Kris Jenner Wore Elizabeth Taylor's Scorpion Cape in Rome: From Grace Kelly's 1969 Birthday to a $74,500 Auction

Some people wear vintage. Kris Jenner wears history bought at auction. On the red carpet of the Rome Film Festival, at the premiere of the second season of Ryan Murphy's series All's Fair, starring her daughter Kim Kardashian, Jenner appeared in a black velvet hooded cape, lined with ivory silk and embroidered with scorpions.

The cape is not inspired by Elizabeth Taylor. It is Elizabeth Taylor's cape. The Hollywood star wore it in November 1969 to Grace Kelly's 40th birthday in Monte Carlo, at a party dedicated to the zodiac sign Scorpio. The piece is by the house of Tiziani Roma. Auction house Christie's suggested it may have been designed by Karl Lagerfeld, but there is no confirmed attribution.

In 2011 the cape sold at auction for $74,500. According to Kim Kardashian, it is now in her mother's hands. The detail that rounds off the story: Jenner is a Scorpio too. When a family's marketing is better than most fashion houses', even the horoscope is no coincidence.

Kim, meanwhile, wore a leopard-print Yves Saint Laurent dress from the autumn-winter 1986 collection, picked by stylist Law Roach. Mother and daughter had also turned up in vintage pieces the day before, so at times the Rome festival looked like an exhibition of their wardrobe.

This is the new logic of the red carpet: what matters is not what is new, but whose it was. A piece with a story draws more attention than any seasonal collection, and the story is bought with an auctioneer's gavel. How many of us have a grandmother's coat in the wardrobe worth more than we think - it's just that nobody has worn it on a red carpet?