Members of the Bored Ape Yacht Club community have started to ‘suit up’ to commemorate the landmark Christie’s auction that features a selection of suited BAYC NFTs.

The movement started when Twitter user ‘stew_eth’ encouraged the community to put their “suits on for Christie’s”. From there, it spread throughout the expansive BAYC community on Discord and Twitter and led to many holders dressing up their apes in the coveted black suit.

To help the mass ‘suit up’, early BAYC holder Ape Collector created suitape.com – a website that allows BAYC holders to dress up their apes and mutants in an assortment of brightly coloured suit and tie variants.

The Black Suit trait is one of the rarest available in the BAYC collection with only 42/10,000 apes adorned with the digital outfit.

The Christie’s auction, dubbed “No Time Like Present“, will run from 11am on September 11 to September 28 (HKT).

The lot includes four BAYC NFTs that have the trait alongside six CryptoPunks and four MeeBits from developer Larva Labs. Christie’s took to Twitter to ask the community to show off their best looks ahead of the auction, using the hashtag #SUITSON4CHRISTIES.

Christie’s is holding another NFT auction for Art Blocks Curated – a collection of NFT-based art. NBA star Stephen Curry also changed his profile picture to a suited ape, much to the delight of the BAYC community.

Additionally, other NFT communities like Cool Cats and the Koala Intelligence Agency were also keen to get involved in the ‘suit up’ event.

Demand is increasing for BAYC NFTs

Due to the auction on Christie’s and BAYC’s status as a “blue-chip” NFT collection, recent demand for the apes has increased drastically among the wider NFT space.

NFT Metaverse platform The Sandbox recently bought a BAYC NFT for a record $2.42m (740ETH) while fellow auction house Sotheby’s held its debut BAYC auction.

The lot, which included 101 apes, sold for a staggering $24.39m, smashing the initial estimates placed on the collection.

The collection remains widely and fairly distributed despite recent demand, with 5.5k unique owners holding an ape. Sales and trading volume are also starting to increase as BAYC apes continue to become one of the most coveted collections in the NFT space.