"Take Special Care of those ruby slippers. I want those most of all."

In the quest for the closeup, sometimes shoes don’t make the cut, but a few rarified examples transcend the screen. The legendary ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz are perhaps the most powerful example of film memorabilia, symbolizing the power of movies and costume design, as well as nostalgia and, ultimately, hope. Cementing this legacy is the recent sale of one pair in December of 2024 by Heritage Auctions for an otherworldly $32.5 million.

Only four pairs used on screen have survived the decades since. In 2011 a pair was purchased by Leonardo DiCaprio and Steven Spielberg for $2.2 million, and donated to the Motion Picture Academy, where they are currently on display. Another pair is in private hands and likely will not reach the market any time soon. A third, dubbed “The People’s Shoes” is the centerpiece of the Icons of American Culture exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. The recently auctioned slippers are marked on the inside lining “#7 Judy Garland.” Scuffs indicate they were the pair she wore to click her heels and send Dorothy back to Kansas.

When Gilbert Adrian designed the original shoes, they were just an element of the thousand custom-made costumes in the show. The slippers are part of the shared history of the Costume Designers Guild and Western Costume. In 1938 master shoemaker Joe Napoli transformed white pumps purchased from the Innes Shoe Company by dyeing the silk and hand applying over 2,300 sequins to each slipper. No one could have predicted that they would become a cultural touchstone.

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