But the first item comes from the wonderful Franklin, who let us know that Christie's now has the December catalogue up, and it's auctioning 20 Audrey items! I'd last heard there would be the Breakfast at Tiffany's dress and two Charade dresses, but nowhere near around 20 different items. There's actually 21, if you count two photo collections going up that feature portraits of Audrey. Anyway, Christie's is good enough to have good-sized pictures of each item next to a description (and heart-stopping estimate of the sale in British pounds), so you can see just the Audrey items here. And if you're too lazy to look, here's some pictures:
A sketch by Edith Head (most likely one of her assistants, since Edith couldn't draw) of the famous dress. Givenchy sent the patterns and instuctions on creating Audrey's wardrobe to Paramount and the Edith Head troupe and they would make up the dresses. Expected price? £10,000 - 15,000!
The Charade dress, one of my favourites from the movie, minus the bolero jacket she wore with it. Expected price? £8,000 - 12,000!
An Edith Head sketch of a never-used dress for Sabrina. I'm guessing it was supposed to be one of Sabrina's after dresses, before she learned that Givenchy would be designing all of them. Though it does look an awful lot like a dress in Funny Face . . . Expected price? £3,000 - 5,000!There are still a lot more fantastic things I didn't mention, like unseen photos from Breakfast at Tiffany's taken inside Tiffany's, beautiful magazine covers we've never seen, book mock-ups, lobby cards, and even a batch of letters Audrey wrote to her father and stepmother! I'm wondering who gave those up. Remember, all but the first item listed (the photo batch) will be auctioned off December 5th in London.
Next up is a rather upsetting article. Some of you may have heard that recently a Brazilian model by the name of Anna Carolina Reston died due to complications from anorexia. She suffered for three weeks in a hospital, lapsing into a coma and dying because of the disease. Once or twice in these articles Audrey has come up, mainly to cite some thinner celebrities that may give girls and women unhealthy body images, but this is the first article in that batch to blatantly state as "fact" that Audrey herself had an eating disorder. The full line about it as follows: "Audrey Hepburn was thin due to her publicly known heavy case bulimia, but her body suffered later on tremendously." How sick! I'd love to know where he got this information from, since this is the first I've ever heard of this bulemia. I know Diana Maychick's biography said that Audrey was anorexic, but most people who blindly say that Audrey had an eating disorder don't know anything about her, let alone her starved childhood and the effect that had on her. You can write to the author here and let him know a thing or three about publishing false rumours as resounding facts. (I tried yesterday but the form kept screwing up on me; perhaps you'll have better luck.)
Moving on to happier topics, Gucci has just released a book on their long and illustrious history with a giant (and expensive) picture book. Audrey is featured in it, though I wasn't able to find any pictures as of yet. The book reprints old and newer ads, as well as their most famous and loyal clients sporting their goods. You can read more about the book here, and if you really must have it, you can find ordering information here.
Next up, designer Julien Macdonald recently was awarded an OBE, and chatted to the Queen (of England) about fashion. Audrey Hepburn seemed to have been mentioned an awful lot! Unfortunately, someone decided that a giant, glaring picture of Paris Hilton flashing 98% of her skin went better with the article. Still, it's nice to read how the unstoppable team of Hepburn and Givenchy is still such an influence on modern designers. To read more, click here.Currently going on in Atlanta, Georgia is the In Love In Paris All-Night Movie Marathon. It features most Audrey-centric films, starting with the film adaptation of Gigi (she originated the role on Broadway, but felt herself too old to play the 15 year old by the time the film was optioned), followed by Funny Face and Ninotchka, a Greta Garbo film. More information can be found here.
And remember how I thought I'd rediscovered the original paper dolls, but with more costumes? Turns out that's a totally different set! Here's the original set. Sometimes the site takes a while to load, but I'd say both sets of dolls are equally good. My only complaint about this set is that it has more generic clothes instead of her film costumes, but at least they're very Audrey-ish clothes and the accessories are better.
Next up, I've found (or rediscovered) the online home of the Audrey Hepburn Children's Home, at Hackensack Medical Center in New Jersey. I think this is the first big event the Children's Fund ever did, and their first tie-in with a children's hospital. Natalie Portman helped break ground for the center and is now the honorary godmother.
If you've ever needed a step-by-step manual telling you how to look like Audrey, then look no further! Actually, maybe you should look a little further. This Wiki How To says that to dress like Audrey Hepburn, you should buy a pink polo shirt and wear it tucked in with jeans or a flaring skirt. That's it! Um . . . Maybe you can help update the page a bit. Oh, and under the Things You Need section, it actually lists "gaudy jewelry." What? When did she ever wear gaudy jewelry -- or even any jewelry, besides her wedding band and sometimes small earrings -- in her life? Weird.
And lastly, a secret guilty pleasure of mine. Have you ever wanted to dress up as Princess Anne or Jo Stockton, or even Eliza Doolittle, but just couldn't manage the jewelry? I know, most of us don't have metalsmith or jeweler friends (I had one and he still couldn't swing it), but now you can buy exact replicas of their jewelry! This is actually a pretty old find, but I always lost the link and could never share, and I think a lot of people still don't know about it. Anyway, Tiaratown has very good replicas of Princess Anne's tiara, necklace and earbobs from the embassy ball, plus Jo Stockton's crystal headgear from her transformation scene in Funny Face. Also available is Eliza's tiara from the ball, and a very strange thing that's supposed to be Holly Golightly's tiara. All in all, these are very well done, and all but the last two come available in silver or gold. So maybe you should start saving your pennies for next Halloween!
3 comments:
Believe me, I'm a doctor, and Hepburn had anorexia.
I suffered with eating disorders for over ten years and i agree with the good doc and i think she did. we never presume to people's personnel lives and let's be clear about there is no such thing as a "standard " anorexic or bulimic.Some anorexics develop the illness and die within months as they eat nothing,some restrict calories and although thin will live for decades,bulimics can hide it even better.The effects of the war could have easily conditioned her to eat less but this is still classed as an eating disorder. Forget what anybody will tell you about a fast metabolism etc etc.I have fully recovered and have a fast metabolism and weigh a healthy 9st.Audrey (at a guess) was about 6st.
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