Japanese fashion designer Kenzo Takada will auction off some of the art that inspired his East-meets-West style, as he trades his plush Paris mansion for smaller digs on the Seine River.

The announcement came a month after the late Yves Saint-Laurent’s art collection was put up for auction by his partner Pierre Berge, a 373.5-million-euro bonanza that caused friction with China over a pair of looted bronze relics.

From Hopi Kachina dolls to bronze Buddhas, more than 1,000 pieces collected over the past two decades will be on the block at the June 16-17 sale organized by Aguttes auction house.

Most of the collection will have to go. Kenzo has sold his 12,000-square-foot Japanese-style wooden house that he built in 1987 in the courtyard of an apartment building near Paris’ Place de la Bastille, and will move into a Left Bank apartment about one-quarter that size this summer.

Kenzo said: “After 20 years in this house, I wanted to turn the page and live lighter. For parties, it was great, but sometimes when I’m here alone, it’s far too big.”

But not too big for his collection: Every conceivable surface is covered with objects that give the house a museum quality.

Paintings, photographs and engravings cover nearly every wall. Vases, sculptures and antique trinkets sprout from tables.

Most of the pieces are from Asia, but the collection also includes 19th century Kachina dolls from the American Southwest, masks made by the Punu people of Gabon, and a hatchet from a remote Pacific island.

Auctioneer Claude Aguttes, who is organising the June 16-17 sale, estimated the 1,200-odd items expected to go under the hammer at around 1.5 million euros, a drop in the ocean compared to the YSL sale.

Kenzo carved out a place in Paris couture in the 70s due to his use of colours and kimono-style designs and retired a decade ago after handing over his fashion empire and his first name to French luxury giant LVMH.

But it was only in the late 80s when he moved into his current home that he began bringing home pieces culled from abroad or from weekend forays at antique stalls.

His vast timbered home, a former factory hidden at the back of a Paris courtyard, was redesigned as a Japanese house complete with bamboo gardens, a cascade, balconies, and an indoor pool. It measures 1,200 square metres.

Source: AFP