Elton John’s Fashion and Art Collection is up for Sale at Christie’s NYC

Zara Flavia Dmello

The first time I saw Elton John, I was six years old, parked in front of my drawing room TV, and he, a vision in pink—sequinned blazer, round-tinted sunglasses—hunched over a piano at Madison Square Garden. I had heard him plenty before that point—my father’s Bose had practically memorised Goodbye Yellow Brick Road—but seeing him was something else entirely.

Now, decades later, a lifetime of Elton’s somethings else is going under the hammer. Christie’s is auctioning off The Collection of Sir Elton John: Goodbye Peachtree Road, this February in New York. Spanning his stage costumes, art collection, and the Versace-upholstery and tableware from his Atlanta home, it’s an estate sale of camp joy and and enough rhinestones to blind a small village. If Liberace had a yard sale, I imagine it might look something like this, perhaps with less restraint.

Built over a five-decade-long career, his wardrobe alone stands to be one of the most coveted in rock history, save only for Prince and possibly Hannah Montana’s. It’s been a headliner in its own right—one night a sequinned baseball uniform, the next, a Louis XIV-inspired cape, then a full Donald Duck suit just to keep things interesting.

And, as much of wacky, kitschy, and strange he took from fashion, he gave back in equal measure. A muse to designers like Bob Mackie, Annie Reavey, and Alessandro Michele, John has influenced everything from Gucci runways to stage costumes for generations of artists, cementing himself as the industry’s most dedicated maximalist. Among many things, it’s these pieces of clothing, now available to purchase at the auction, that had initially set him apart from his contemporaries who were all eschewing the androgynous trends of glam rock and roll.

Of course, this auction is about a lot more than clothes. Central to John’s collection is his former Atlanta home, a place that played a pivotal role in his life and recovery. Acquiring the condominium in 1992, the singer found solace in the warm community and recovery facilities of Atlanta, a city that supported him through his journey to sobriety. Much of what is now up for sale, both live and online, has lived within those walls.

John collected with the same exuberance that he dressed, his art including Basquiat and Warhol. These are works that would fit right into a contemporary museum but, for years, were simply part of his home decor. These renowned paintings sit alongside his more intimate artistic keepsakes like Your Song by Damien Hirst made personally for him and David Furnish and a portrait by Julian Schnabel.

His library of rare photography, featuring names like Herb Ritts and Richard Avedon, reveals an obsession with image-making, a lifelong fascination with how icons are built. The memorabilia section reads like a music historian’s fever dream: platinum records, handwritten lyrics, the piano that nursed tiny sparks of ideas into a wildfire discography. 

To call this just an auction would be underselling it. It’s a excavation of an musician who turned excess into art, who collected, adorned, and lived with an unrelenting commitment to theatricality. If his clothes are the spectacle, these objects are the subtext—the quieter but no less revealing parts of a legacy that, even as it’s divided and sold, remains unmistakably his.

This exhibition will be free and open to the public from February 9 through February 21 at Christie’s 20 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City. For more information, visit Christie’s official website.