Caroline Leaper
London: Diana, the late Princess of Wales, instinctively understood fashion and its power to send messages without saying a word. It was a tool that she utilised on numerous occasions throughout her life, but perhaps most famously when she wore the “revenge dress”.
You know the one. A black off-the-shoulder dress designed by Christina Stambolian.
The princess was arriving at a Vanity Fair fundraising dinner at the Serpentine Gallery in London in June 1994, just as a televised interview with her husband Charles, the then-Prince of Wales, was airing across the nation, in which he admitted publicly to his infidelity.
She wore it with a choker, a sapphire-and-diamond centrepiece that started life as a brooch given to Diana as a wedding gift by Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.
The late princess’s decision to wear such a sensational dress was a last-minute one. She had originally planned to wear a dress by a different designer, but when the label leaked the news ahead of the event, she rifled through her wardrobe and pulled out Stambolian’s design. She had bought in 1991, but hadn’t previously worn as she worried it was too risqué.
Some 30 years later, and the moment is still cited as “iconic” in the realms of fashion and celebrity culture. Designers today pin Diana on to their mood boards, the dress is the subject of Instagram appreciation accounts and the anniversary of its wearing is marked by the media in wide coverage.
This year, Chanel’s Matthieu Blazy, fashion’s designer of the moment, gave the look renewed relevance when he closed his couture show with an LBD resembling Diana’s dress, rather than the traditional bridal gown, signalling that the late princess’s independent spirit now feels just as relevant as a fairytale white dress.
So it comes as some surprise that the auction of the dress, announced by Sotheby’s on Thursday, seems to be so greatly underestimated.
The “revenge dress” is expected to sell for £220,000 ($415,000) at auction, according to the announcement from Sotheby’s.
In September 2023, Diana’s sheep jumper attracted a frenzied 44-bid war, resulting in a sale of $US1.1 million.
When the hammer goes down on December 9 at Sotheby’s New York, surely the same will happen again?
Building the hype yet further ahead of the sale, the dress will go on display at Sotheby’s in London on September 18, and will then go on a worldwide tour via Sotheby’s locations in Hong Kong, Geneva and New York.
The dress had been owned by a Scottish businessman and collector since June 1997 – he purchased it in an auction when Diana sold 79 of her own dresses, fundraising for AIDS charities. Some of the proceeds from this sale will be donated to NHS Lothian Charity on behalf of the Royal Edinburgh Hospital.
“My late husband and I knew that this dress was something special,” the consignor, who bought the dress with her husband during its original sale, says.
“Princess Diana was walking into the worst night of her life and you would never know it to look at her. It went from a cocktail dress to a statement in the time it took to photograph her.”
The seller clearly knows the cultural value of the item. She adds: “Thirty years on, you can say the words anywhere in the world and everyone knows exactly which dress you mean.”
For Diana fans, for educational institutions, for perhaps even Prince William or Prince Harry, or the Royal Collection, this could in fact prove to be the sale of the century.
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