Raphael Badalov

Karl Lagerfeld collected Chrome Hearts for years. When he died in 2019 the collection went quiet — tied up in his estate, nowhere to be found. Chrome Hearts themselves said they had no idea where it had gone.

In April, someone replied to one of our Instagram stories saying they had it. I was in Hong Kong at the time. Thirteen pieces: gold bracelets and wallet chains, a one-of-one necklace in gunmetal covered in black diamonds, a flag belt buckle numbered three of eleven with the Pledge of Allegiance engraved on the back. We matched the necklace to a photo of Lagerfeld wearing it in 2013. Ten days after that first message, it was sold.

It's on Broadway, behind an appointment. Part shop, part archive — racks of Chrome Hearts, cases of jewellery and sunglasses, and a back of pieces that never make it to the website. If you want to actually hold the things, this is where you come.

A one-of-one pocket watch — Patek Philippe movement, Chrome Hearts everything else, down to the cross-link chain it hangs from. A buyer in Japan wanted it the same day I got the photos. I was on the night flight to Tokyo, and it was gone within a day of the first message.

This came inside a larger buy in Hong Kong — a full collection, six figures in one go. The bench is the kind of thing that almost never surfaces: cross-quilted leather, made in tiny numbers. Furniture is its own corner of this world, and most people never see it.

A matching pair, cross-patched in leather, made once and never again. Chrome Hearts has put out a small amount of furniture and home pieces over the years; finding two that actually go together is the rare part. These sit in the archive now.

Worn, photographed, the history on them accounted for. Pieces with a name attached carry differently — you're buying where they've been as much as the thing itself.

Richard Stark started Chrome Hearts. This was his mother's office chair — purple leather, quilted, cross-embossed. It's one of the more personal things I've ended up with, the kind of object that isn't really for sale so much as it's handed on.

Most of what ends up in the showroom is found on trips like this — two months on the ground across Hong Kong, Tokyo and Seoul, buying. Asia treats Chrome Hearts differently: the condition is better, the prices run higher, the attention to detail is a different sport. You go where the pieces are.