Hepburn's dress sold for £410,000

Audrey Hepburn's black cocktail dress from Breakfast at Tiffany's is part of the actress's iconic image from the film that made her name.

Christie's employee Romilly Collins models the dress worn by Audrey Hepburn in the 1961 film 'Breakfast At Tiffany's'.

Sold today at auction in London for £410,000, the floor-length Givenchy cocktail number helped her project timeless class and style as socialite Holly Golightly.

The opening scene of the film - which features Hepburn emerging from a cab wearing the dress before eating breakfast as she peers into the windows of Tiffany's - has been described as one of the greatest fashion moments in cinema history.

The outfit helped turn the actress, who described herself at the time as "a skinny little nobody", into a Hollywood star. Her image from the 1961 film has become one of the most recognised in cinematic history and poster artwork for the film, which features Hepburn wearing the dress with jewels, black gloves and a cigarette holder, is still widely available.

Interest in the image endures, with Harper's Bazaar magazine in the US featuring actress Natalie Portman modelling the dress on the November 2006 front cover. The Givenchy dress was expected to sell for just £70,000, but high-priced and above-estimate sales of outfits from films is not without precedent.

Judy Garland's dress from The Wizard of Oz went under the hammer for £140,000 last year, far above the expected £35,000.

And fans have been keen to snap up, often paying tens of thousands of pounds, costumes such as Marilyn Monroe's outfit from the Seven Year Itch and even Spock's uniform from the Star Trek movies.

The leather jacket worn by Harrison Ford when he played Indiana Jones sold last year for £53,700.But when it comes to movie memorabilia, Hepburn's dress appears to be in a league of its own.

The buyer, a telephone bidder, may have topped £400,000 to secure the famous item but the money is for a good cause of which humanitarian Hepburn would have approved.

Agencies