One of the most famous dresses from Lady Diana’s wardrobe is about to go up for auction. See you at the end of January at Sotheby’s to, perhaps, get it.
The wardrobe of Lady Diana dream again and again. A true fashion icon, the late Princess of Wales made history for her cult looks: her revenge dress with a Bardot neckline, its cyclist worn with a vintage sweatshirt, its polka dot dresses… iconic silhouettes that Lady Di fans love to reproduce. They will therefore be delighted to learn that one of her dresses is about to be sold at auction.
This exceptional piece, a ball gown in aubergine velvet imagined by the designer Victor Edelstein, was previously in the archives of a private collector. It will be sold to the highest bidder on on January 27, 2023 in New York as part of a live sale entitled “The One“. Among the 20 prizes that will be offered: “an unprecedented selection of rare products testifying to the advances of humanity, which tell the extraordinary story of the craftsmanship and artistic excellence of the great civilizations“. Concretely, the basketball jerseys of Kobe Bryant, a great Lakers player who died in a helicopter accident in January 2020, rub shoulders with statuettes from ancient Egypt. The only problem: acquiring these objects requires a certain cost. The dress of Lady Diana’s ball is thus estimated between $80,000 and $120,000 (i.e. between 75,000 and 112,000 euros).
What is the story of this extraordinary dress?
This prom dress has a story like no other. Composed of a draped silk velvet bustier and a skirt whose cut evokes a tulip, it was part of the fall-winter 1989-1990 collection by British fashion designer Victor Edelstein. Introduced to Lady Diana by Anna Harvey, magazine editor voguein the early 80s, he designed dresses for the Princess of Wales until 1993. The model that Sotheby’s is about to sell has been immortalized many times: in 1991 during a official portrait of Lady Diana captured by photographer Lord Snowdon and on a painting by the painter Douglas Hardinge Anderson exhibited at the Royal Marsden Hospital in London, then in 1997 during a shooting of Mario Testino for the magazine Vanity Fair. In the same year, this dress was auctioned at Christie’s in New York by Lady Diana herself, alongside 79 other garments belonging to her, in order to raising money to fight AIDS and cancer. Twenty-six years later, the incredible destiny of this dress is about to experience a new chapter…