The tulip-shaped eggplant velvet strapless gown worn by the late Princess Diana in a royal portrait alongside the then-Prince of Wales in 1991 and later appearing in a 1997 Vanity Fair shoot, Jan. 27. Sotheby’s auction held in New York.
Estimated between $80,000 and $120,000, the dress, designed by Victor Edelstein, sold for $24,150 as part of a 1997 auction. The auction consisted of 80 dresses from Princess Diana’s personal collection, donated to the AIDS Crisis Trust and the Royal Marsden Hospital Cancer Fund. .
This dress originally appeared in Edelstein’s Fall 1989 collection. He was one of Princess Diana’s go-to designers for over a decade from 1982 to his 1993.
Eggplant velvet dress by Victor Edelstein, worn by Diana, Princess of Wales.
courtesy
In 1991, British painter Douglas Hardinge Anderson painted Diana in a dress in a painting that hung at the Royal Marsden Hospital Cancer Fund, which Diana visited.
This dress was adapted for the Franklin Mint’s 1998 limited edition Princess Diana doll as part of a collection of 1,000 dolls in her most famous dress.
The dress is part of Sotheby’s first-ever curated auction, ‘The One’, which aims to present an unprecedented selection of the greatest products ever made.
A painting of Princess Diana that currently hangs in the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust.
Royal Marsden Hospital Cancer Fund
A purple diamond crucifix worn by Princess Diana will also go up for auction at Sotheby’s this month. The Attallah cloth is named after the late Naim Attallah, former group CEO of Asprey & Garrard.
The Princess famously wore the Ataler Cross to the Birthright Gala, a charity that works to protect human rights during pregnancy and childbirth, in October 1987. On the occasion, Diana wore a purple Catherine Walker gown that resembled a Tudor court dress.
Crosses are estimated to reach between 80,000 and 120,000 pounds.