Make a bid for fame

Fancy a pair of Queen Victoria's (crotchless) knickers, or one of Diana's old ball gowns? John Windsor looks ahead to a rash of celebrity auctions and the chances of a bargain

They are the old sweats of the saleroom: Queen Victoria's knickers, Madonna's bra and Buddy Holly's bathing trunks. In the next few weeks, bales of celebrity cast-offs will hit the Christie's salerooms in South Kensington, as well as those in Los Angeles and New York - where there will be auctions of clothes worn by Hollywood stars and the Princess of Wales, in their former roles.

You can pay up to pounds 69,000 for a celebrity cast-off - the record price fetched by Elvis Presley's red, gold-studded "Burning Love" stage suit at Bonhams' sale at the Hard Rock Casino in Las Vegas in 1995.

Queen Victoria's open-crotch knickers, complete with crested VR monogram, come considerably cheaper, at pounds 400-pounds 600 a pair, although there is probably about the same number of them kicking around as Elvis stage suits. Queen Victoria, well aware of their premium value, used to give them to her ladies-in-waiting as perks. In this country, six avid collectors, including a vicar's wife, snap up the royal knickers and stockings at auction. Seamed crotches, by the way, did not come in until the 1880s.

There are some clever reproductions of VR knickers about, so if you catch sight of a royal monogram ask for proof of its provenance, ideally a letter of authentication written by a lady-in-waiting.

Even for modern celebrities' clothes, proof of the provenance claimed is vital. Bonhams' Ted Owen cites an example of Jimi Hendrix jackets being bid through the roof largely thanks to photographs and a film showing the star wearing them at famous gigs. Hendrix jackets had not fetched more than pounds 6,000 before 1994 when seven in a Bonhams sale in London each made between pounds 17,000 and pounds 38,000 - the latter being the price paid for an orange speckled one that he wore at a nostalgically remembered gig at Newcastle City Hall in 1967, and in A Film About Jimi Hendrix.

Even a Beatles stage suit has never made more than the pounds 23,992 paid for John Lennon's 1963 collarless fawn suit with gold satin lining, which sold for the yen equivalent of that sum at Bonhams' Tokyo sale in March.

But there were signs this month that rock and pop memorabilia and clothing sales are losing their twang. Bonhams' Chelsea sale shifted only 38 per cent of its lots, a mere 25 per cent by notional value. Has the bottom fallen out? There have been fears for the past couple of years that the market is over-stocked. Among the few costume lots in the sale, nobody wanted Elvis's Fifties cowboy shirt, estimated at pounds 4,000-pounds 5,000 (pounds 1,000 less than its estimate at Bonhams last August) and signed by him, Colonel Parker and others; nor John Lennon's silk tailored jacket rejected for use in the film Help (pounds 2,000-pounds 3,000). Its provenance was just not strong enough. But Sid Vicious's famous and much-photographed gold and blue lame jacket, worn on stage by Johnny Rotten at the maniacal Lyceum gig in 1976, made pounds 2,750 (the estimate was pounds 3,000-pounds 4,000).

This could be the time for hesitant bidders to carry off coveted costumes cheaply. The rest of the season's sales will tell. Next Thursday at 10.30am, Christie's South Kensington is offering for an estimated pounds 2,000-pounds 3,000 Madonna's ornate black-beaded stage bra, made for her brazen stage version of Vogue during her 1993 Girlie Show world tour - together with a letter about its provenance from the Maverick Music Company. In the same sale, Buddy Holly's jazzy swimming trunks (estimate pounds 700-pounds 900) are accompanied by a letter from his widow, Elena, confirming that the trunks are from his estate. Nothing about his having worn them, though.

And Elvis's midnight-blue velvet stage shirt is estimated at pounds 3,000-pounds 4,000. Yes, he did wear it on stage, which raises its value above that of a shirt of his worn only in the street. There is a colour photograph to prove it, and a letter from his bodyguard, David Hebler, saying that Elvis was fond of the shirt and gave it to him.

Fixing estimates for celebrities' costumes that already have a track record at auction is not difficult. Carey Wallace of Christie's South Kensington based her pounds 2,000-pounds 3,000 for Holly's trunks on prices fetched for other bits and pieces of his - shoes and socks. But what of one-off celebrity sales? The bidding - or lack of it - can be a cruel indicator of popularity, especially if the celeb, as is usually the case, is still alive and relying on the sale to yield a useful lump sum for retirement.

The decision by Christie's New York not to publish pre-sale estimates for Diana, Princess of Wales's charity sale of 80 evening dresses on 25 June will discreetly avoid comparison with above-estimate totals for garb belonging to Jackie Onassis, Barbra Streisand, Joan Sutherland, Rudolf Nureyev, Andy Warhol, Elton John, Frank Sinatra and others. But we shall still get some idea of how deep the Americans are prepared to dig to own a few threads of the Princess.

The most alluring lot is the only off-the-peg dress. This is the sexy, bare-shoulder black cocktail number known as The Serpentine, which she wore with aplomb at the Serpentine Gallery in 1993, the day after the television screening of Prince Charles's confessional with Jonathan Dimbleby. But has Christie's missed a trick by making it lot two, rather than holding it back until later in the sale, in the hope that a buying frenzy will have had time to build?

You could avoid frenzy - if, indeed, it lasts - by avoiding auctions altogether. Those who hankered for a Jackie O evening dress found none at the big sale. Jackie, a compulsive shopper, got rid of hundreds of them at low-profile charity sales in the Sixties - thus avoiding the sort of spendthrift notoriety that was to stick to Imelda Marcos. The London dealer in vintage and designer clothing, Mark Steinberg, is offering a full-length cream Givenchy ball gown of Jackie's for pounds 2,000, including its accidental rip.

Or seek out a celeb costume which has found its way into the wrong auction. Andy Warhol may have been a "pop" artist, but what was his powder-blue Western-style hat - signed on the inner rim in white paint and with an opium poppy stuck jauntily through the band - doing at a Bonhams' rock and pop sale last year? Giovanni Tieuli, a collector and dealer who remembers the loony prices paid at Sotheby's big Warhol memorabilia sale in New York in 1988, paid pounds 600 for it. He reckons it could fetch pounds 3,000 in New York - at a contemporary art sale. Its provenance is excellent: there is a film of Warhol wearing it.

To avoid embarrassment, wily auctioneers often misleadingly throttle back pre-sale estimates to what they might have been without their added celebrity value. The result can be hysterical no-ceiling bidding as in Sotheby's Jackie Kennedy Onassis sale in New York last year (her fake pearls, estimated $500-$700, zoomed to a ludicrous $211,500 (pounds 132,000)). Alternatively, prices can bump along the bottom. You could have bought Britt Ekland's 19th-century Persian Kalimkari jacket and embroidered Chinese coat for a song at South Ken in December: estimated at pounds 200-pounds 350, they failed to sell

Anne Swift deals in Victorian underwear (0171-370 6589). Steinberg and Tolkien, vintage and designer clothing (0171-376 3660).