Audrey Hepburn's My Fair Lady Ascot dress sold - again

It was nearly 10 years ago that I went to a nondescript building in Beverly Hills and got to see Audrey Hepburn's iconic black and white Ascot races dress from My Fair Lady before it was sold at auction for $100,000. (The hat was included as well.) I even got to take a picture with it! Back then, it was sold to a man who had grand ideas to open up his own memorabilia museum.

Fast forward to this weekend, where the dress was once again up for auction in Beverly Hills. But this time the person selling it was none other than legendary actress Debbie Reynolds! At some point she had bought the dress and had a costume museum of her own, but things changed and she had to sell a good amount of her amazing collection to pay off the debts. Marilyn Monroe's white dress from The Seven Year Itch - you know, that dress - sold for a whopping $4.6 million. The Ascot dress? It did alright, selling for $3.7 million. That's quite a raise in value in just ten years!

No word yet on who the new owner is, or if the costume will be put on display anywhere.

Funny Face hat up for auction

Another big Hollywood memorabilia auction is coming up, and this time the bright yellow/orange/green hat Audrey wore while singing "How Long Has This Been Going On?" in Funny Face is going up on the block.

Julien's Auctions will be putting the hat up during a large two day auction May 7 and 8, but if you are in the L.A. area right now you can drop in their showroom in Beverly Hills and see the hat for yourself! Not touch, of course, for they have it securely behind glass, but you are welcome to look all you want and also see the other fantastic costumes and memorabilia they have available. Indiana Jones, Lucille Ball, tons of Marilyn Monroe, Marlene Dietrich, even The Brady Bunch, Heroes, and Planet of the Apes!

I stopped in last Thursday to have a look around and photograph the hat to share with those of you who can't make the trip to see it in person, and everyone present was so helpful and kind and very giving there. A first rate staff! If you can make it out before the auction, the exhibit will be open to the public until May 6, and hours are from 10 am to 5 pm. The address is 9665 Wilshire Blvd. Beverly Hills.

The hat is expected to fetch between $2000-3000, and comes with the costume sketch for Marion's gown and hat and a DVD copy of Funny Face.

a missed exhibit

I'm busy working on improving the website for you, but while searching for a lost picture, I stumbled across this sweet blog. It's very nice overall, but here's one thing I missed completely: an Audrey exhibit in Paris last year! To coincide with the auction of still more costumes and personal wardrobe, an exhibit was set up at the end of last year in Paris, and the author of Parisian Party of course went. And took very gorgeous pictures, and knows her stuff. I don't want to swipe any of her pictures, so you'll just have to visit her site for yourself. Link directly to the Audrey exhibit here.

Speaking of things I've missed, when the most famous dress in the world, the long black Breakfast at Tiffany's dress, was auctioned in 2006 it was widely publicised when someone wore it. The model for Christie's, seen out and about modeling on the streets, was published everywhere. When Natalie Portman posed in it for Harper's Bazaar, I bought a copy to carefully cut apart, scan and share with you. But for some reason I heard nothing about model Georgia Frost modeling the gown for ES Magazine! Thankfully, I happened to stumble across Style Bubble, who has pictures and a brief write-up for your viewing pleasure.

some quick tidbits

There's a lot of nice little stories floating about, so I'm going to gather them all together for you:

- Our Dutch friend Joop says that dear Audrey was recently voted the most beautiful woman ever, which is quite an achievement! Lovely picture and short story (in Dutch) here.

- A dress from Funny Face recently went up for auction and was sold for the impressive price of $56,250.00, though I can't seem to find which dress it is. Anyone? You can read more here. (From Kendal)

- And finally, an article on how Audrey Hepburn shaped sex. It's an interview with Sam Wasson, author of the new Fifth Avenue, 5 AM book, and the interview was done at Café Audrey in Hollywood, a place where I've spent quite a bit of time! You can read the interview here, but be warned that Sam drops the F-bomb towards the end.

(at Café Audrey in 2008)

on the fabulous auction

As I'd mentioned here a while ago, there's a huge auction coming soon in London that will sell quite a lot of Audrey's wardrobe. At the time information was fairly scarce, but thanks to people finally putting out press releases and Vogue picking up on the story, we finally have some information.

Kerry Taylor Auctions will be selling a good collection of Audrey's personal and film wardrobe, every piece authenticated, on December 7 and 8. This is big news not only because it's rare to find wardrobe that has been authenticated, it's even more rare to find such a large collection being auctioned all at once. More good news out of this: half of the proceeds go directly to the Audrey Hepburn Children's Fund! What a nice surprise.

It was a surprise to learn that the clothes being auctioned off are currently part of a small touring exhibit that has or will hit New York and Paris before being displayed in London. I wish I would have known sooner! Not that I can just jet off at the drop of a hat, but so other people in the area could have advance notice. Bah. Anyway, collectors and designers are very excited about all of this and estimate that the auction could raise more than £100,000. Not too shabby! And if past auctions have been any indications, this will be a conservative lowball estimate.

So there's that! It'd be nice to have even more information come out soon, but we shall see. In the meantime, here's the article in Vogue, here's a press release via the Children's Fund site (PDF), and here's the auction page from Kerry Taylor's website with pictures and information on the lots, plus the tour dates for the exhibit. I'm afraid we've just missed New York, but if anyone is in Paris or will be December 1 and 2, you still have a chance!

P.S. For all you fashionistas out there, there looks to be quite a lot of vintage Chanel jewelry and couture up for sale as well. Absolutely gorgeous and definitely worth a look. And some Lanvin, Balenciaga, Dior, Schiaparelli, Mary Quant and, of course, Givenchy.

Audrey Auctions

Now that I'm laid up in bed for a day, I have time to share some auction news with you! (Before I must finish some homework, that is.) First, Lyon & Turnbull on London just had a rather large Modern and Contemporary Art auction yesterday, and featured a few pictures of Audrey photographed by Bob Willoughby and a couple other photographers. From what I can tell, two of the five prints were sold, and went for £400 and £600, not a bad price! If you're curious to see which photographs were up on the block you can go here and scroll down to Lot 131. The entire auction was quite diverse, with everything from fashion prints to Picasso sketches.

The next auction in question will happen sometime in December through Kerry Taylor Auctions, and will feature quite a lot of Audrey's wardrobe, over 30 pieces. This alone is pretty exciting, but it also seems that most of the clothing in this auction is Givenchy, which is even better. There are a few film wardrobe pieces, including that divine black lace dress from How to Steal a Million (right) and a black dress worn for Paris When It Sizzles promo shots, and even some accessories and personal letters from the very early days of her career. It looks to be an exciting auction that will most likely drum up a fair amount of press, so keep an eye out on the newsstands for some neat articles and pictures. You can read more about the auction via the Telegraph (and thanks to Kendal for sending the link!), and keep checking Kerry Taylor's website for more information as the date gets closer. I'm sure the lot will be featured in the Passion For Fashion auction beginning December 8, and you can order a catalogue if you'd like through the site.

Audrey Hepburn poster auction this weekend!

If you're a more serious Audrey Hepburn collector with some money to burn, you might be interested in a huge vintage poster auction going on this weekend. The Fifth Annual Hollywood Poster Auction is happening November 10th and 11th in New York at the Hotel Pennsylvania. The auction features a huge collection of vintage Hollywood film posters, from early Garbo through the 60s. If you were interested in bidding but won't be in New York at the time, you can also place an absentee bid online through their eBay profile and bid live at the time of the auction. You can view the whole collection that will be up for grabs here, or just look at the Audrey posters here.

another Audrey Hepburn dress up for auction

I don't think I've ever seen so many Audrey Hepburn dresses up for auction in such a short period of time! Just this morning it was announced that Christie's would have a film memorabilia sale at its auction house in South Kensington on December 19th, and a dress made for and worn by Audrey in Charade will be up for sale. Unfortunately, Christie's website doesn't have any details about this auction up yet, so I can't find out which dress it is. I'll keep checking, though, and let you know as soon as I find any information.

In the meantime, you can read more about the auction as a whole here, and see some other great pieces that will be up for sale that day.

yet another Audrey Hepburn auction

Are you in the market for a small piece of Audrey Hepburn memorabilia, maybe one that isn't instantly recognizable? Then I may have the auction for you! Bonhams & Butterfields is having an auction in Los Angeles on December 9th full of film and animation memorabilia. One of their lots, which they are making quite a big deal about, is the inkwell from Professor Henry Higgins's desk in My Fair Lady. What's odd is that they're marketing this as Audrey Hepburn memorabilia, as opposed to tying it in with Rex Harrison, and as far as I know Audrey never even touched the thing. It's lovely, though, being Victorian-style cut glass. The press release even charmingly points out two scenes in the film where the inkwell is clearly visible. If I had ever gotten around to doing screengrabs of My Fair Lady, I could possibly find it for you, but I haven't (I'm waiting to get the two-disc special edition to screengrab).

Anyway, it's an entertaining read altogether. You can read the full press release here, and read more about the auction as a whole through the Bonhams website here. No lot information is up yet, but there are viewing times scheduled, so for any L.A. fans out there, it might be worth it to stop in and take some pictures. Oh, and the inkwell is expected to sell for $1,000-1,500.

Audrey Hepburn's pink cocktail dress to be on display in Ireland?

I have only found one news source as of yet, but it looks as if the winner of the hot pink cocktail dress worn by Audrey Hepburn during filming of Breakfast at Tiffany's has indeed been identified, despite their request to remain anonymous. According to RTÉ.ie, the new owner of the size zero dress is Newbridge Silverware. The company purchased the dress to display in their new style museum which opens tomorrow in County Kildare.

I'm not doubting the validity of this story per se, and it would be really fantastic to have someone purchase an iconic dress that Audrey actually wore and display it for everyone to see, but I'm just a little wary because no one else is reporting this -- yet, anyway. Has anyone else heard anything about this?

Audrey Hepburn's pink cocktail dress sold for $192,000

Today was the big Christie's auction for yet another round of Audrey Hepburn memorabilia. This time the big seller was a hot pink cocktail dress actually worn by Audrey during filming of Breakfast at Tiffany's, and sold for nearly ten times its estimated selling price of $20,000-30,000 US dollars. The winner of the dress was a European bidder who wished to remain anonymous. If you remember, the same thing happened with the black dress sold last December, and it eventually came out that it was bought by the House of Givenchy, so maybe the identity will be revealed in time.

Also sold today in the same auction was an autographed Sabrina publicity photo, which went for $1,920; a rare photograph of Audrey in Switzerland taken by photographer Sanford Roth, which sold for $720; a photo of Audrey and her Yorkshire terrier Mr. Famous, also taken by Sanford Roth, which sold for $960; and a batch of costumes which included a dress worn by Audrey for the TV movie Love Among Thieves, which sold for $1,920.

When I have a little bit more time (possibly Friday), I'll put up a special page on the website similar to the page I made for the first Christie's auction that will have more detailed information on each item that was auctioned off today, as well as its estimated price and actual selling price. So stay tuned! In the meantime, there are two good articles out about the auction so far: the first is from Rugby Review Today, and the second is from the International Herald Tribune.

new Hepburn book delayed?

The last time I mentioned Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's, it was to note that the release date for the book was May 28th. That apparently hasn't happened, though Amazon and Barnes and Noble still list the release date as May 2007. Well, they've only got two days left! Hopefully this book won't be as delayed as late as the (lovely and cute) Taschen Icons book was last year.

Also, I apologize for the lack of regular updates recently. I've been overfull on work recently and just really needed some time to rest and catch up with myself. Hopefully, I'm all caught up now and can get back to some exciting Audrey news. Remember that her pink Breakfast at Tiffany's cocktail dress goes up for auction on Wednesday! It's bound to exceed the estimated sale price.

Grace Kelly follows Audrey Hepburn's footsteps

By now everyone must have heard about the Timeless Audrey exhibit. If you haven't, I shall refresh your memory: it's a traveling exhibit of memorabilia and personal items from Audrey Hepburn's public and private life, put together in an intimate, open show where you're close enough to actually touch certain items if you are so inclined. In fact, Audrey Hepburn Children's Fund executive director Ellen Erwin once said that people were a little too free to touch things -- women would walk off with Audrey's scarves! Anyway, this exhibit was around in New Orleans for a while, then toured Japan extensively for two years. It's being refurbished right now and is set to tour Europe next year, and who knows where it will go next?

But for now, Grace Kelly seems set to step in and fill that gap that the Timeless Audrey exhibit is leaving in its absence. To commemorate the 25 year anniversary of Princess Grace's untimely death, her family is putting together a remarkably similar concept called The Grace Kelly Years. Like Timeless Audrey, The Grace Kelly Years will feature a timeline of Grace's life and many artifacts from her short film career and private life as Princess of Monaco. The exhibit is set to open on July 12 in Monaco, and will then travel to New York in September, where two of Grace's dresses will be sold at auction. The interesting thing (besides the whole similar exhibit bit) is that her dresses will also be sold to benefit the charity of Grace's choice, and is expected to fetch more than the record-breaking amount that Audrey's black column dress from Breakfast at Tiffany's caught at auction last December. It's not recorded as to who gave that estimate, or if both dresses are being sold together or separately, or even where the dresses will be auctioned at, but we'll see if Grace can indeed knock Audrey out of her record-breaking spot. You can read more about Les Annees Grace Kelly (The Grace Kelly Years) here.

Christie's to auction off more Audrey Hepburn memorabilia

Christie's broke records and made international headlines when Audrey Hepburn's most famous little black dress, the iconic black column dress from the opening scenes of Breakfast at Tiffany's, sold for an unheard of £467,200 on December 5 of last year. This year, Christie's hopes to induce another bidding frenzy by auctioning off yet another classic Breakfast at Tiffany's dress at the end of the month. The dress going up for sale on May 30 in New York is Holly's cute little pink cocktail dress, worn in a pivotal scene in the film. Worth noting in this auction is the fact that, unlike the black dress auctioned last December, this pink dress was actually worn by Audrey in the film and possibly even afterward for publicity photos. This dress is expected to fetch between $20,000-30,000. You can read the details for yourself here on the Christie's website (though if you somehow haven't seen Breakfast before, please don't read the Lot Notes at the bottom of the page because it does contain spoilers).

Also for sale in this particular auction is an early Sabrina publicity photo, signed by Audrey herself. The photo is expected to go for $500-700.





A rare photograph of Audrey taken in Switzerland in the 1950s taken by photographer Sanford Roth, expected to sell for $600-800.









A Cecil Beaton sketch of Eliza Doolittle from My Fair Lady, signed. Expected to sell for $1,500-2,500.









Another rare photo of Audrey, this time holding her Yorkshire Terrier Mr. Famous. Estimated at $600-800.










And finally, a large batch of various costumes, including a dress made for Audrey for her role in Love Among Thieves (no picture available). The group is expected to sell for $1,000-1,500.

You can read more about the pink dress going to auction here.

And finally, I'd like to give a huge thank you to faithful reader Franklin. He always seems to find the best news, especially concerning auctions, before I can find them! So thank you and your sharp eyes, Franklin.

footage of the City of Joy school; plus, a new Gardens of the World?

Thanks to Ankit's sharp eyes, we can now see video footage of the dedication of the first of many new Indian schools, paid for by Audrey Hepburn's Breakfast at Tiffany's dress. It shows Dominique Lapierre and his wife arriving at the school, plus some children performing songs and dances to celebrate their new school. Dominique himself has a bit to say about Audrey, and the clip also shows the December 2006 auction of the dress in London, plus footage of the lovely Audrey herself in the iconic first scene of Breakfast at Tiffany's. You can go here to view the video (try here or here if the first link doesn't work, since BBC is a little weird about linking to their videos).

The Telegraph from Calcutta, India has a wonderful article about the new school and the Lapierres' work for the children of India. I love the way the article opens, too:

In Sudan, they call a water pump Unicef. And courtesy Audrey Hepburn and her new huckleberry friend, villages in South 24-Parganas and the Sunderbans might soon start calling their primary schools by some other name — Dominique, perhaps.

I'm sorry if I'm boring anyone with this continued coverage of the school opening, but I personally think it's very big news and something Audrey herself would have pushed hard for if she was still here. It meant so much to her, therefore it's important to me.

Lastly, I came across an article today that really only mentions Audrey in passing, but it's still terribly interesting (especially if you're a flower nut, like me). It seems that Janis Blackschleger, who produced Gardens of the World and became quite chummy with Audrey, met up with an Englishman living in California and mentioned that she wanted to do an updated Gardens of the World series. I don't know if others feel the same way, but after watching the series recently myself, I really wished they would have kept making more episodes, even if it had to be without Audrey. It's really an engrossing series (though Audrey did accent the flowers rather nicely), and there are so many more lovely gardens yet to see, plus new flower hybrids being created every day. If you find this sort of thing interesting, you can read more about the new possible series here. Janis herself will be at the Philadelphia Flower Show on March 10 to talk about Irish gardens (what the article above is mostly about), if anyone is in the neighborhood and would like to pick her brain about working with Audrey. :)

"When you were with Audrey you felt prettier, better about yourself and your own possibilities."
-Janis Blackschleger

Audrey Hepburn's little black dress does big things

On December 5, 2006, Audrey Hepburn's little black dress from Breakfast at Tiffany's sold for a record-breaking £467,200. The dress, one of three copies made by Givenchy for the film, was donated by Hubert de Givenchy himself to friend Dominique Lapierre, a French author who also runs City of Joy Aid with his wife. The proceeds from the sale -- the dress was bought by the house of Givenchy, now owned by LVMH -- were to go entirely to City of Joy, and already the results are showing themselves. 15 educational centers for children are set to be opened in India from this money, and one center in Lakshikautapur is currently being built. These centers are designed to teach children English when they would normally never see the inside of a school, and would instead be bullied into mob work. You can read more about the amazing Lapierres and their work here, and you can read a smaller article about other works City of Joy does here.

My Fair Lady's Ascot Races dress

A few years ago, I had the privilege of seeing the famous white Ascot dress from My Fair Lady before it was auctioned off in Hollywood. (Click the link above to see photos and read more about the auction itself.) At the time, the new owner of the dress, who payed a whopping $100,000 for the dress and hat, had promised to one day display the dress in a cinema museum for all fans to enjoy. It seems that his promise is coming true! From March 1 through the 13, you can see the dress, along with 40 other famous costumes from great movies, at the Daimaru Museum in Tokyo, Japan. Admission to "Cinema Fashion and Hollywood Designers" exhibit is ¥900, ¥700 for students. However, if you go to this site and follow the directions at the bottom of the page, you can receive free tickets through the mail! It is limited to residents of Japan.

How to Steal a Million screengrabs!

If you've noticed that news updates here have been a little spotty lately, now you know why. I've been working hard to try and get these stinking things done! So, for the 100th post, I give you 570 screengrabs from How to Steal a Million.

And, if you haven't heard already, Audrey's co-star in the film, Peter O'Toole, was just nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award. His eighth nomination, mind you. Congratulations to Peter!

In other Audrey news, yesterday was the big Swann Galleries auction of celebrity documents and contracts. Three contracts signed by Audrey were up for grabs. While all of the buyers are kept anonymous, it seems that the Audrey documents did fetch far more than expected. Lot 150, which was a contract for Audrey to appear in, funny enough, How to Steal a Million, sold for $5,400, far over the expected range of $1,000-1,500. Lot 151 was a contract allowing Audrey to borrow a print of How to Steal a Million, and while it was expected to sell for between $600-800, it sold for $900. The last of the Audrey Hepburn lots, lot 152, was a contract allowing her to borrow a print of Two For the Road. This was expected to sell around $600-900 and ended up selling for $1,000. You can read more about the auction in general here, and you can view the selling prices of all items here.

A Weekend With Audrey Hepburn

Thanks to quissuer711 at the Audrey Hepburn Circle, there's a fantastic "new" story about spending the weekend with Audrey. Apparently way back in 1951, before anyone really knew the name Audrey Hepburn, a scientist was asked to entertain a friend's house guest, the guest being none other than Audrey. The two became chummy and kept in touch over the years, and I won't ruin any more for you. Read the whole story here and judge for yourself how you like this story.

This next bit is a tenuous stretch at best, but since it keeps finding its way into my inbox, I might as well share it. Apparently there's a new CGI movie out in the vein of Shrek, this one called Happy N'Ever After. The main character, Ella, is supposed to bear a strong resemblance to Audrey, and might have been modeled after her (she's voiced by Sarah Michelle Gellar). To me the resemblance is minimal at best, but again, I'll let you decide. Ella is the one on the right, with the shorter hair.

Photographer Douglas Kirkland has been photographing celebrities for quite a long time, and has taken some great, classic shots over the years simply by sticking with his subject and snapping constantly. One of the celebrities he's tailed was Audrey, during filming of How to Steal a Million, and at a new exhibit at the Hallmark Museum of Contemporary Photography you can see his work and some Audrey shots. The exhibit runs from January 11 through March 18, and he will be at the museum on Saturday, January 13, and you can learn a little more about him here.

A little while ago I posted about a new upcoming Audrey auction, but couldn't find much information on it. Now Swann Auction Galleries, the auction house that will be selling this batch of contracts, has released more information on their website. It turns out that three Audrey documents, not one, will be sold on January 25. Lot 150 is Audrey's contract to appear in How to Steal a Million. This is expected to go for $1,000-1,500 (US):

Lot 151 is a letter signed by Audrey that would allow her to borrow a print of How to Steal a Million, and is expected to fetch between $600-800 (US):

And lot 152 is another signed letter, this time asking to borrow a print of Two For the Road. It's expected to get between $600-900 (US), though I can't see why this would be more valuable than the other letter:

And lastly, onepoll.com recently did a poll on the Top 50 Greatest Gay Icons, and Audrey came in at #8! Surprisingly, she came in above Liza Minnelli and Barbra Streisand. But I guess you can't keep a good gal down, no matter how long she's been gone. To see the whole list, click here.