Princess Diana’s ‘Revenge Dress’ Comes to Auction at Sotheby’s

(Bloomberg) — The “revenge dress” worn by the late Princess Diana in 1994 is up for auction at Sotheby’s for the first time in nearly three decades.

The black silk evening dress by Greek designer Christina Stambolian is estimated to fetch as much as £220,000 ($298,110) when it goes on sale Dec. 9 during Sotheby’s Luxury Week in New York, the auction house said Thursday.

Diana wore the dress in June 1994 as she arrived at the Serpentine Gallery in London for a fundraising dinner. It gained notoriety because the then Prince Charles — from whom she had been separated for nearly two years but not yet divorced — was widely expected to say in a national television interview broadcast that same evening that he had been unfaithful to her.

According to a later documentary, her decision to wear the dress was a last-minute one after initially setting aside a more traditional Valentino outfit. “She wanted to look a million dollars,” her former stylist Anna Harvey said on the program, according to Vogue. “And she did.”

Stambolian’s off-the-shoulder dress features an asymmetric hemline and chiffon train. It will make its first public appearance at Sotheby’s in London during Fashion Week in September, before further exhibitions in Hong Kong and Geneva before it goes to New York for the auction.

The dress was previously sold at auction in 1997, according to Sotheby’s, without giving details.

In 2023, a black, ballerina-length velvet gown owned by Diana was sold at Julien’s Auctions in Hollywood for $1,148,080, eleven times its estimated price.

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