spent 11 years designing prints and textiles for Louis Vuitton, under Marc Jacobs and Kim Jones. Research journeys to Japan, China, Indonesia and elsewhere introduced him to traditional weaving, dyeing, embroidery and craftsmanship, and he began collecting for his archive.

Edward established his own label in 2015, showing at London Fashion Week for 10 years. Lady Gaga, Harry Styles and Nicole Kidman have all worn his designs. In 2019 he became the first designer to win both the International Woolmark Prize and its Innovation Award. Subsequent roles at Christian Dior and Fendi allowed him to continue his collaboration with the world’s finest mills and craftspeople.

Edward came home to Yorkshire over the summer and, together with his mum, made his first visit to Tennants Auction House. “It's great that it's a community hub rather than just purely an auction house,” he says. “Friends, they said, ‘oh yeah, everyone looks there, the Met, the V&A, all the serious collectors’. I was like, ‘great, sounds perfect’.

His auction collection contains a number of Japanese kabuki performance kimonos. “They're quite extreme and I'm drawn to the extreme, to things that are really colourful, almost brash, perhaps. If you want to get into that world of kimono, these are quite rare. Everything's very reasonable,” he says.

“There's also things from South-east Asia, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, also from West Africa, Southern Africa. It's really just things that I've come across that have inspired me.

“It's not about money. I've loved and cherished these things. I've got what I need from them. Hopefully, other people can find them equally as inspiring.

“There's also things that I was given while I was working at Vuitton and Dior. The Air Jordans are a prime example. “They're made for a real luxury house standard, of course, limited edition, so they're very difficult to find, especially mint, in-box, unworn, absolutely perfect. They were released in summer 2020.”

The lots also include Edward’s leaving gifts from Dior, including a green monogram silk set and an orange shirt from a Lewis Hamilton collaboration. There is also a Dior blue striped robe in a fabric called Kutnia.

“It's a medieval textile from Turkey that was reinvented about five years ago by this one textile enthusiast,” Edward says. “It's kind of the story of the Silk Road, that fabric, where all of the silk and dyeing techniques have travelled across Asia into Istanbul, so it's a real piece of textile history.

“Textiles, it's about how we express who we are. It's really the physical embodiment of culture to me. And what I get out of them is they take my mind to a different place. You know, I might be looking at these things thinking about the technique. How was this achieved? How did they weave this? Why did they make that embroidery decision? But that thought process is inspired by what I'm seeing. It's making me think in different ways. That's what I really get out of them. And I think for other people, maybe it's not as deep, maybe it's more surface. They just want these things because they're beautiful. But maybe it will spark a thought, it will spark a new idea. And what's money when it comes to an amazing idea? Nothing.”

Edward’s own collection is resting for now as he considers bringing it back. “It’s something I want to really take my time on,” he says.

Much of the fashion industry is going through challenges. “Times are tough,” he says. “It's okay at the bottom, it's pretty good at the very, very top. Everything else is suffering.

“It's that same problem we've had, especially in the UK, for years and years. People don't want to spend money on clothes because they don't think of clothing as something that will last.

“That's not what I do personally. I will save up and buy something that I really want knowing that it's going to last me 10, 15, 20 years.”

Edward’s auction collection represents a working archive that has informed his practice as a designer. He says: “Every textile, garment, book and artefact has been acquired because it taught me something about the history of dress, the ingenuity of its makers or the cultural stories woven into cloth.”

The Edward Crutchley Research Archive is part of the Fashion, Costume and Textiles sales at Tennants in Leyburn on November 20 at 10:30am. Viewing times: November 18-19, 10am-3pm and morning of the sale from 8am. Tennants.co.uk