Accessorised with pearls, a cigarette holder and its wearer’s doe-eyed charm, Audrey Hepburn’s little black dress in Breakfast At Tiffany’s is one of cinema’s most iconic garments.

Today it became the most expensive, selling at auction for £410,000 as the star attraction in a record-breaking sale of film and entertainment memorabilia at Christie’s in Kensington, West London.

At almost six times the estimated price of £70,000 the dress, worn in the 1961 film, accounted for almost half of the £1,038,112 raised in total.

Among the 276 other lots was James Bond’s first gun, the Walther PPK used by Sean Connery in Dr No, which sold for £54,000 and the hideous reindeer jumper worn by Colin Firth’s Mark Darcy for a particularly embarrassing Christmas party scene in Bridget Jones’ Diary. It fetched £1,080.

Sarah Hodgson, head of the popular entertainment and film department at Christie’s, London, said that the auction had set a record for a film memorabilia sale in this country.

The dress, a size six to eight, became the most expensive made for a film and was bought by an anonymous telephone bidder.

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