When Amy Winehouse stepped out of her last concert, which, unbeknownst to her, would be her last, wearing a figure-hugging dress designed and lovingly made by one of her closest friends.

The particular dress, according to Naomi Parry, Amy’s stylist of six years, was supposed to represent something of a new beginning for the 27-year-old singer.

After her long battle with alcohol and drug addiction, Amy Winehouse had just come out of rehab and was excited about the future. She was in a new relationship, with director Reg Traviss, who was seen as a “positive” presence in her life after her disastrous two-year marriage to Blake Fielder-Civil. Her dress symbolized the new beginning.

Unfortunately, this was not meant to be. The concert, in Belgrade, Serbia, on June 18, 2011, ended in a farce, as Amy drunkenly stumbled, took off her shoes and fell. From that night everyone remembers that a dancer sang one of her hits, ‘Valerie’, while she herself couldn’t even remember the names of her band members.

Five weeks later, on July 23, Amy Winehouse was dead. They found her lifeless body, surrounded by empty vodka bottles. The coroner later recorded that he died of accidental alcohol poisoning.

It was a sad end for the hugely talented artist, who began her career by signing to businessman Simon Fuller’s 19 Management in 2002, aged just 19.

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Worldwide success came with the release of the album “Back To Black” in 2006, which contained hits such as “Rehab”, “Tears Dry On Their Own” and “Love Is A Losing Game”and sold more than 16 million copies worldwide.

He won six Grammys in the US, as well as three Ivor Novello Awards and a Brit in the UK. Soon, however, she was to become as well known for her self-destructive lifestyle as for her music, with every gruesome detail seeing the ‘light’ of publicity.

Now this dress is at the center of controversy, as Naomi and another of Amy’s closest friends, Catriona Gourley, are embroiled in a legal battle with Amy’s father over his sale. She has hired lawyers and filed papers in the High Court to try to recover the money the women won when the dress was sold in Beverley Hills for a staggering £192,000 three years ago.

The two women were Amy Winehouse’s former flatmates in London and supported her as she battled her demons, as detailed in the 2021 documentary Reclaiming Amy.

Devastated after Amy’s death, Naomi made a scrapbook, the “Beyond Black”which explored the singer’s life through photographs and memorabilia, and her two friends organized an exhibition of the same name that began at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles and ended at the Design Museum in London.

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Naomi and Catriona – who have made countless interventions in television shows, radio programs and newspaper articles to keep Amy’s memory “alive” – ​​say her father cooperated in all of this.

In 2021, the women decided their quest was complete and decided to part with some items in their collection.

And so, in two auctions, one in 2021 and one this year, they began selling some of the dresses, bags, clothes, underwear and makeup, as well as notes and sketches the artist had given them over the years.

However, the sales prompted her father to sue as administrator of his daughter’s estate. He claims Naomi and Catriona made £3.3m from selling 156 of Amy’s items, although the girls say Mitch’s figures are exaggerated.

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Now, however, she is suing for £730,000 of their earnings for the Amy Winehouse Foundation, which supports young people struggling with addiction.