And just like that, Galliano’s newspaper dress sold for over €15,000

“And somewhere out there Big was alone again,” said Carrie Bradshaw, traipsing slow-mo down a busy Manhattan crossing during the final minutes of the third Sex and The City series. She had just broken up with Big (again) and was feeling philosophical. “The universe may not always play fair but at least it’s got a hell of a sense of humour.” So too did Patricia Field, the costume designer who decided to cloak Carrie – a writer who mines her own life for column inches – in a bias-cut slip emblazoned with newspaper clippings. 

So genius was that decision, that the dress – pilfered from John Galliano’s AW00 collection at Dior – became a totem of the 00s: an era where single, metropolitan woman realised they could, and should, have it all. It also just sold via Bonhams for €15,300, reaching far beyond the expected price of €800 - €1,000, which seems like a gross underestimation for a slice of pop cultural history. Etched into the zeitgeist like a hieroglyph, the newspaper dress has now become its own genre of clothing, and has birthed a slew of fast fashion rip-offs. Perhaps Che Diaz would benefit from logging onto Pretty Little Thing dot com. 

Now bastardised into bodycons and flared leggings, it’s easy to overlook the controversial origins of the design: Galliano’s collection drew inspiration from homeless people who slept on newspapers and received major backlash from the fashion press for its appropriation of poverty. Ironically, Bonhams said the dress was the “star lot” of its auction, and for those who fancy themselves as a bit of a Carrie – a self-indulgent narcissistic who just loves a good pun – there is another dress currently being hawked on 1Dibs for the modest sum of £208,897 and three pence. Which is a bargain because ”we keep dresses we'll never wear again, but we throw away our ex-boyfriends.”