The Most Expensive Clothing Ever Sold

On This Page

• Twenty-eight garments that sold for $900,000 or more
• What counts as clothing here
• Why a baseball shirt outsells a Monroe gown
• Guinness, Monroe and two ways to count a dress
• The Ascot dress nobody can total
• Two shirt figures that most lists get wrong
• Maradona’s price was set in pounds
• Jordan’s $12.26 million came from one bidder
• Same garment, sold twice
• Diana’s charity sale set the baseline
• Sales left off the ranking
• The gap between shirts and gowns, as I read it
• Top Takeaways to Success
• Frequently Asked Questions

The most expensive piece of clothing ever sold is a baseball shirt. Babe Ruth’s New York Yankees road jersey from Game 3 of the 1932 World Series made $24,120,000 at Heritage Auctions in Dallas in August 2024, including a 20 percent buyer’s premium.

That is five times the $4,810,000 paid for Marilyn Monroe’s “Happy Birthday, Mr President” gown, the dress Guinness World Records lists as its record.

Search for this and you mostly get gowns: Monroe, Diana, sometimes the ruby slippers. The money says otherwise. Sports shirts hold the top seven prices, and the first dress to appear is a film costume in eighth place. Below is one ranking that puts both kinds of garment side by side, every row tied to a named auction house, a date and a price, with the buyer’s premium shown wherever it was published.

Twenty-eight garments that sold for $900,000 or more

“Incl.” means the price includes buyer’s premium. “Hammer only” means only the winning bid was published, so that row understates what the buyer paid. “Not stated” means the coverage does not say. Pound sales are ranked on an approximate dollar conversion; the pound figure is the record.

#	Garment	Wearer	Price	Premium	Auction house	Date
1	Yankees road jersey, 1932 World Series Game 3 (the called shot)	Babe Ruth	$24,120,000	Incl. (20%)	Heritage, Dallas	23 to 25 Aug 2024
2	Bulls jersey, 1998 NBA Finals Game 3 (one reported bid)	Michael Jordan	$12,260,000	Not stated	Joopiter, online	29 Sep 2026
3	Bulls jersey, 1998 NBA Finals Game 1	Michael Jordan	$10,091,000	Incl.	Sotheby’s New York	6 to 14 Sep 2022
4	Argentina shirt, 1986 World Cup quarter-final	Diego Maradona	£7,142,500 (about $8.93m)	Incl.	Sotheby’s London	4 May 2022
5	Argentina shirts, 2022 World Cup (lot of six, never split)	Lionel Messi	$7,800,000	Incl.	Sotheby’s New York	14 Dec 2023
6	Lakers jersey, 2007 to 2008 MVP season, signed	Kobe Bryant	$5,800,000	Incl.	Sotheby’s New York	Feb 2023
7	Yankees road jersey, 1928 to 1930	Babe Ruth	$5,640,000	Not stated	Hunt Auctions	15 Jun 2019
8	White halter “subway” dress, The Seven Year Itch (film costume)	Marilyn Monroe	$5,520,000	Incl. (hammer $4.6m)	Profiles in History	18 Jun 2011
9	Lakers jersey, 1972 NBA Finals Game 5	Wilt Chamberlain	$4,900,000	Incl.	Sotheby’s New York	Sep 2023
10	Brazil shirt, 1958 World Cup final	Pelé	$4,880,000	Incl.	Sotheby’s	16 Jul 2026
11	Jean Louis “Happy Birthday, Mr President” gown	Marilyn Monroe	$4,810,000	Incl. (hammer $4.0m)	Julien’s	17 Nov 2016
12=	Bulls red jersey, 1996 to 1997 season	Michael Jordan	$4,680,000	Incl.	Sotheby’s New York	Nov 2024
12=	Yankees jersey, 1958 home opener	Mickey Mantle	$4,680,000	Incl.	Heritage	21 Aug 2023
14	Yankees jersey, c. 1920	Babe Ruth	$4,415,658	Not stated	SCP Auctions	May 2012
15	Bulls rookie preseason jersey	Michael Jordan	$4,215,000	Incl.	Sotheby’s	26 Mar 2025
16	Ascot dress, My Fair Lady (film costume, total disputed)	Audrey Hepburn	$3,700,000	Hammer only	Profiles in History	18 Jun 2011
17	Heat jersey, 2013 NBA Finals Game 7	LeBron James	$3,680,000	Incl.	Sotheby’s New York	27 Jan 2023
18	Oilers jersey, 1988 Stanley Cup Final Game 4	Wayne Gretzky	$2,800,000	Not stated	Goldin	28 Apr 2026
19	Yankees jersey, 1939 World Series	Lou Gehrig	$2,700,000	Incl.	Christie’s New York with Hunt	22 Oct 2025
20	Yankees road jersey, 1937	Lou Gehrig	$2,580,000	Incl.	Heritage	17 to 18 Aug 2019
21	Gingham pinafore, The Wizard of Oz (film costume)	Judy Garland	$1,560,000	Incl.	Bonhams New York	23 Nov 2015
22	Buccaneers jersey, final NFL game	Tom Brady	$1,390,000	Incl.	Sotheby’s	Nov 2023
23	Jean Louis birthday gown, first sale	Marilyn Monroe	$1,267,500	Incl.	Christie’s New York	Oct 1999
24	Red sequin dress, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (film costume)	Marilyn Monroe	$1,200,000	Hammer only	Profiles in History	18 Jun 2011
25	Jacques Azagury evening dress (sold with a sketch)	Princess Diana	$1,148,080	Reported total	Julien’s	Dec 2023
26	Givenchy black satin gown, Breakfast at Tiffany’s (charity lot)	Audrey Hepburn	£467,200 ($923,187)	Incl.	Christie’s London	5 Dec 2006
27=	Victor Edelstein magenta gown	Princess Diana	$910,000	Reported total	Julien’s	27 Jun 2024
27=	Blue test dress, The Wizard of Oz (film costume)	Judy Garland	$910,000	Hammer only	Profiles in History	18 Jun 2011

Eighteen rows are sports shirts and ten are dresses. Rounded figures (Kobe, Wilt, Pelé, LeBron, Brady) are as the auction houses announced them. Gehrig’s 1939 jersey is reported at both $2.7 million and $2,712,000. The four hammer-only costume rows would each rise by a fifth if they carried the 20 percent premium the subway dress did, which would lift the Ascot dress to about $4.44 million, though no source states that total.

What counts as clothing here

A garment, for this ranking, is something made to be worn on the body and sold as a single item of dress: a shirt, a jersey, a gown. Shoes and accessories are excluded. Film costumes are included and flagged, because leaving out the subway dress would leave out the highest dress price there is.

The ruby slippers are the reason that line matters. Judy Garland’s pair from The Wizard of Oz made $32,500,000 at Heritage on 7 December 2024, on a $28,000,000 hammer. Count footwear and they top this page by $8.4 million. They are ranked instead on the most expensive movie props page, alongside the Cowardly Lion costume ($3,077,000, Bonhams, 2014), because both sold as screen memorabilia and their buyers bid in that market.

Why a baseball shirt outsells a Monroe gown

Ruth’s jersey has sold before. In 2005 it made $940,000, described as “attributed to” the called shot: the right World Series, no proven game. Professional Sports Authenticator and MeiGray later matched it to photographs from Wrigley Field on 1 October 1932, the afternoon Ruth pointed and then hit Charlie Root’s pitch to centre field.

Same grey flannel, same “3”. About 26 times the money, nineteen years later.

The commission alone shows the scale. Heritage’s 20 percent premium on a $24.12 million total comes to about $4.02 million, with roughly $20.1 million as the hammer. The Guinness record gown was knocked down at $4,000,000. Heritage’s fee on the Ruth shirt was, give or take $20,000, the winning bid on the most famous dress in the world.

The pattern holds down the shirt side of the table. The prices that climbed hardest are the ones tied by photo-match to a single game, and better still to a single moment. Dresses have nothing equivalent to buy. Nobody disputes which night Monroe sang to Kennedy; the gown’s identity was never in question, so certainty adds nothing to its price.

Guinness, Monroe and two ways to count a dress

Guinness says the birthday gown beat the previous record, the subway dress, by $200,000. That compares $4.8 million with $4.6 million.

The $4.6 million is the subway dress’s hammer. The $4.8 million is the birthday gown’s total with premium. Measured on the same basis, the order reverses on both counts:

• Hammer against hammer: $4,600,000 for the subway dress, $4,000,000 for the gown.
• Total against total: $5,520,000 for the subway dress, $4,810,000 for the gown.

The gown’s $4,000,000 hammer comes from Scott Fortner, a Monroe collector who watched the sale and published both numbers. Julien’s publicises the $4.8 million total. Nothing contradicts the hammer, and the gap between them fits a premium of about 20 percent.

The subway dress has its own spread of figures. The AP reported the $4.6 million hammer. The $5.52 million total is the figure the Huffington Post carried and Wikipedia repeats. Paul Fraser Collectibles, which bid on the lot and dropped out at $2.4 million, wrote $5.6 million. Every version beats $4.81 million.

There is an argument for the gown, and it is not the one Guinness makes. William Travilla designed the subway dress for a character in a Twentieth Century-Fox film, and it came to auction from Debbie Reynolds’s collection of studio wardrobe. Monroe had the Jean Louis gown made for herself and wore it as herself.

The Ascot dress nobody can total

Hepburn’s My Fair Lady dress sold in the same Profiles in History room that June day. The AP gave a $3.7 million hammer. Totals of $4.4 million and $4.5 million both circulate, and neither comes with the working. The table shows the hammer and marks the total as disputed.

Two shirt figures that most lists get wrong

Maradona’s price was set in pounds

Maradona’s shirt from the 1986 quarter-final against England, the match with the Hand of God and the Goal of the Century, sold at Sotheby’s London for £7,142,500. Bidding opened on 20 April 2022 and closed on 4 May, against an estimate of £4 million to £6 million.

The $9.28 million printed almost everywhere belongs to the opening day. The European Central Bank’s reference rate on 20 April was 1.3054 dollars to the pound, giving about $9.32 million. On 4 May it was 1.2508, which gives about $8.93 million.

The rank does not move. The margin does: at the closing-day rate, Jordan’s Game 1 jersey beat Maradona’s shirt by about $1.16 million rather than $811,000.

The shirt also sold over an objection from Maradona’s daughter. Dalma Maradona said before the sale that her father changed shirts at half-time and that England’s Steve Hodge had the first-half shirt. Sotheby’s answered that photo-matching tied this shirt to both second-half goals, and the lot sold on that basis. It had been on loan to the National Football Museum in Manchester since 2002.

Jordan’s $12.26 million came from one bidder

Jordan’s white Game 3 jersey from the 1998 Finals, worn in the 96 to 54 win over Utah on 7 June 1998, closed on Joopiter at 8.06pm Eastern on 29 September 2026 for $12,260,000, inside an estimate of $10 million to $15 million. The Athletic, as reported by TSN, said it drew one bid.

Two things follow. The second-highest garment price ever recorded was not contested. And Joopiter’s coverage does not say whether the figure includes a premium, so setting it against Sotheby’s $10,091,000 for the Game 1 jersey (fees included, 20 bids) is not quite like for like.

Messi’s row needs a flag of a different kind. The $7.8 million at Sotheby’s in December 2023 bought six shirts, each worn in the first half of an Argentina match at the 2022 World Cup. It was one lot. Dividing by six gives arithmetic, not a price.

Same garment, sold twice

A garment that sells twice is the cleanest evidence in this category: one object, two prices, two dates.

Garment	First sale	Second sale	Multiple
Pelé, 1958 World Cup final shirt	$105,600, Christie’s, 2004	$4,880,000, Sotheby’s, Jul 2026	about 46x
Ruth, 1932 called-shot jersey	$940,000, 2005	$24,120,000, Heritage, Aug 2024	about 26x
Diana, aubergine Edelstein gown	$24,150, Christie’s New York, Jun 1997	$604,800, Sotheby’s New York, Jan 2023	about 25x
Monroe, Jean Louis birthday gown	$1,267,500, Christie’s New York, Oct 1999	$4,810,000, Julien’s, Nov 2016	about 3.8x
Gretzky, 1988 Stanley Cup jersey	$1,452,000, Grey Flannel, 2022	$2,800,000, Goldin, Apr 2026	about 1.9x

Ruth’s shirt and Diana’s aubergine gown multiplied by almost the same amount, 26 against 25. The shirt did it seven years faster, and its starting price was 39 times higher.

Jordan’s rookie preseason jersey is off the scale. NBA.com reports it sold for $800 in 1985. Sotheby’s sold it for $4,215,000 in March 2025.

Diana’s charity sale set the baseline

On 25 June 1997, two months before her death, Diana sold 79 gowns at Christie’s New York for cancer and AIDS charities, raising more than $3 million. Those prices are what every Diana resale is now measured against. The Azagury dress, worn in Florence in 1985 and Vancouver in 1986, was estimated around $100,000 at Julien’s in December 2023 and made $1,148,080 with its matching sketch. The magenta Edelstein made $910,000 at Julien’s on 27 June 2024 against a $200,000 estimate.

Some coverage of that 2024 sale gives the magenta gown as “$1.3 million”. That is Australian dollars, converted at about 1.51. The same syndicated report lists the $200,000 estimate as $302,000. Ranking the magenta gown above the Azagury dress on “$1.3 million” mixes two currencies.

Sales left off the ranking

The Travolta dress, December 2019. Diana’s midnight-blue Edelstein gown made $222,500 in 1997 and £240,000 at Kerry Taylor in 2013. In December 2019 it failed to reach its reserve at Kerry Taylor, then went privately to Historic Royal Palaces two days later. The price for that private deal is reported as £264,000, $290,000 and $347,000. No contract figure was published, so it is not ranked.

Joe Montana, Super Bowl XXIV. Treasure Trove announced in August 2026 that it had bought Montana’s jersey from his final Super Bowl for $1,515,000. No auction house or seller is named in any coverage I found, so it is noted here, not ranked.

Ruth, 2005. The $940,000 sale appears in the resale table because the price is widely confirmed. The coverage does not name the auction house, which keeps it out of the main ranking.

Charity lots. Hepburn’s Givenchy gown, row 26, is ranked but flagged: it was a charity sale, estimated at £50,000 to £70,000, and made £467,200 with proceeds going to City of Joy Aid. Diana’s 1997 lots were charity sales too, which is one reason their prices look so low beside the resales.

The gap between shirts and gowns, as I read it

I don’t think the Ruth jersey is five times as important as the birthday gown. I think it is five times as certain, and in this market those come out as the same thing.

Look at what moved Ruth’s price. Not the flannel. A certificate saying this is the shirt from that at-bat, which took it from under a million to over twenty-four. Pelé’s shirt went the same way with a smaller number. Sports collecting has built an industry around proving which game a shirt was worn in, and buyers pay hard for the proof.

A dress never needed one. Everybody knows which gown Monroe wore to sing to Kennedy. That should make it the safer asset, and maybe it is. It just doesn’t get the premium.

On the Guinness question I’d keep the birthday gown at the top of the dress list, for a different reason than the record book gives. The subway dress made more, and I’d rather say that plainly than repeat the $200,000 comparison. But it was a costume for a character. The gown was Monroe’s, worn as herself less than three months before she died. Of everything in the table, it is the one garment I’d call a historical document rather than a souvenir.

The Jordan record I’d treat as soft. One bid is a real sale, and also the thinnest possible evidence of a market. Ruth’s price came after six hours of competition. Those are not equally strong numbers, even if they sit two rows apart.

And if a dress ever closes the gap, my read is that it will be one of Diana’s. Monroe’s two great dresses have had their auctions. Diana’s wardrobe is still coming to market a piece or two a year, the Azagury dress went for eleven times its estimate, and nothing in her results so far looks like a ceiling. Getting from $1.1 million to $24 million is another matter. I wouldn’t bet on it this decade.

Jordan’s game-worn shoes from the same 1998 Finals are on the most expensive sneakers page, and the cards that once held the sports record are on most expensive baseball cards. Every other category is ranked on the most expensive things ever sold hub.