parisian party

Everyone who knows me knows how much I love Audrey Hepburn. I have worshiped in the House of Audrey since I was a little girl, and one of my most thrilling moments was when I had the opportunity to meet Mr. Hubert de Givenchy at an event that I organized a few years ago.  So you can imagine how excited I was when I heard that some of the pieces of the Audrey Hepburn collection would be stopping off in Paris on their way to be auctioned off at Sotheby’s in London. The collection comes from Audrey’s lifelong friend, Tanja Star-Busmann, and is being offered by fashion auctioneer, Kerry Taylor.

audrey hepburn, sotheby's, paris

audrey hepburn, sotheby's, paris

I had always imagined Audrey Hepburn to be teeny-tiny, but actually she was pretty average. She was slim, of course, but she stood at about 5′7″.  One thing that probably contributed to her sprite-ish image was that she apparently had little to no, um…poitrine to speak of:

silk turquoise givenchy cocktail gown, 1966

Givenchy made this black cloqué silk dress for Audrey to wear to the premier of “Paris When it Sizzles”. She also wore it in publicity photos of the same film:

givenchy black cloqué silk dress, 1962

Audrey wore this white point d’esprit ball gown by Givenchy in the opera scene of “Love in the Afternoon”. Audrey gave the dress to Tanja after the birth of her daughter, along with a note that said that the dress might remind Tanja what it was like to have a wasteline again! Tanja gave the dress to her nanny, (lucky nanny, huh?):

from "love in the afternoon", 1956

Always a sensible woman, if Audrey liked a particular dress, she often ordered it in different colors from Mr. Givenchy. Here is a black version of the point d’esprit gown that she wore in “Love in the Afternoon”:

black point d'esprit givenchy gown, 1956

A few of my favorite dresses surprisingly weren’t Givenchy at all. This scarlet velvet cocktail dress and burnt orange velvet evening dress are by Rose Bertin:

scarlet velvet cocktail dress, rose bertin, late 1960's

burnt orange velvet gown, rose bertin, 1970

In 1952, while filming “Roman Holiday” in Rome,  Audrey Hepburn had this ivory satin wedding gown made for her by the Fontana Sisters. After she called off the wedding to James Hansen, she asked the Fontana Sisters to donate the dress to a young bride who couldn’t ordinarily afford to have such a luxury. The dress was given to Amabile Altobella, a poor Italian girl who wore it in her wedding to a farm worker. She then wrapped the dress in tissue paper and put it in her attic, where it stayed for decades. The dress obviously brought her luck- she and her husband stayed happily married and had 3 daughters and 5 grandchildren!:

ivory satin wedding dress, fontana sisters, 1952

The Audrey Hepburn collection will be on display tomorrow, December 2nd at Sotheby’s Paris on Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré.  After that, it moves on to London where it will be included in the “Passion For Fashion” Auction by Kerry Taylor Auctions on December 8th, 2009.  After that, these gowns will be dispersed to all four corners of the globe- making this a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that shouldn’t be missed.