Iconic 'Tennis Girl' skirt sells for over £15,000
A white dress made famous in the iconic Tennis Girl poster of the 1970s sold for £15,500 at auction today.
A telephone bid secured the dress which was worn by Fiona Butler in the famous photograph taken on a Birmingham tennis court.
The lot, which also included, two posters and a tennis racquet, exceeded expectations at the auction at Fieldings Auctioneers in Stourbridge. It had been expected to sell for up to £2,000.
Bidding in the room started at £5,400 before it went to the phones.
The unique handmade dress with lace trim was made famous in a photograph taken by the late Martin Elliott featuring his then-girlfriend Fiona, now 55, married and living in Worcestershire.
Mrs Walker, who was 18 at the time and was living in Oldswinford, was captured in a cheeky pose walking away from the camera, with her right hand grasping a tennis racquet and her left on her backside.
The then-unknown commercial photographer Mr Elliott, a Stourbridge College student, sold the image licence to be re-printed in the 1977 Athena poster, and it went on to sell more than two million copies worldwide.
