When Kim Kardashian sashayed up the staircase at New York’s Met Gala in May, wearing the crystal-studded “naked dress” Marilyn Monroe wore to sing happy birthday to President John F Kennedy, calls to auction houses surged in from an unlikely source: asset managers.
Demand for collectibles — one of the more “alternative” alternative assets — is soaring as appetite for recession-proof inflation hedges grows. Wary of overpriced, volatile stocks and bored to tears of low-yielding bonds, investors are increasingly pushing into niche asset classes such as wine, baseball cards, sneakers and diamonds.
Kardashian’s sartorial display called Wall Street’s attention to just how rapidly the dress — which is usually kept in an exhibition so as to preserve the delicate fabric — has accrued value over the past few decades. The garment gained 300 per cent between its 1999 sale for $1.26mn and its 2016 sale for $4.8mn. The S&P 500 index gained a relatively meagre 138 per cent over the same period.