The Givenchy dress, bought by an anonymous bidder, was one of a group of more than 40 Hepburn items offered by specialist auctioneer Kerry Taylor in association with Sotheby’s. Most of the items, dating from the 1950s and ‘60s, were entered by Tanja Star-Busmann, a lifelong friend of the Belgian-born actress. Hepburn regularly sent her boxes of unwanted clothes.

A turquoise cloche silk cocktail gown acquired by Hepburn from Givenchy’s 1966 autumn/winter collection was bought by a U.S.-based museum for 18,000 pounds, said Taylor in an e-mailed statement. It had been expected to sell for as much as 12,000 pounds.

The sale also included the bridal gown made in 1952 by the Fontana Sisters for Hepburn’s planned wedding to U.K. businessman James Hanson. At the time, the star was on location in Italy filming “Roman Holiday.” After the wedding was called off, the ivory satin dress was given by Hepburn to a young Italian, Amabile Altobella, for her marriage to a farm worker. Altobella was the seller.

The rediscovered gown, complete with a photograph of Hepburn wearing it, sold to a private collector for 13,800 pounds, beating a high estimate of 12,000 pounds.

The Hepburn lots achieved a total of 268,320 pounds, more than doubling the presale valuation of 100,000 pounds. All realized prices included 20 percent auction house fees.

A cocktail dress worn by Audrey Hepburn in the 1966 film How to Steal a Million has been sold at auction for £60,000.

The Chantilly lace outfit, by Hepburn’s favourite designer Hubert de Givenchy, was among dozens of her dresses, hats, belts and letters being sold.

A satin bridal gown for a wedding called off by Hepburn in 1952, when the late star was 23, sold for £13,800.

Some £268,320 was raised in the auction at La Galleria in central London, with half the proceeds going to charity.

A visitor looks at dresses worn by Audrey Hepburn, including the outfit in black lace, second left, that she wore in the 1966 film “How to Steal a Million”, exhibited amongst dozens of garments and personal items once belonging to the Hollywood star, in Paris, Tuesday Dec. 1, 2009, prior to a auction in London on Dec. 8. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

A Mark Cross Red and White stripped top that Audrey Hepburn wore in the 1957 film “War and Peace” is exhibited among dozens of garments and personal items once belonging to the Hollywood star, in Paris, Tuesday Dec. 1, 2009, prior to a auction in London on Dec. 8. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

A jade green velvet Audrey Hepburn donned for a photo shoot in Vogue magazine is exhibited among dozens of garments and personal items once belonging to the Hollywood star, in Paris, Tuesday Dec. 1, 2009, prior to a auction in London on Dec. 8. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

In her purse is an envelope addressed to “Mum.” Inside is a homemade card sporting a photocopy of the iconic image of Audrey Hepburn with her long cigarette holder.

“You really can have breakfast at Tiffany’s,” reads the note from her son and daughter-in-law. It also says a gift card is waiting for her on the third floor.

“An American on the ship told me to forget about the movie and read the book,” says Overton, who is from York, England. “He said it was the best thing Capote ever wrote. So I’m going out and finding it after I go in here.”

That’s impeccable timing on her part, because it’s the 50th anniversary of Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s. A special edition (Vintage, $12.95, paperback) of the novella is being released in November, packaged with three other Capote classics, including A Christmas Memory.

Overton disappears through the revolving door and into Tiffany’s main floor, where men in blue suits greet her with a polite nod, and the dark wood paneling, marble and mirrors still bestow a sense of security. Just as they did for Holly Golightly, Capote’s quirky, pleasure-seeking and timeless heroine.

It was to Tiffany that Golightly fled when she got the “mean reds,” which were far worse than the blues.

As she says about the store in the book: “It calms me down right away, the quietness and the proud look of it. Nothing very bad could happen to you there, not with those kind men in their nice suits, and that lovely smell of silver and alligator wallets.”

Breakfast at Tiffany’s, published in 1958 and followed three years later by the movie adaptation, has become a touchstone in American pop culture. Next to In Cold Blood, it is the book most associated with Capote. The movie remains an Audrey Hepburn classic. Its poster is one of the most sought-after by collectors, and Hepburn’s little black dress by Givenchy sold at Christie’s for just over $800,000 in 2006.

Brit should pick up a copy of What Would Audrey Do? Timeless Lessons for Living with Grace and Style by Pamela Keogh, author of Audrey Style, Jackie Style and Elvis Presley: The Man. The Life. The Legend.

Audrey Style took 10 years of research, interviewing relatives and Rob Wolders, Hepburn’s partner till she died in 1993 at 63 of cancer.

This is Audrey Lite, a self-help Audrey Primer like Miss Manners.

“Audrey Style, Jackie Style and Elvis were big, serious bios,” says Keogh over the phone from New York. “This is looser, rowdier and fun. What could we learn from A.H.?”

To wear undergarments, for one.

That it coincided with the meltdowns of the Lohans, Richies and Hiltons was fortuitous but coincidental. “This took so long, I was writing it way before they all blew.”

I was smitten with A.H., as are people of all demographics. She is an icon to girls and grandparents.

“The young girls know her movies. They don’t know World War II,” Keogh says. “They see her on- screen and she seems like a nice person. She is childish and grown-up at the same time. Her honesty, beauty, vulnerability and genuine guilelessness are appealing.”

A.H. is also a style icon: white shirt, LBD, ballet flats, oversized glasses and black capri pants. She was the muse for 30 years of Hubert Givenchy. An unrepentant clothes horse, A.H. stated, pre-Sex and the City, she’d “rather have more closets than a swimming pool.”

She traveled with 52 suitcases.

“That was when she was in her career prime,” Keogh specifies. “At UNICEF, she travelled with two suitcases – one for Rob Wolders – with jeans and polo shirts.”

She was a stick figure – size 2 and a 20-inch waist – but “she made non-sexy, sexy.”

“It was her intelligence that was sexy. There was a depth to her, and sophistication,” says Keogh. “She’d look at a guy and he’d fall over.”

Columbia Pictures is tuning up a “My Fair Lady” redo, with Keira Knightley in talks to star as the simple Cockney flower girl who is transformed into a lady.

The studio declined comment on casting of the project, being produced by Duncan Kenworthy (“Love Actually,” “Notting Hill”) and London legit maven Cameron Mackintosh.

CBS Films, which owns the film rights to the Lerner & Loewe musical, will co-develop.

While it’s being called an update, the film will use the tuner’s score and retain its 1912 setting. Where possible, Kenworthy and Mackintosh intend to shoot the film on location in the original London settings of Covent Garden, Drury Lane, Tottenham Court Road, Wimpole Street and the Ascot racecourse. (The 1964 Warner Bros. film was lensed entirely on Hollywood soundstages.)

The filmmakers plan to adapt Alan Jay Lerner’s book more fully for the screen by drawing additional material from George Bernard Shaw’s play “Pygmalion,” which served as the source material for the musical. The goal is to dramatize the emotional highs and lows of Doolittle as she undergoes the ultimate metamorphosis under the tutelage of Professor Henry Higgins.

“This update will preserve the magic of the musical while fleshing out the characters and bringing 1912 London to life in an authentic and exciting way,” said Col co-president Doug Belgrad.

Kenworthy, who worked with Knightley on “Love Actually,” said, “With 40 years of hindsight, we’re confident that by setting these wonderful characters and brilliant songs in a more realistic context, and by exploring Eliza’s emotional journey more fully, we will honor both Shaw and Lerner at the same time as engaging and entertaining contemporary audiences the world over.”

Mackintosh, who has produced many of the West End’s and Broadway’s most successful musicals, including “Cats,” “Les Miserables” and “The Phantom of the Opera,” said the story of Doolittle’s transformation “couldn’t be more timely in a contemporary world obsessed with overnight celebrity.”

Mackintosh has produced two stage revivals of “My Fair Lady”: the first in 1979, with Lerner directing; and a second incarnation, which opened in the West End in 2001 and is now touring the U.S.

The film is to be produced by British filmmaker Duncan Kenworthy and Broadway producer Sir Cameron Mackintosh.

The producers plan to use original songs from the Tony-award winning play, which first hit the stage in 1956 starring Julie Andrews.

“‘My Fair Lady’ is not just the quintessential stage musical and classic film, but a fantastic story,” Columbia Pictures President Doug Belgrad said in a statement. “This update will preserve the magic of the musical while bringing 1912 London to life in an authentic and exciting way for contemporary audiences.”

Filmmakers also hope to adapt more material from “Pygmalion,” the play by George Bernard Shaw on which “My Fair Lady” is based. They say this will give the audience stronger emotional attachment to Eliza Doolittle as she undergoes the transformation from girl to lady.