(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

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