Why Hepburn's gown is good for India

London: The black Givenchy dress worn by Audrey Hepburn in the film Breakfast at Tiffany's sold at auction on Tuesday for ₤410,000.

The price, paid by a telephone bidder, was almost six times the highest pre-sale estimate.

The iconic garment had been expected to fetch between ₤50,000 and 70,000 as part of a sale of film and television memorabilia at Christie's auction house in London. The final sale price was 4,67,200 including buyer's premium.

Proceeds from the sale will go to the charity City of Joy Aid, which helps India's poor.

The gown's owners, the founders of City of Joy Aid, received it as a gift from designer Hubert de Givenchy.

“I am absolutely dumbfounded to believe that a piece of cloth which belonged to such a magical actress will now enable me to buy bricks and cement to put the most destitute children in the world into schools,” said the co-seller, Dominique Lapierre.

Hepburn wore the dress for one of her best-known roles, as eccentric Manhattan socialite Holly Golightly in the 1961 film adaptation of Truman Capote's novel.

The opening scenes of the film show Golightly in the dress emerging from a taxi on 5th Avenue with her brown-bag breakfast to ogle diamonds and luxury goods in the storefront windows of Tiffany & Co.

The Parisian couturier Givenchy was famous for dressing the most glamorous women of the 1950s and 1960s, including Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Princess Grace of Monaco.

Givenchy designed Hepburn's wardrobe for many of her films, including Sabrina and Funny Face, a film about the French fashion world. He regarded Hepburn as his muse, and her willowy frame, long neck and intelligent face became hallmarks of 1960s beauty.

Hepburn starred in more than 20 films before becoming a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF. She died in 1993 aged 63.