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.

Continue Reading

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.

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?

Continue Reading

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).

Continue Reading

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).

Continue Reading

Last night I dreamed that I met Audrey Hepburn in a beautiful garden full of exotic flowers, and we talked about the flowers and saving money for the children. Today I wake up to find that the first of 15 planned schools for the City of Joy Aid has opened! If you remember from earlier news posts, the money from the Christie’s auction of Audrey’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s dress raised enough money to build 15 schools for children in India who would otherwise never be schooled at all. The first school opened today in Keoradanga with City of Joy Aid founder Dominique Lapierre present, and will hold about 200 students. It was apparently a very sweet opening, with children singing a welcome song and Dominique offering a red rose to a picture of Audrey sporting the dress (below). You can read more about the school’s opening here, and more about the Lapierre’s school plans here. Long-term plans for the City of Joy Aid can be found here.

Continue Reading

There was an eBay auction last week for a white Mercedes-Benz supposedly owned by Audrey Hepburn. There’s a lot of speculation going around between Audrey fans, and the ad itself is very strange. The seller of the car (based in San Francisco) has a very long piece about the car up, though if you actually read the eight paragraphs, it’s mainly insisting that Audrey’s two favourite colours were white and red (the colours of the car), and lists every example in her films available to back up this fact.

Continue Reading

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.

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 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.

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.

Continue Reading