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She’s a Rich Girl: 11 of the Most Expensive Celebrity Dresses of All Time

Photo Credit: BEN STANSALL / Stringer / Getty Images
Photo Credit: BEN STANSALL / Stringer / Getty Images

Some dresses go down in history for their style impact while other dresses go down in history for their price. Often, these two facts go hand-in-hand. Certain gowns are unforgettable because their prices allowed them to majorly impact fashion trends. Here, we count down the eleven most expensive dresses ever made.

11. Princess Diana’s 1987 Cannes Film Festival Dress – $137, 500

Princess Diana at the Cannes Film Festival
Princess Diana at the Cannes Film Festival, 1987. (Photo Credit: Tim Graham/ Getty Images)

This baby blue dress worn by Princess Diana at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival is one of our favorite looks of all time. The dress was designed by Catherine Walker, and took inspiration from a dress worn by Grace Kelly in Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch A Thief (1955). The dress was sold at a 2013 auction for a total sum of $137,500.

10. Lupita Nyong’o’s 2015 Oscar Dress – $150,000

Lupita Nyong'o 2015 Oscars
Actress Lupita Nyong’o at the 2015 Oscars in Hollywood. (Photo Credit: Frank Trapper/ Getty Images)

In 2015, actress Lupita Nyong’o wore a custom-made Calvin Klein dress to the Oscars. The dress was worth $150,000 and was completed with 6,000 natural white pearls. A total of 25 people created the dress, and it took 10 weeks to hand-sew the pearls on.

9. Elizabeth Taylor’s 1970 Oscar Dress – $167,500

Elizabeth Taylor at the 1970 Oscars
Elizabeth Taylor at the 1970 Academy Awards. (Photo Credit: Ron Galella/ Getty Images)

In April 1970, actress Elizabeth Taylor attended the Academy Awards wearing a blue chiffon gown designed by Edith Head. She accessorized her look with the infamous “Taylor-Burton diamond” bought by Taylor and Richard Burton in 1969. The dress was specifically designed for the actress by Edith Head because she thought the color of the dress would make Taylor’s eyes pop, which of course, it did! The dress was auctioned off in 1999 and sold for $167, 500. 

8. Paris Hilton’s 2017 Hollywood Beauty Awards Dress – $270,000

Paris Hilton at the 2017 Hollywood Beauty Awards
Paris Hilton at the 2017 Hollywood Beauty Awards. (Photo Credit: Amanda Edwards/ Getty Images)

In 2017, Paris Hilton wore a dress designed by August Getty to the Hollywood Beauty Awards. The dress is covered in 500,000 Swarovski crystals and is worth about $270,000. It took a total of about eight months for it to be completed, and had an average of five people working on it at one time.

7. Kate Middleton’s Wedding Dress – $400,000

Kate Middleton wedding dress
Kate Middleton, and her sister Philipa, on Kate and William’s wedding day, April 29, 2011. (Photo Credit: BEN STANSALL/ Stringer/ Getty Images)

In April 2011, Kate Middleton married Prince William at Westminster Abbey. For her big day, she wore a dress designed by Sarah Burton from Alexander McQueen. The dress featured a Victorian lace bodice, and had a nearly nine-foot-long train. The wedding dress reportedly cost around $400,000.

6. Grace Kelly’s Wedding Dress – $550,000

Grace Kelly wedding dress
Grace Kelly in her wedding dress, April 18th 1956. (Photo Credit: Mondadori Portfolio/ Getty Images)

Grace Kelly’s 1956 wedding has served as the inspiration for brides all over the world for decades. The wedding dress features a high-neck long-sleeve gown complete with a full skirt. The stunning gown was designed by Helen Rose and features thousands of hand-sewn pearls, and even 125-year-old lace from Brussels. In 1956, the dress cost $60,000, which is equivalent to over $550,000 today.

5. Audrey Hepburn’s Black Dress from Breakfast at Tiffany’s – $807,000

Audrey Hepburn breakfast at Tiffanys
Audrey Hepburn in a black Givenchy dress in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961). (Photo Credit: Donaldson Collection/ Getty Images)

The black dress worn by Audrey Hepburn in the 1961 movie, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, is one of the most recognizable black dresses of all time. In 2006, the iconic Givenchy dress was sold at a Christie’s auction where it was bought for $807,000. Two other copies of this dress survive – one in Givenchy’s archive and the other in a costume museum in Madrid.

4. Nicole Kidman’s 1997 Oscars Dress – $2 million

Nicole Kidman at the 1997 Oscars
Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise at the 1997 Academy Awards. (Photo Credit: Kevin Mazur/ INACTIVE/ Getty Images)

In 1997, actress Nicole Kidman wowed at the Academy Awards in a green, silk Christian Dior Haute Couture dress. According to Melissa Rivers, who covered the 1997 Oscars, Kidman’s dress, complete with embroidered silk, with a slit up the side and lined with mink, was “the first true couture dress on the red carpet.” The dress took around 1,000 hours to make and is worth about two million dollars.

3. Jennifer Lawrence’s 2013 Oscars Dress – $4 Million

Jennifer Lawrence at the 2013 Academy Awards
Jennifer Lawrence at the 2013 Academy Awards. (Photo Credit: Dan MacMedan/ Getty Images)

When we think of iconic moments in Academy Awards history, we often think of actress Jennifer Lawrence falling up the stairs as she went to collect her award for her role in the movie Silver Lining Playbook. Perhaps this little fall had to do with the dress she was wearing that night, or perhaps she was just nervous to receive her first Academy Award. For the event, Jennifer Lawrence wore a drop-waisted Dior Couture gown which reportedly cost a staggering $4 million.

2. Marilyn Monroe’s White Dress from The Seven Year Itch – $4.6 million

Marilyn Monroe seven year itch
Marilyn Monroe and Tom Ewell on the set of The Seven Year Itch. (Photo Credit: Sunset Boulevard/ Getty Images)

Marilyn Monroe’s white dress is one of the most iconic dresses in history- and it’s also one of the most expensive. In 2011, the white dress that the bombshell wore in the 1955 movie The Seven Year Itch sold for a whopping $4.6 million.

1. Marilyn Monroe’s “Happy Birthday Mr. President” Dress – $4.8 million

Marilyn Monroe singing happy birthday to John F. Kennedy
Marilyn Monroe sings happy birthday to President John F. Kennedy at Madison Square Garden, 1962. (Photo Credit: Bettmann/ Getty Images)

More from us: 8 Stunning Royal Tiaras That Ooze Glitz And Glamour

In May 1962, Marilyn Monroe serenaded President John F. Kennedy in a tight, light pink gown covered in 2,500 crystals. When Monroe bought the dress, she spent about $6,000 on it, which is over $60,000 today. However, in November 2016 the dress was sold at a Julien’s auction for $4.8 million.

Kim Kardashian famously borrowed the iconic gown for the 2022 Met Gala.

Madeline Hiltz

Madeline Hiltz is one of the authors writing for The Vintage News