How an Impossibly Glamorous Photo of Audrey Hepburn Was Lost — Then Rediscovered

The very name Audrey Hepburn evokes her unique style.

The actress wore Ferragamo shoes and luxurious Valentino dresses and coats in Rome. In the Swiss countryside, where she lived out her final years in an 18th-century farmhouse, it was all about gardener jeans, Ralph Lauren polo shirts and soft cashmere sweaters.

But in Paris, Audrey Hepburn wore the most magical confections, perfectly tailored to her slim frame, woven from lace, satin and tulle. Many were designed by her close friend and confidante Hubert de Givenchy and are still the subject of fashion fantasies to this day.

“It was a strange situation,” Luca Dotti — Hepburn’s younger son from her second marriage to Italian psychiatrist Andrea Dotti — tells PEOPLE. “Much of her career revolved around Paris: her looks, her best friends were all Parisian…but she never lived there.”

More than three decades after her death on January 20, 1993, at the age of 63 from appendicitis, her famous look is still everyone’s favorite. Hepburn’s celebrated style inspired Meghan Friedlander, a Bay Area writer, to begin collecting photos for an archive of Hepburn’s most Parisian looks.

See how Audrey Hepburn lives an ordinary life in rare photos taken before she became famous

audrey hepburn paris airport 1962

Cuttlefish USA

It all started when Friedlander started an Instagram account, Rare Audrey Hepburn, to document the British actress’ many looks. This in turn led her to a transcontinental friendship with Dotti. “Thanks to Meghan and other writers of her generation, I found a 360-degree view of my mother as a complete person,” says Dotti. “He wasn’t always focused on the little black dress and Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”

Their friendship became a collaboration and a new book, Audrey Hepburn in Parisa collection of beautiful photographs and intimate stories from Hepburn’s travels and cutting edge films, including Funny face, Sabrina, Charade and How to steal a million.

When they started the project, Dotti told Friedlander, “I want you to feel like you’re in Paris with my mother, following in her footsteps. That you can imagine being with her, in her favorite flower shop and Hôtel Raphaël, not far from the Arc de Triomphe and the small restaurants she loved.”

‘I didn’t know my mother was Audrey Hepburn’: Her son reveals the star’s private side

Deciding which of the glamorous photos would grace the cover of the book was a separate journey. When shooting promotional materials for How to steal a million, Audrey wanted to look the part, reports Dotti. “At one point my mother said, ‘I’m a thief, I need one with a mask.'” Designer Hubert de Givenchy, who did the costumes for the film, didn’t like the idea. “No one will see you’re Audrey Hepburn,” he replied. “Lose your mask.”

After some back and forth, the makeup artist intervened, so the viewer could see Audrey’s famously expressive eyes. He stuck tiny sequins on her eyes, one by one, so they would shine through the black lace. But the photo was never used in the film or its promotional materials. All that was lost to history.

Then came Friedlander. “I’ve been collecting Audrey Hepburn memorabilia for over 15 years,” she says. “In 2017 I came across an auction on Live Auctioneers and there was a very blurry image and I could make out the transparencies of Audrey from How to steal a million. I said, ‘This looks like a Douglas Kirkland photo… I’m bidding on this.’ And luckily I won.”

Years later, Friedlander remembered those foils and had them developed. After she sent it to Dotti, the couple reached out to the Douglas Kirkland Estate, who was shocked to hear that the photo still existed. They negotiated the rights to the photo, and the rest, as they say, is history.

“As soon as Luca and I saw the photo, we fell in love,” says Friedlander. “It had that femme fatale aesthetic. We thought, this is the cover.”

Audrey. the book Hepburn in Paris.

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“It’s as if it was my mother’s will,” says Dotti, “that this fun photograph dug its way through its own life… It’s a photograph that has a life of its own.”

For more on Audrey Hepburn in Paris, pick up this week’s issue of PEOPLE, out Friday, or subscribe here.

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Source: HIS Education