The news that the dress the late Amy Winehouse wore on the cover of her album Back to Black just sold for an unexpected £43,200 ($67,947)  – four times its estimate – is interesting. Not just because it’s a lot of money for a generally unremarkable, non-provenance, white frock with rust-coloured dots and a belt (though nowhere near as much as was paid for the lace tube Kate Middleton wore when she caught her Prince’s eye). But because of who bought it and what that signifies: Fundacion Museo De La Moda in Chile, a fashion museum in South America.

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Either Winehouse, whose untimely death this summer shocked fans and the music industry, enjoyed a surprising amount of popularity in Chile, or there’s a new way of valuing fashion in the offing.

Celebrity clothes have always sold well at auction (see anything worn by Audrey Hepburn or Marilyn Monroe; see the insanely anticipated Elizabeth Taylor auction, which takes place at Christie’s in New York next month). The gloss of proven fame adds longevity to style and equates to high prices. But generally the dresses have also had a certain worth in their own right: Hepburn’s gowns by Hubert de Givenchy, for example, mattered from a purely aesthetic point of view, and Monroe’s “iconic” looks (the white pleated dress from The Seven Year Itch; the Kennedy-serenading column dress) were widely copied and influential among other designers.