Time to do the twist! Uma Thurman’s Pulp Fiction costume is hitting the auction block.
The simple outfit that Mia Wallace, Thurman’s bored mob wife, wears to Jack Rabbit Slim’s with Vincent Vega (John Travolta) has become an enduring icon of Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 film. Now, more than 30 years later, the nipped waist white button-up and slightly too-short Agnès B kick-flares are heading to auction. Propstore, the film memorabilia auction house, expects to fetch between $15,000 and $30,000 for the costume, which hits the block on August 26 at the Peterson Automotive Museum in Los Angeles.
Photo: Courtesy of Miramar Films
“It’s the epitome of ’90s: simplistic, quirky, fun,” says Maegen Hensley, director of asset management at Propstore. “And that’s exactly what the character embodies. She was the wife, but she was also one of the boys.” Indeed, costume designer Betsy Heimann took inspiration for Mia from Tarantino’s preceding film, Reservoir Dogs. “She’s totally barred from interacting with any man, so she has a chance to go out one night with Vincent, and she’s like, ‘Well, I’m going to show them I’m a Reservoir Dog like they are,’” Heimann told Vogue in 2019.
Hensley says that the costume was consigned by a Pulp Fiction crew member who held onto it after production wrapped in 1994. Beyond the consignor’s account, other distinctions allowed Hensley and her team to identify the piece as Thurman’s costume. “Of course [the costume is] probably one of a few because she has iterations—obviously the last one had blood on it,” she says. “But you can tell by the customization that they did on the side: When you look inside that costume, you see a piece of elastic. That’s not something that you would purchase or something that’s easily replicated.”
Courtesy of Propstore
