Carrie Bradshaw's tutu skirt in "Sex and the City"
When Carrie Bradshaw flinches back in amazement in the opening credits of Sex and the City after a passing bus splashes a New York puddle on her tutu skirt - an iconic television moment is born.
Three weeks ago the skirt sold for an insane $52,000 (more than 4 times its high estimate) at an auction of "iconic" fashion pieces from the wardrobes of film, television and celebrity actresses.
The oyster white tulle skirt, with 3 tiers and a satin waistband that ends above the knees, was expected to sell for $8,000-$12,000, but drew 24 bids during a sale by the Julien auction house in California.
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The saccharine item was originally purchased by Patricia Field, the costume designer for the cult production, out of a $5(!) bin while shopping for the series in New York's Garment District.
"In the box of the sale - trends from previous seasons that were cut short - white tulle peeked out like the crest of a foam wave in a sea of scraps", this is how Field described the find in her book "Pat in the City: My Fashion Life, Style and Breaking All the Rules".
Field believed that Sarah Jessica Parker, who plays Bradshaw, would be able to relate to this "crazy" skirt (as she described it) due to Parker's background as a ballet dancer, and she was right.
The naughty tutu also appeared in the movie "Sex and the City" from 2008, in the scene where Carrie considers what to get rid of Arona and decides that "It's a keeper".
When this skirt first wound up on our small screen it was unpredictable and adventurous, much like the entire series.
It was sold with a certificate of authenticity signed by Field.
Carrie Bradshaw's iconic tutu skirt from Sex and the City/Giphy, giphy
A good/surprising/interesting wardrobe can certainly make a movie more enjoyable, but there are several clothing sets that entered the pages of fashion history, or museum collections, thus making a movie or series unforgettable and iconic.
The fact that such a cheap tulle skirt - which embodies in one single item the essence of "Sex and the City" - was sold for an astronomical price, first of all proves that even a cheap garment can provide ripples of inspiration for decades to come.
And secondly, this discovery sent us down the history of cinema and television in search of additional items of clothing worth every pocket, which also left a significant mark across cultures and eras, set trends, and whose story behind them is sometimes as surprising as the exorbitant price they are worth today.
After all, they are in front of you.
Julia Roberts' dress in "Pretty Woman"
There are several dresses so famous that almost every woman in the world can immediately identify which movie or series it is associated with, and one of them is the dress that the wonderful Julia Roberts wears in the opening scene of the movie "Pretty Woman" from 1990. When Vivian Ward approaches the "Millionaire" ( aka Richard Gere) on Hollywood Boulevard, all eyes were on her ultra-sexy figure.
The next morning she does the 'walk of shame' towards luxury boutiques, but is removed from there in shame (the so-called Big Mistake. Big. Huge).
The British brand Hunza, designed by Peter Meadows, is responsible for the iconic mini dress - which actually helped propel Roberts towards her status as a Hollywood star.
Believe it or not, but the film's costume designer (Marilyn Vance) noticed and decided that despite her dreamy body, Roberts' waist and hips were not defined enough, and therefore looked for an outfit that would sculpt her figure and make her especially desirable.
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The dress, made of two parts of stretchy fabric between which she attached a metallic ring, white above and blue with a "sky" print below, left very little room for imagination, but a lot of room for desirability.
It's true that the thigh-high vinyl boots and blonde wig launched the femme fatale character that Roberts portrayed for Next Label, but the (at the time) outrageous dress definitely stands alone in the cult category.
In 2015 Hunza added the G to the brand name, when Georgiana Hodart relaunched it and became the creative director.
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Two years later, the managed brand teamed up with the Asus website and released a capsule collection that pays homage to our all-time favorite artist.
The redesign was sold at Asus for $210, and we can only assume that it was plus or minus the original value of the dress as well.
"It looks just as good on a size 16 (L) woman as it does on a size 8 (S)," Huddart said at the time.
We disagree on that, but oh well.
In September of last year, Hunza launched the renewed (and less successful in our opinion) dress on the brand's website, but it is already sold out.
Either way, even 34 years later, the timeless nature of the design stands in the perspective of time and changing trends.
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Ursula's bikini in "James Bond"
When Honey Ryder (played by the legendary Ursula Anders) emerged from the water, as if she were Botticelli's Venus and against a dreamy beach background, jaws dropped.
Both metaphorically and practically.
It was the daring swimsuit, which was later called "the most famous bikini in the world", that Anders wore in the movie "Dr. No" (the first in the James Bond film series) that made the young actress an overnight star.
The bikini was designed by Anders herself in close collaboration with costume designer Tessa Prendergast.
It was made of a fairly simple ivory-toned cotton, and featured low-waisted briefs paired with a belt, with the bra featuring a lace-up princess key.
The film, released in the early 1960s, at the dawn of the sexual revolution, presented this bikini as a kind of call to discover the female body.
In 2001 it was sold at a Christie's auction for about $150,000 ladies and gentlemen.
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Olivia Newton John's tight pants in "Grease"
The sexy pants worn by Olivia Newton-John in "Grease" were also sold for a similar price: Albert Wolski, the film's costume designer, wanted to stay as accurate as possible to the fifties, so he found old vintage pants made of black spandex with a shiny finish, mega tight and high, into which a shoulder-baring top and a leather Baker jacket are tucked in.
Even the pants zipper was broken and needed fixing.
"They were so old, and there was only one pair, so there was no room for error. One tear and disaster," Newton-John revealed in her memoir.
It turns out that getting the legendary look was not an easy task for the actress.
And yet the outfit, and the pants in particular, left a lasting impression in pop culture, and became an object of fantasy for many women - to get into such an impossible piece and at the same time be hugged close to John Travolta.
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After a long battle with cancer, Newton-John passed away peacefully at her Southern California ranch in August 2022, but her iconic character of "Sandy," who went from a good girl to a bad girl and a rebel under the auspices of those hot pants, will remain in our hearts forever.
Which explains how, in 2019, the same cheap, slightly tattered pants were bought at auction for $162,000 by the founder of the underwear label Spanx, Sarah Blakely. A "small" price considering the fact that the pants inspired her brand, which is valued at billions of dollars. frame them and hang them in Spanx," she said on the CBS morning show. We would do it too Sarah, us too.
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The red boat shoes in "The Wizard of Oz"
And we will finish with a pair of magical shoes that became the dream object of every girl, girl and even woman on the planet, which entered the list of the most famous shoes in the history of cinema.
We are of course talking about the red boat shoes decorated with glittering sequins and a stone-studded bow, which Dorothy Gale wore in the musical fantasy "The Wizard of Oz" (1939), while she taps 3 times with their low block heels.
In the original book by Lyman Frank Baum, Dorothy's magic shoes are silver, but for the film the shoes were made a bright ruby shade to make them stand out more against the yellow stone path.
Gilbert Adrian, former chief costume designer for MGM Studios, made around 7-10 size 35 pairs for 16-year-old actress Judy Garland to use during filming, but only 5 of them survive.
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From the 1930s to the 1960s, movie studios failed to recognize the value of movie memorabilia, often relegating props and costumes to trash or donations.
That changed in 1970 when MGM organized its first auction and started making a profit, only then did The Ruby Slippers come into the limelight.
Since then, a number of pairs have been recorded that have passed through many hands, each time skyrocketing in price, while others have been suspected of being fakes, and there was even one pair that was stolen from the "Judy Garland" museum in the USA until they were located by the FBI after a 13-year search.
In 2011, the late actress Debbie Reynolds, who was a noted collector of Hollywood memorabilia and owned the first version of the iconic boat shoes (designed by Adrian), sold them at auction for $510,000.
And in 2012, a group bought a pair for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Museum for $2 million, the highest amount ever.
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Carrie Bradshaw
Pretty Woman