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.

- 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)

Running now through August 17, if you are around the Lorraine region of France, feel free to drop by Château de Haroué, a modest 82 room bungalow (chateau actually means castle in French, and the French do not use that term lightly!). It is there that you will find a carefully chosen bevy of gowns designed by Paris’s most renowned designers: Balenciaga, Venet, and Givenchy himself. The surroundings are astounding, the gowns are divine, and as an added bonus, the long black column dress Audrey Hepburn wore in the beginning credits of Breakfast at Tiffany’s – Givenchy’s own copy, and one of the three originals – will be on display for your pleasure.

Can anyone make this trip? It’s about 4 hours outside of Paris, for those in and around the area, and I’m sure your fellow fans are just dying to see some photographs. I’m not sure I’ll be able to make it: I’m doing quite a lot of traveling this year and I’m already stretching myself thin as it is! But still, to see that gown in person, finally …

Special thanks to Kendal, for typing out the original article on this exhibit, as found in the May issue of Vanity Fair (with Grace Kelly as cover girl).

from the ground up, so rest assured that this is for your benefit.

Anyway, my friend Natalia sent me a fantastic little article this morning, and I just had to share. A recent survey was taken out on the most iconic female screen outfit of all time, and Holly Golightly’s long black evening gown beat out some stiff competition to come out on top. The long little black dress even beat Marilyn Monroe’s unforgettable halter neck dress from The Seven Year Itch and Keira Knightley’s stunning green gown from Atonement. You can read the article, courtesy of The Daily Mail, here, and see who else rounded out the top ten.

It’s nice to see that 50 years on, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Audrey and Givenchy are still as influential as ever. As Coco Chanel once said: “Fashion fades, only style remains the same.”

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.

Hello everyone, I hope you had a good holiday, if you celebrate anything. If not, then I hope you enjoyed a day off to laze around in your pajamas all day. I’m sorry I’ve been MIA lately, I was silly enough to try and work two jobs during the holidays. Hit me with a fish the next time I get that ridiculous idea in my head! Thank you for your patience yet again, and here’s your bit of post-holiday news.

Christie’s had yet another film memorabilia auction on December 19th, but it didn’t really seem to make any major news outlets, at least not that I could find. This was very surprising! But here’s all of the Audrey Hepburn specific autions for you, since that’s what we’re interested in:

Lot 0078: a batch of 15 magazines featuring Audrey on the cover, all from the 1950s. The estimated going price was between £400-600, but was actually sold for £312. (That’s still a whole lot, though!)
Lot 0079: Sheet music for Moon River, signed by Audrey Hepburn. The inscription reads, “To Al, best wishes, Audrey Hepburn.” While the estimated selling price was between £400-600, the final bid was for £1,680!
Lot 080: A knee-length coat and a cream-coloured dress, both made by Givenchy, which Audrey wore in the film Charade. In the Criterion Edition of the film in the commentary, screenwriter Peter Stone mentioned that his wife and Audrey Hepburn were the same size (though Audrey had bigger shoulders), and he would take the clothes that Audrey didn’t want for his wife to wear. These two items were taken for Mrs. Stone and are now being sold by her. The estimated selling price for these two items combined was between £10,000-15,000, and the actual selling price was £14,400. Whew!

Since the sale of these particular items didn’t make the news, I don’t think there’s any way of finding out who bought the dress and coat. Whoever it was, they’ve got a good deal! Unlike the sale of the black dress from Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Audrey definitely wore this dress and coat. I hope the new owner(s) wouldn’t mind putting it on display for some of us to see, too.

P.S. I was right about which dress would be sold, too!

This survey is in conjunction with Sky Movies’ Fabulous Film Costume Season, which starts on January first with The English Patient and ends on January 13th with Marie Antoinette. You can read more about Sky’s costume season and the films they’ll be airing during those two weeks here, if you’re interested. You can also vote for Audrey again through their website, though don’t tell them I told you that.

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.

Since we’re online and you can’t really flip through the book to decide if it’s worth the buy or not, the author has done the next best thing (for you) and written an article in the Daily Mail, putting some of the best tips in this article for free. The clothing tips at the bottom are excellent, all focusing on timeless clothes and accessories that will never go out of style, yet always look stylish and elegant and come in enough varieties to work with any body type. You can go here to read the article. Get inspired to become your own style icon!