Diana’s ‘revenge dress’ is going under the hammer
Keystone-SDA
Princess Diana’s famous “revenge dress” will go on display in Geneva on Friday. She wore it shortly after Prince Charles publicly admitted he had been unfaithful. The dress is set to be auctioned by Sotheby’s in New York on December 9.
The so-called revenge dress, a low-cut black dress by Christina Stambolian, is estimated to be worth between $150,000 (CHF122,856) and $300,000, as Sotheby’s announced in a press release this week. A portion of the proceeds will go to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, Scotland, which specialises in mental health.
The late Princess of Wales wore the outfit, which broke with royal convention, to a charity dinner in London in June 1994. At the same time, her estranged husband admitted on television that he had been unfaithful.
‘A powerful message’
According to her stylist Anna Harvey, Diana simply wanted to “look stunning” at the time. “Princess Diana turned this dress into one of the most powerful messages she ever conveyed,” says Morgane Halimi, Sotheby’s global head of handbags and fashion.
“That evening, she knew the press would be reporting that Prince Charles had had an affair during their marriage,” Halimi told the Keystone-SDA news agency on Friday.
She decided to go ahead with the public appearance and swapped the dress she had originally planned to wear for one that projected a stronger image. “Thirty years on, everyone still remembers that moment,” Halimi said.
The dress had already been auctioned in June 1997 to raise money for charities supporting cancer and AIDS causes, just weeks before Princess Diana lost her life in a car crash in Paris on August 31, aged 36.
The dress is on display until Wednesday at the Mandarin Oriental in Geneva as part of Sotheby’s “Luxury Week”, before travelling to Paris. It has previously been exhibited in London and Hong Kong. From December 2, it will be displayed in New York.
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Translated from German, reviewed by an English Department journalist.
