Princess Diana’s iconic ‘revenge dress’ expected to sell for £220,000

Princess Diana’s famous ‘revenge dress’ could fetch six figures when it goes up for auction later this year.

The iconic black dress will be on display in London next month ahead of the sale, placing the outfit back into the spotlight more than 30 years since it first wowed the nation.

Diana hit headlines when she was photographed wearing the black silk gown in 1994, on the same night her then-husband, the Prince of Wales,

Designed by Christina Stambolian, the dress quickly became a fashion statement after it was worn by Diana during a Vanity Fair fundraising dinner at the Serpentine Gallery in London.

Diana, who died aged 36 in 1997, also turned heads with the outfit as it broke traditional expectations of royal dress with its color, its plunging neckline and its above-the-knee hemline.

The dress will be up for auction at Sotheby’s in New York in December as part of its luxury week and is estimated to sell for between £110,000 to £220,000.

It marks its first sale since June 1997, when Diana sold 79 of her dresses to raise funds to benefit cancer and AIDS charities.

Part of the proceeds from the sale will be donated to NHS Lothian Charity on behalf of the Royal Edinburgh Hospital, which is dedicated to funding extra care, equipment and projects.

It will also be sold alongside a copy of the original catalog, numbered and signed by Diana and Greek designer Stambolian, crediting the Prince of Wales with the idea of the charity fundraiser.

The black dress will embark on a global exhibition tour ahead of its live sale on December 9 – stopping at Sotheby’s locations in Hong Kong, Geneva and New York, where it will be on display.

The public can also view the dress in London, and it will be on display at Sotheby’s auction house in the capital from September 18 to September 24.

Diana originally wore the dress with a choker made from a royal brooch, a black clutch and black pumps, and the elegant ensemble has been widely hailed for inspiring decades of fashion and popular culture.

The consignor, who bought the dress during its original sale, said: ‘My late husband and I knew that this dress was something special. 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. Thirty years on, you can say the words anywhere in the world, and everyone knows exactly which dress you mean.’

Morgane Halimi, Sotheby’s global head of handbags and fashion, said: ‘Fashion can be a language when words fail or are simply not enough. Princess Diana understood that instinctively.

‘What makes this dress extraordinary is not merely that it was worn by the princess, nor that its appearance at the Serpentine event made headlines around the world. It is what it communicated.’

She added: ‘What became a global viral moment – long before social media made the term mundane – also gave license to anyone, but especially women, to use fashion beyond adornment and much more intentionally and meaningfully: as a shield, a weapon or both.

‘She walked into a moment in which so much of her story was being told for her and, through what she chose to wear, reclaimed the narrative for herself.’

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