Tuesday 8 December 2009

Wouldn't it be lovely?


Yes, wouldn't it be lovely if we could all have ridiculously elegant wardrobes like Audrey Hepburn did, bursting with haute couture dresses custom made by Hubert de Givenchy? Well, that's not altogether impossible. Today, Sotheby's has auctioned several of miss Hepburn's clothes and accessories, many of them created by Givenchy. While I don't know how it everything went in the end of the day, the prices, the owners etc, I've been able to take a look at the catalogue and see some of the wonderful garments that were sold today.

Some of the pieces come from the collection of Tanja Star Busmann, Audrey's first fan. It is well known that they became friends, and Audrey used to offer Busmann most of her clothes after having worn them. So Busmann was very intelligent to have chosen to be a fan of so generous a woman!



All these pieces are by Givenchy. The belt above was worn by Hepburn in the film "Charade".



This is a Mark Cross marinière. Even if you couldn't afford to bid on it at Sotheby's, you can always get inspiration from it to dress in a casual, chic way!

And finally, there was Audrey's wedding dress created by the Fontana sisters in 1952. She made many fittings for the dress, but in the last minute she called the engagement off. We'll never know the reasons. All we know is, after the engagement got broken, Audrey asked her sister to give that dress away, "to be worn by another girl for her wedding, perhaps someone who couldn't afford a dress like mine, the most beautiful poor Italian girl you can find". Amabile Altobella was the chosen girl, and it's her who donated that dress for today's auction. 50% of the sale will be donated to the Audrey Hepburn Children's fund, which she created. Seeing all this, it's easy to understand that Audrey Hepburn was not only one of the biggest style icons of the XXth century, she was also a very generous person and a true lady.

6 comments:

  1. Audrey is so elegant and chic...loving these photos.

    I love your blog...you have so much insight on iconic people and fashion history =)

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  2. obviously i could never afford to bid on these, but its so strange to imagine being able to wear a dress that audrey hepburn wore. beautiful post!

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  3. oh my god! She's one of my favorite artist's ever, she's really a muse of mine!! If you could know how much i wanted that black dress and belt ^^ I gess i'll just dream about them...
    Thanks so much for the comment!Those are really my pictures, i'm very glad you liked them*

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  4. fashion fades style is eternal ...

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  5. I would kill for Audrey's wardrobe!

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Thanks for your lovely comments.