3 days ago
Pictured: The Princess Diana outfits set to smash auction records
The dress is not glamorous in the traditional sense. It isn't sequinned, or cut for a red carpet. But the blue-and-pastel floral-print design became one of Princess Diana 's secret weapons. Nicknamed the ' caring dress ', it was the one she reached for when visiting children in hospitals, Aids patients and orphans, defying protocol in a bid to be more approachable, and for the world to see. And for this reason it is the top lot of an upcoming Diana-themed auction.
Later this month a line-up of the late Diana, Princess of Wales's best-known looks will go under the hammer in Los Angeles. These include a yellow dress she wore to Royal Ascot, a magenta all-in-one she sported in the Alps, a sequinned gown from a royal visit to Saudi Arabia, and the peach-hued archer's hat she wore for her going-away outfit on her wedding day. In total there are 235 lots including shoes, handbags and trinkets from the 1980s and 90s – a period that saw Diana's global popularity explode and her style evolve as she stepped out of The Firm and into the role of the 'People's Princess'.
But securing a coveted lot means more than owning a piece of royal history – it's also an investment opportunity. On 26 June at The Peninsula in Beverly Hills, Julien's Auctions expects to break records, after Diana-related lots at two 2023 sales grossed nearly $6 million, with a Jacques Azagury ballerina-length gown she wore in 1985 in Florence fetching $1.1 million (smashing the $600,000 previous record for a Diana piece). Private collectors from the USA, Seoul and Hong Kong will be bidding by phone and in person, pitted against museums looking to capitalise on the The Crown effect.
'Individuals bought because they loved Diana and she is still relevant,' says Irishman-in-LA Martin Nolan, co-founder of Julien's Auctions, which made its name selling music memorabilia, including a guitar owned by Kurt Cobain ($6 million) and Michael Jackson's red Thriller jacket ($1.8 million). 'They empathise with her because of the rocky marriage she'd lived through, and the royal institution that she had to come up against. And, she came up shining, using her fame to do good with so many charitable causes like landmines, or the untouchables in India. When we put a conservative auction estimate [on a lot], we don't know what the Diana factor is,' he says, pointing to her enduring emotional connection with the public almost 28 years after she died in that Paris car crash in August 1997. 'The bidding public determines the true market value.'
The 'caring dress' was by Bellville Sassoon, a label Diana's mother, Frances Shand Kydd, introduced her to. In printed silk crêpe-de-Chine with a ruched bodice and panelled sleeves, it became one of the most recognisable pieces from the Princess's working wardrobe as a member of the Royal family. It was created in 1988 for a tour of Australia, but she wore it repeatedly through to 1992, on trips to Nigeria, Brazil and Spain. This hinted at a disregard for royal norms such as not wearing the same garment twice (today her daughters-in-law also re-wear old pieces, as does the Queen and the Princess Royal), choosing the colourful frock because she knew children and the infirm would respond to it. A Daily Mail story in 1992 read, 'Looks familiar? Yes, it's that dress again.' Nolan's estimate for the 'caring dress' is $200,000 to $300,000.
Another top lot is a custom-made silk two-piece by Bruce Oldfield, worn to Royal Ascot Ladies Day in 1987. Yellow with a floral pattern, it had ruched short sleeves, a knotted tie belt and a fitted pencil skirt, and she paired it with a wide-brimmed turquoise hat. The look reflected a more confident Diana who, by this time, had enlisted the Vogue fashion editor Anna Harvey as a style advisor.
'It's funny because I don't often use print,' says 75-year-old Oldfield now. 'I can't remember how that one skipped through but I think it was something that I showed the Princess because it was singularly different from what most of the ladies who go to Ascot wore.' The designer, known as the Barnado's Boy after a childhood spent in care, got to know the Princess when she was president of the charity. He made many trips to Kensington Palace to see her, with sketches and fabrics in tow, and redefined her look, taking her from demure to 'Dynasty Di'.
'When she started, she was quite happy to wear, you know, what an English aristocratic daughter would wear, fullish skirts, tight knitwear and flat shoes,' says Oldfield. He designed the shimmering backless lamé dress she wore to his fashion show in aid of Dr Barnado's, where she met Joan Collins and at which Oldfield spun her round the dance floor: 'I truly did not know where to put my hand.' He also created the black velvet evening gown with a plunging neckline that she wore for an official portrait by Lord Snowdon, and to the opening night of Les Misérables in 1985. That dress sold in 2013 for more than £50,000. Nolan's estimate for the yellow Ascot outfit is even higher.
Decidedly less stuffy than Christie's, Sotheby's or Bonhams, Julien's, founded in 2003, has form when it comes to fashion. In 2016 the most expensive garment ever sold at auction was at Julien's: Marilyn Monroe's 'Happy Birthday' dress, in which she serenaded John F Kennedy in 1962. Based on a sketch by Bob Mackie, it was purchased by Ripley's Believe It or Not! museum for $4.8 million, and subsequently loaned to Kim Kardashian for the 2019 Met Gala. Despite being the 'auction house to the stars', Julien's is in a remarkably unfashionable corner of South LA. But inside a nondescript warehouse with bars on the windows is a temperature-controlled Aladdin's cave of treasures once owned by the likes of Bob Dylan and Rock Hudson, bar stools from the Cheers set, and a briefcase that belonged to David Lynch. For really high-value items there is a vault. Julien's first royal lot was a piece of Diana and Charles's wedding cake in its original gift box, which sold for almost $3,000 in 2008.
One loyal purchaser is Diana aficionado Renae Plant, an LA-based Australian who owns a preschool (Lady Di would have approved), who has over the past decade amassed some 2,700 items of her clothing, jewellery and possessions that she estimates are now worth tens of millions. The 'infatuation' began when Plant met the Princess twice in Australia, first as a child in 1983, and then as a teenager. 'When she stood in front of me, her eyes were piercing blue. She just made me feel like you'd known her forever.' On the second occasion, in 1988, the Princess was wearing the 'caring dress' with which Plant is 'obsessed'. She'll be bidding on that as well as on the John Boyd honeymoon hat.
Having already created a 3-D virtual museum of Diana memorabilia, her plan is for a touring exhibition of her collection, which includes an embellished silk dress Gianni Versace designed for a Patrick Demarchelier shoot in 1991. She loaned it to Kensington Palace as a highlight of its Diana: Her Fashion Story exhibition in 2017. She also has the copy of Elton John's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album that Diana owned as a teenager, with the schoolgirl's hand-drawn heart under Candle in the Wind and the words 'Love you xxx'.
Plant didn't stop at collecting. With the blessing of Princes William and Harry, she started a foundation in Diana's name raising funds for children's charities. 'Her ability to change the world on such a grand level was so inspiring,' she says. Eventually she would like the collection to have a permanent home in the UK.
Not everything in the auction has been worn by Diana. There are also artworks and ephemera. The British designer Elizabeth Emanuel, who with her husband, David, designed Lady Diana's wedding dress in 1981, has supplied sketches she made for looks in advance of a tour of The Gulf. 'There are so many fans out there, of what she represented, and so many people loved and still love her. I just thought, you know, I'd kind of like to share them as well,' the designer, 71, says now.
As to why the fascination with the Princess's style continues to this day, Emanuel says, 'There is something powerful and exceptional about Diana, about her personality, about her style. She was a beautiful person. She was radiant. She was the most famous person in the world, really, somebody that all the designers wanted to design for because she was tall, with a figure like a model. She was, she is, a fashion icon. She is a legend in a way – like saints, she's got something about her that people just don't ever want to let go of because, you know, she was such an extraordinary person.'
To add a modern spin, the British brand Palmer Harding was asked by Julien's to reinterpret a Catherine Walker dress featured in the auction; one Diana had worn to a private event with the Saudi royal family, embroidered with sequinned falcons – the country's national bird. The resulting shirt dress with a bodice embellished with golden falcons is inspired by Diana's 'effortless elegance and her resilience as a public figure, particularly with her work during the Aids crisis', says Levi Palmer, one half of the British brand. A previous reinterpretation that sold at a 2023 auction resulted in multiple custom orders for the label.
Ever a trendsetter, Diana herself held the first auction of her clothes, in 1997, just two months before she died, raising $3 million for charity. In 2010, Julien's sold dresses from that auction for three or four times what they sold for at the time. 'Just 13 years after they were originally sold, which was a really good return. Our clients see these items as an asset – these dresses, shoes, handbags, everything you see are actually works of art. They're artistic creations. You have it in your home, your office, your place of business. It's a great conversation piece,' says Nolan. 'While some people like Monets, Picassos and van Goghs, other people love to have a Princess Diana.'
