Amy Winehouse’s iconic shoes held by Turkish collector

ANKARA

Blood-stained ballet shoes that belonged to British musician Amy Winehouse are part of the collection of Ankara collector Özgür Çift, who purchased them for $3,900 at a Los Angeles auction.

Winehouse, who died in 2011 at the age of 27, frequently wore ballet shoes during both her daily life and stage performances. The particular pair, marked with visible blood stains, has attracted international interest due to its later-revealed history; its inclusion in an ongoing lawsuit between the singer’s father, Mitch Winehouse, and her former stylists; and its rapidly rising value in the collectors’ market.

After it became known that the shoes were held by a Turkish collector, international collectors began making offers reaching up to 500,000 pounds, according to Çift.

Court documents related to a lawsuit alleging the unauthorized sale of Winehouse’s personal belongings revealed that the iconic blood-stained ballet shoes were sold at a Los Angeles auction and acquired by Çift. It later emerged that the shoes match those seen in widely circulated tabloid images from 2007.

Çift’s collection includes more than 100 personal items belonging to Winehouse, including the red tartan corset she wore at the 2008 Brit Awards, a hand-drawn self-portrait she made during her kindergarten years bearing her earliest known signature and the main microphone she used on stage.

Çift, who has been collecting special items belonging to artists for about 26 years, told state-run Anadolu Agency that he mainly follows international auctions and has acquired numerous items from the film and music worlds over the years.

He said the ballet shoes were put up for sale by Winehouse’s stylists at a Los Angeles auction in 2023, but the catalogue included no information about their background or any story attached to them. Çift said he purchased the shoes for $3,900 under those circumstances.

He explained that the significance of the shoes only became clear after extensive research carried out following the purchase.

“During Amy Winehouse’s relatively short professional career of around nine years, she owned several pairs of ballet shoes and wore them frequently in daily life and on stage. Some of her ballet shoes were previously sold officially by her family for the benefit of her foundation. At first, I assumed this pair was one of those,” Çift said.

“What set this pair apart was the level of wear and the density of dried brown stains on them,” he added.

Çift said he reviewed tabloid photographs and video footage from the final five years of Winehouse’s life and identified the shoes as identical to those seen in widely published images from 2007, taken after an argument with her then-husband Blake Fielder-Civil outside a London hotel.

“These images caused global debate at the time and kept Winehouse in the international spotlight for a long period. With this match, the historical and emotional value of the item reached an entirely different level,” he said.

Interest rises as lawsuit returns to the spotlight

Çift recalled that following Winehouse’s death, her father and estate administrator Mitch Winehouse filed a 730,000 pound lawsuit against close friends Naomi Parry and Catriona Gourlay, alleging that some of the singer’s personal belongings were sold without authorization. He said the ballet shoes are among the items cited in the case.

As news about the lawsuit has resurfaced internationally, interest in the shoes has increased, Çift said.

“These ballet shoes represent the most turbulent period of Amy Winehouse’s life,” he said. “With renewed media attention on the court case, the story and significance of this piece have once again become visible. As a result, interest from collectors and museums around the world has grown significantly.”

Despite receiving high-value offers from multiple countries, Çift said he does not view the shoes as a purely commercial object and is not inclined to sell them. Instead, he aims to exhibit the items internationally to keep Winehouse’s memory alive.

Çift said one of the most important items in his collection is the microphone Winehouse used on stage from 2007 until her final concert in Belgrade in 2011.

“She was an artist who became larger than life with her voice and her microphone,” he said. “She used the same microphone throughout the last four years of her life. After her final performance in Belgrade, she traveled to Istanbul for a planned concert that was later canceled. She brought the microphone with her but never performed here. Istanbul was the last place she set foot in before returning to London, where she died.”

Çift said his collection offers a narrative of Winehouse’s life through objects rather than a simple chronological inventory.

“From a childhood drawing she made at the age of five, to clothing worn during her rise to fame, to the iconic ballet shoes symbolizing her personal struggles and the microphone she used until her final performance, this selection allows a 27-year life to be told through the traces left on these objects,” he said.