Someone just dropped more than $1 million on Dorothy’s ‘Wizard of Oz’ dress

You are definitely not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy. If you were, that dress you wore on your trip to Oz would not fetch a cool $1.5 million.

Dorothy’s iconic blue gingham dress from the classic Wizard of Oz went up for auction at New York auction house, Bonham’s on Monday and the highest bid exceeded the expected price of $800,000 by about hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Chalk this up to America’s fascination with Old Hollywood or just sheer nostalgia, but that blue and white dress caused a bidding war between three bidders that was so hot, the winner couldn’t be immediately identified, according to CNN International.

“As we witnessed today in the Bonhams’ saleroom, the dress is considered a true and timeless icon of classic Hollywood,” said Catherine Williamson, Bonhams’ director of entertainment memorabilia. That might just be the understatement of the year, considering this dress just cost more money than some of us will see in our entire lifetimes.

For a million dollars, the winner of the auction got Dorothy’s blue-and-white checked smock and the high-necked cream blouse with “Judy Garland” embroidered on the inside. Sadly, the ruby slippers are sold separately, but one can only imagine what those would sell for.

This particular dress is one of two that Judy Garland wore during the 1939 filming of Wizard of Oz. The other sold in 2012 for a good bit less — a measly $480,000 — and the Cowardly Lion’s costume sold in 2014 for a respectable $3 million. 

CNN reports, “The costume sold Monday was part of lot featuring 400 classic film pieces that were sold in conjunction with Turner Classic Movies. Other items included Steve McQueen’s iconic racing suit from Le Mans and scripts from Casablanca.”

None of us will probably ever own anything Judy Garland ever wore, but we can certainly admire it from the comfort of our couches, and it will only cost us $1 at the Redbox.

(Image via MGM.)