One of the most recognisable costumes in cinema history spent decades missing, then turned up in 2021 inside a shoebox in a rubbish bag at a university drama department. Vanity Fair Italia has retold the story of a blue-and-white gingham dress worn by Judy Garland as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz (1939): donated in the 1970s, lost after its guardian died, rediscovered by chance, matched to a specific scene on screen, and later valued for auction at up to $1.2 million.
Gift, legend, then a shoebox
According to Vanity Fair Italia and contemporaneous reporting by the Smithsonian Magazine, actor Mercedes McCambridge gave one of Dorothy’s original dresses to Father Gilbert Hartke, the Dominican priest who founded the drama department at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He showed it with pride; after his death in 1986 the trail went cold. By the late 1980s the costume had become a campus legend.
On 7 June 2021, lecturer Matt Ripa was clearing a building ahead of renovations when he opened a trash bag on top of the faculty mail slots. Inside was a shoebox; inside that, the folded gingham pinafore and cream blouse. A note from a retired professor said he had found the object while emptying an office, without naming what it was. Ripa photographed the find and handed it to the university archives.
How experts knew it was Garland’s
Several Dorothy dresses were made for the long MGM shoot, so resemblance alone is not enough. Smithsonian National Museum of American History specialists examined the garment: blue-and-white gingham apron with fitted bodice and full skirt, cream organza blouse, handkerchief pocket, mother-of-pearl buttons, and an internal label bearing Judy Garland’s name and wardrobe number 4223. Auction house Bonhams later matched the gingham pattern to the scene in which Dorothy is held in the Wicked Witch’s castle. The planned 2022 Bonhams sale, estimated at $800,000–$1.2 million to fund a screen-acting programme, was halted by an ownership dispute with Hartke’s niece; a federal judge rejected her claim in December 2023 and the appeal was upheld in 2024. A different complete Dorothy costume sold at Bonhams in 2015 for about $1.56 million.
Costume history reminds us that the simplest pieces often last longest in the culture — a lesson that sits well beside quiet, wearable jewellery such as sapphire earrings, soft-blue aquamarine rings, everyday earrings and a favourite pendant necklace.
Sources: Vanity Fair Italia, Maddalena Gomez, “L’abito di Dorothy ne Il mago di Oz: l’assurda storia del vestito scomparso per decenni e ritrovato nella spazzatura” (12 October 2026); Smithsonian Magazine, Nora McGreevy, “Judy Garland’s Long-Lost ‘Wizard of Oz’ Dress Rediscovered After Decades” (12 July 2021); CNN Style on the postponed Bonhams auction; NBC News and Bonhams on the 2022 estimate and the 2015 sale.
