Nirvana photographed on Aug. 31, 1991 in Rotterdam. Niels van Iperen/Getty Images
A rare piece of Kurt Cobain memorabilia is heading to auction.
The late Nirvana frontman’s Foxes T-shirt — famously worn during a 1993 band photo shoot with photographer and director Anton Corbijn — is currently up for bid through Julien’s Auctions. The shirt is estimated to sell for between $4,000 and $6,000, though bidding had already reached $8,000 at press time. The listing ends on Friday, May 29.
The shirt, which features the logo for the 1980 coming-of-age drama Foxes starring a young Jodie Foster, is being sold by longtime Hole drummer Patty Schemel. Cobain gifted the shirt to Schemel in the early 1990s.
“Cobain and Schemel were close friends, and Schemel was a huge fan of films which she would often encourage Cobain to watch, such as the 1980 film Foxes starring Jodi Foster who Schemel was a huge fan of,” reads a description of the shirt on Julien’s website. “The friends were also big fans of fun and obscure thrifted T-shirts, and frequently shopped together at thrift stores away from the city, sharing their finds with each other.”
According to the auction listing, a stylist brought several shirts to the 1993 shoot, and Cobain selected the Foxes tee because he and Schemel enjoyed watching the film together. After the shoot, Cobain asked to keep the shirt before eventually gifting it to Schemel, who also played in Hole alongside his wife, Courtney Love.
The light blue short-sleeve shirt features the Foxes logo on the front and the slogan “Daring To Do It” across the back. Cobain, who died by suicide in 1994, wore the shirt alongside his signature white oval-frame sunglasses in the now-iconic black-and-white 1993 photo featuring bandmates Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl. The image is currently used as Spotify’s banner photo for Nirvana’s page.
The auction also includes a signed letter of authenticity from Schemel detailing how she came to own the shirt. The letter begins, “Seattle, WA, Summer, 1993…” before recounting the story behind the item.
“I went to Kurt and Courtney’s house to pick up Courtney for Hole rehearsals,” Schemel writes. “I went upstairs and sat on the bed while Courtney got ready to leave. Kurt came in and grabbed a shirt from a pile of clothes. He said, ‘You should have this.’ It was a blue promo T-shirt from the 1980 movie Foxes. We shared an interest in 1970’s and 1980’s teen angst cult movies. Kurt had the soundtrack. I loved Jodie Foster who starred in it.”
Check out the listing on Schemel’s Instagram page here.
