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This weekend, Audrey Hepburn admirers should stop in at Sotheby’s on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, where six prize items of clothing will be displayed as a preview of the rare Hepburn auction taking place in London on December 8th. The items include Lot 333, an ivory satin dress designed for Hepburn’s 1952 wedding to James Hanson. When Hepburn cancelled the wedding, the movie star asked the designers, the Fontana sisters, to donate their work to some “poor Italian girl” so the dress wouldn’t go to waste. That girl, Amabile Altobello, wore the dress and has had a very long and fruitful marriage. Now she has decided it’s time to let another girl enjoy the gown. Several other sale items belong to Tanja Star Busmann, a close friend of Hepburn’s who met the movie star when she was just fifteen and Hepburn twenty-one. Audrey often passed on her clothes to Tanja and would ask Monsieur de Givenchy to leave extra seam allowances when making the clothes for this reason.

Auctioneer Kerry Taylor, a former costume and textiles expert at Sotheby’s, will be on-hand all weekend armed with catalogs and answers to any questions. She has selected five of her favorites, apart from the wedding dress, for the teaser. They include Lot 287, a jade green velvet Givenchy hat worn in a Cecil Beaton photograph for Vogue in 1964; Lot 293, a haute couture Givenchy black Chantilly lace cocktail dress worn in How to Steal a Million; Lot 313, a turquoise Givenchy silk cocktail dress; Lot 326, a lovely Valentino organza cocktail dress with ruffled edges (my favorite); and finally, Lot 329, a silk Givenchy evening dress with a jewelled midriff, which Hepburn wore to a housewarming party in Portugal. Even if you don’t end up with one of the thirty-six Hepburn pieces, get the catalog as a tangible reminder of the glamorous sixties.

Though the pieces will return to London on November 22nd, there will be time to see them online or in person on London before the sale, which will take place in London on December 8 at 2 p.m. at Kerry Taylor Auctions, a specialist in antique, vintage and fashion textiles.

Read about the Indagare Pop-Up Souk, scheduled for December 1-3 in New York

Read an interview with designer Anya Hindmarch

Read Indagare’s reports on where to shop in New York and London