Colin Firth’s iconic billowy white shirt, as seen on a sopping-wet Mr. Darcy in the BBC’s 1995 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, sold for thousands at auction on Tuesday.
The shirt and accompanying waistcoat, tailcoat, breeches, and boots were sold by Kerry Taylor Auctions, and originally estimated to go for 7,000 to 10,000 GBP. While the shirt and waistcoat were in good condition, the other pieces were slightly worn, but that didn't stop one lucky bidder from securing their prize for 25,000 GBP, over twice the estimated price.
While the scene in which Darcy takes a cooling dip in a pond was not in Jane Austen’s original story, nor in the miniseries’ actual script, the improvised sequence has remained an iconic moment and a rare thirst-trap in the Austenian universe.
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“It came about in discussions between myself and the late Christopher Prins who was then head of menswear at Cosprop,” said designer Dinah Collin. “Because on screen male nudity was not permitted (taking into account the BBC watershed and US broadcasts)—the idea of the ‘wet shirt’ was born.”
The shirt is part of a larger set of costume pieces donated by Cosprop, being sold in support of The Bright Foundation.
The six-episode miniseries adaptation recently had a resurgent moment in pop culture after it was featured in Barbie, which highlighted its status as an all-time perfect comfort watch.
