Christie’s is taking Miranda Priestly’s closet to the auction block. Again.
Twenty years after costumes from the original The Devil Wears Prada were sold on eBay, clothes and accessories from the sequel are getting a somewhat grander treatment. Christie’s will offer pieces worn by Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, Stanley Tucci, Simone Ashley and Lady Gaga in an online charity auction running Sept. 1 through 15.
The sale, titled “A Million Girls Would Kill for These Things,” was conceived with Streep and will benefit the Committee to Protect Journalists and the Council of Fashion Designers of America. Christie’s will also put the lots on public view at its Rockefeller Center galleries from Sept. 8 through 13.
Streep, it turns out, has been here before. In 2006, she came up with the idea of auctioning costumes from the first movie, with some of the wardrobe sold on eBay to benefit Dress for Success. Among the offerings were a Valentino silk chiffon blouse, a Bill Blass pinstripe suit, a Calvin Klein coat, a Prada cocktail dress and Christian Louboutin shoes. There was also a pair of maroon-and-black Azzedine Alaïa pumps that had received Miranda Priestly’s approval in the film.
Not everything made it to eBay during that first auction. Hathaway was particularly attached to the vintage green coat with leopard cuffs that Andy Sachs wears during the movie’s famous makeover montage. Her then-boyfriend bought it for her at a promotional event before the film’s release. “OK, you’re off the hook for my birthday,” Hathaway recalled telling him in SeattlePi.
The sequel has provided plenty of potential replacements. Christie’s is offering the Gabriela Hearst Niki dress that Andy wears to the Hamptons, where she manages to spill food on it. The dress, which retails for $7,900, will be sold with the stain intact.
Other highlights include the Dries Van Noten tassel jacket worn by Streep during a Runway staff meeting, a black-and-white Schiaparelli jacket, a Dior suit worn by Blunt and the Elsa Peretti Bone Cuff worn by her character Emily, which retails for $107,000. Costume designer Molly Rogers has said the studio initially tried to cut the Dries jacket before she and Streep fought to keep it in the movie.
There is also a prototype pair of red Valentino Garavani Rockstud pumps identical to those worn by Streep in the film’s trailer. Signed by Streep, they carry an estimate of just $500 to $1,000.
And Christie’s appears to understand the assignment. In a press release Julien Pradels, the house’s president of the Americas, called the partnership, in a deliberate nod to one of Miranda Priestly’s better-known put-downs, “groundbreaking.”
At least he didn’t suggest florals for spring.
