She wore the dress in 1985 to a dinner hosted by the mayor of Florence and, a year later, wore it again for the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra. On Sunday, this dress that belonged to Diana, Princess of Wales, was sold at auction for almost 1.15 million dollars, a figure eleven times higher than the house Julien’s Auctions had estimated.
The dress, designed by Moroccan-British fashion designer Jacques Azagury, was “synonymous with the Princess of Wales’ royal elegance and her timeless charm,” the Hollywood auction house said in a statement. This same house estimated that the design could fetch $100,000 (€91,100), a figure that was far exceeded when an anonymous buyer ended up paying $1,148,080 (€1,046,000) for the dress
According to Julien’s Auctions’ description, Azagury’s design features a black velvet bodice with large shoulder pads and a boat neck with metallic thread embroidered stars made with Jakob Schlaepher fabric and a royal blue organdy sash skirt and dancer’s bow, a detail with which Diana of Wales wanted to make a gesture to her devotion to classical dance.
“The fact that this dress, after so many years, sells for this amount means that people are still fascinated by her and her style,” said Elizabeth Holmes, critic and fashion expert. “Diana remains a fashion icon”, he concluded.
The dress previously belonged to People magazine, a company that paid 25,000 euros in an auction organized by Diana herself before she died. In 2013, the magazine temporarily lent it to the Fashion rules exhibition, which took place at Kensington Palace, where people were able to see up close part of the wardrobe of the mother of Princes William and Henry.
Until Sunday, when the record was broken at $1,148,000, the highest price paid for a Diana of Wales dress was $604,800 (€551,000), with one exception, the iconic red wool sweater with white and one black sheep, which was auctioned in September for $1,143,000 (€1,041,000), just $5,000 less than what was paid for the dress.
The record sale of this dress coincides with the premiere of the last episodes of the sixth season of The crown, the Netflix series about the British royal family. In this final season, several episodes are devoted to the princess and the controversies of the years before she died in a car accident in 1997.
The same auction house also sold the blouse Diana wore for her 1981 engagement portrait with Prince Charles, a design by the Emanuels – the same designers who created her wedding dress – on Sunday, which fetched 381,000 dollars (347,000 euros).
