(Offered at Auction By Kerry Taylor: Estimate £ 8,000 to £ 12,000)

In 1952 Audrey Hepburn was engaged to marry James Hanson. She was in Italy to film her first starring role alongside Gregory Peck in “The Roman Holiday. It is 7 years after the devastation and ravages of WWII.

I wonder if you know that Audrey Hepburn spent the last years of that war in the Netherlands, hoping she would survive the Allied artillery shellings, and the famine the Dutch endured as a result of Operation Market Garden.

In that short seven years, a lot happened for Audrey Hepburn

She Became a Star

Audrey Hepburn decided after already having her wedding gown designed by the famous Fontana Sisters to call her planned wedding to James Hanson off; stating “That the demands of their careers would keep them apart most of the time.”

Here is the Wedding Dress Audrey Hepburn Was Going To Wear

The Fontana sisters who designed this gown were renowned for their highly romantic ball and bridal gowns. The sisters Zoe, Micol and Giovanna founded their business in Rome in 1944.

While Audrey Hepburn was filming `Roman Holiday’ with Gregory Peck in Rome, she approached the Fontana sisters and asked them to make her bridal gown. Signora Micol Fontana said that the 23 year old Hepburn was ‘young, fresh, and on top of the world’.

But this was a wedding that was not to be, Audrey was not going to say “I Do.” She had other plans…

Once she had decided to call the wedding off, the dress she had had made, still at the Fontana Sisters shop, needed to be dwelt with. And this Audrey did with such generosity and grace that it leaves me with a smile still, as I hope it does for you as well.

She Gave The Dress Away To Amabile Altobella

Never heard of Amabile Altobella? Well of course not, she was a young girl from the town of Latina, Italy. You see Audrey had asked the Fontana Sisters to give the dress away, saying “I want my dress to be worn by another girl for her wedding, perhaps someone who couldn’t ever afford a dress like mine, the most beautiful, poor Italian girl you can find.”

So Audrey Hepburn Helped to Create A Dream Wedding

Amabile Altobella, was a poverty stricken young Italian girl engaged to be married to a farm worker named Adelino Solda. Here is a quote from Amabile, “I have had a happy marriage, so the dress brought me luck.” Indeed, she and Adelino stayed married, had three daughters, and five grandchildren, which is more than can be said for most Hollywood weddings…

(All images from this post came from Kerry Taylor Auctions.)

Written by

Martin Codina

Follow Me On Facebook
Follow Me On Twitter

Our Sterling Silver Products

Vintage Sterling	Artist Made Sterling	Objet de Sterling
Click Images to be Taken to Our Sister Site - Sterling 925.Net

Let’s start this post with a splash of 1970′s Vintage Fashion color

(GOLDWORM Wool Jersey Evening Dress w/Silk Cape from Couture Allure)

What’s a guy to do, even a guy like me who supposedly knows a lot about antiques and collectibles, because I know my limits, so when it comes to Vintage Clothing, I am like most guys on any sunny day in the park, a bit of a clueless spectator, wanting to join the conversation, but not knowing what to say…

(Floral Cotton Maxi Dress From Sewn in Pieces Etsy Store)

Here’s the simple truth about Vintage Clothing on the web, it’s a world ruled by woman, for woman, and it’s primarily about woman’s fashion. It’s not a casual observation by me, I have made a careful study of many Vintage Clothing sites, and the best, at least the ones I like, the ones that I think have the most visual appeal, the most internet savvy, have all been created by woman.

(1950s Beaded Cashmere Cardigan Sweater By Joules)

And they love each other, supporting sister sites with comments, suggestions, and Atta Girls – spreading link love like lip gloss on the warmest of sunny days. James Brown said “This is a Man’s World,” and maybe that’s true when it comes to machinery, and space walks or whatever, but when it comes to the Vintage Fashion World, the world of shoes and shapely dresses, at least from the perspective of this writer – It’s a Woman’s World, and that’s just fine by me.

Vintage Shopping Guide	Vintage Fashion Guild Label Research	Vintage a la Mode	Vintage Fashion Guild

Unlike guys who wear a pair of pants or a shirt until it’s threadbare, woman in general only lightly wear an article of clothing for a while before becoming sufficiently disinterested in it, and then they will store it in a closet, or a drawer or a box somewhere, and years will pass before somehow it is unearthed and made available at an estate sale, thrift shop, or a vintage clothing store. The best of these garments find their way onto the web to be admired, talked about and sold by the Queens of Fashion…

…It’s exciting to be an observer of this…or maybe I am a voyeur…

(1920′s Wedding Dress from Dorothea’s Closet)

I might not be a Vintage Fashion Expert, but I do know how to score a great deal, and I know that when one of my estate sales has a quantity of Vintage Clothing for sale, the Vintage Clothing Merchants come out of the woodwork. The clothes literally fly off the rack. Here’s why, because estate liquidators can’t sell vintage fashion for what a vintage fashion website can. It’s just a fact, and because this is so, estate sales represent one of the best places to shop for vintage fashion, especially if your intention is to re-sell on-line or in a store.

I also like vintage fashion as a category of collectible because it represents a little understood market niche, and it is especially not super well understood by most Estate Sales Professionals. This is a way to spell PROFIT.

If you want to earn extra income, or even more importantly, if you want to establish a web presence, then become an authority about something that is little understood, and that’s what these awesome woman have done, they took back the male dominated world of fashion creation, and made the Vintage Fashion World, a world of their own, and to that I say Touché…

Martin Codina

Enter Our Contest and Win a One Month Subscription To Prices for Antiques.Com

…In Other Estate Sales News …

We did it, irrational or rational as it may be – you be the judge, now you can follow

Fine Estate Sales and Estate Liquidation Inc., on Facebook

Our Sterling Silver Products

Vintage Sterling	Artist Made Sterling	Objet de Sterling
Click Images to be Taken to Our Sister Site - Sterling 925.Net