A Sadly Symbolic Amy Winehouse Dress Is Sold

She wore it in final performance, and it goes for nearly $250K
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 8, 2021 11:57 AM CST
A Sadly Symbolic Amy Winehouse Dress Is Sold
In this Feb. 16, 2007, file photo, British singer Amy Winehouse poses for photographs after being interviewed by the AP at a studio in London.   (AP Photo/Matt Dunham, File)

In June 2011, Amy Winehouse sang in Serbia, in what would be her last stage performance before her death the next month of alcohol poisoning at age 27. Now, someone owns the dress she wore at that final Belgrade gig, after a Julien's auction in Los Angeles saw it scooped up for $243,000, per the BBC. Winehouse's final performance outfit, described by the auction house as a "custom-made figure-hugging halter mini dress" that was created by Winehouse's designer and stylist, Naomi Parry, went for about 16 times its original sale estimate, reports The Hollywood Reporter. The bamboo-and-floral-print dress was one of about 800 Winehouse items on the auction block, which all together brought in around $4 million.

"I feel an immense amount of sadness when I look at that dress," Parry tells the New York Post, which notes that June 2011 concert had been a "disaster," helmed by an apparently intoxicated Winehouse. Parry adds that Winehouse had just completed a stint in rehab at the time and that the dress, one of nearly a dozen Parry had helped design for the singer's upcoming European tour, "was supposed to be the start of something new and moving forward. She had been doing so well."

After that concert, the tour ended up being nixed, and a little more than a month later, Winehouse was dead. "[The dress] went from symbolizing something ... exciting to absolute devastation," Parry notes. Other items that sold at the Julien's auction include a custom red-leather heart-shaped Moschino purse, for nearly $205,000; a floral Dolce & Gabbana dress Winehouse wore on stage, for $150,000; and a black and tan Temperley London jumpsuit she donned for a 2008 photo shoot with the Sunday Times, which went for just over $120,000. Proceeds from the auction will go to the foundation that Winehouse's parents set up to help other young people who suffer from addiction problems. (More Amy Winehouse stories.)

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