Everything
How much would you spend on a vest once worn by Kanye West? If you said over $70,000 you’d be in the running to own the bulletproof vest that Ye wore during his second DONDA performance in Atlanta.
Because we all have a cool $70,000 just lying around…
The black vest was sold at auction through the prestigious Christie’s and the hammer came down at the official price of US$75,000 and of course, being Kanye, it wasn’t just an auction of a black vest. It was also the sale of an NFT at the same time.
This one-of-one (as it’s been described) NFT sold in tandem with the garment was billed as a ‘digital representation” of the vest, complete with handpainted DONDA on one side and the letters MBD (My Body Different) scratched into the other by Ye himself.
According to a press release, the digital rendition of the vest is the first NFT to be offered in luxury sale at Christie’s and is “minted by Ethernity, a community-oriented platform that produces limited edition authenticated NFTs, on November 11, 2021, the NFT is complete with digital 3D data, empowering this iconic symbol to live forever in both the physical world and the larger metaverse.”
The vest’s journey from the body of Kanye to Christie’s auction house is almost a story in and of itself.
According to one report, after Ye’s performance in Atlanta he handed the vest over to a security guard who (allegedly) promptly sold it on to a reseller for US$20,000. The sale at Christie’s was almost triple what the auction house is estimated to have originally paid for it.
The common perception of Christie’s as dealing with antiques and the estates of royal families and oligarchs is clearly one that needs to retire.
Ye’s vest and NFT auction was sold under the auction house’s larger Handbags x HYPE: the Luxury Remix sale that would seem to specialise in the sort of product we’re more accustomed to see on Grailed and GOAT. There’s been sales of Off-White Nikes going for US$62,500 and even a pair of Yeezy 350s that fetched US$37,500.
At least this is better than the bags of air from a Kanye west performance that was being sold on eBay once upon a time.
