Keira Knightley didn't win an Oscar for her portrayal of some flouncy, braying woman in Pride And Prejudice this year. She didn't even come close. But at least we can say this of Keira – her dress was quite nice.
So nice, in fact, that Keira Knightley did the posh filmstar equivalent of hoicking it down the charity shop – she donated it to Oxfam, and someone bought it for £4,300. No word as yet about the buyer, although if you see a slightly creepy businessman wedged into a size 6 Vera Wang frock next time you're down the supermarket, chances are you've probably found him.
Crisp-loving scrawntress Keira Knightley seems to know that she's got a massive goodwill deficit after appearing in shonky old rubbishflick Domino, and she's doing her darnedest to make it up. Not by getting naked with Scarlett Johansson -although that helped – but by flogging off one of her old dresses to Oxfam. Keira decided to donate the dress to the charity herself, after hearing about the desperate state of drought-hit East Africa:
"This is such an amazing dress and I am really pleased to be able to donate it to Oxfam. I have seen on TV reports on the horrendous drought in East Africa and I know how desperate things have become, so I am happy to be able to do something to help."
Oddly enough, Oxfam didn't decide to ship the Keira Knightley dress direct to Africa, allowing the starving millions to try it on and generally boost their morale by fetching water while dressed as the star of Bend It Like Beckham – instead, Oxfam flogged the dress on eBay, and are using the proceeds to help the affected communities.
However brilliant the money raised by Keira Knightley and Oxfam is, though, it is dwarfed by the $100,000 paid for the two Brokeback Mountain shirts in February. Still, the £4,300 that the sale of the dress raised will be able to feed 500 children for 30 days. Or to put it another way, 500 Keira Knightleys for a year and a half.
Read more:
Oxfam gets £4,300 for Oscar dress – BBC
[story by Stuart Heritage]