The late Princess Diana’s iconic “revenge dress” has gone on display ahead of its official auction at Sotheby’s later this year. The dress has gone on show amid an ongoing fallout between the palace and Diana’s younger brother, Charles Spencer, as he is set to release a new memoir, Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, which contains a series of allegations centered on the days following Diana’s death in August of 1997 and unearths painful territory for the royals. The late princess wore the dress, a strapless black silk evening gown designed by Christina Stambolian, to a party in Kensington Gardens in London, mere hours after her then-estranged husband, Prince Charles, admitted to having committed adultery in their marriage, following years of rumors.
Her arrival at the party in 1994, and images of her in the dress, have become an iconic moment in popular culture. The dress is currently on display and set for a global exhibition. Right now, the dress is being displayed in London at Sotheby’s auction house on Bond Street.
It is being displayed there from September 18 to September 24. It will then be displayed in Hong Kong and Geneva, before arriving in New York on December 2. The public view in New York will be held at the Sotheby’s Breuer Building.
It will be on display until December 8 in New York, before it goes under the hammer at an auction on December 9. Sotheby’s will put the dress under the hammer on December 9. The dress is expected to sell for up to $300,000.
It’s the first time the dress has been up for auction in nearly three decades. The dress was previously auctioned in 1997, when the princess sold 79 of her dresses months before her death to raise money for cancer- and AIDS-related charities. The Stambolian design was a showstopper: off-the shoulder with a chiffon train and asymmetrical hem.
Diana wore the dress to a fundraising dinner hosted by Vanity Fair at the Serpentine Gallery on June 29, 1994. In the years since, the term “revenge dress” has been widely popularized and entered the cultural lexicon, being used to refer to instances where famous women have used fashion at pivotal moments in their lives and careers. Morgane Halmi, Sotheby’s Global Head of Handbags and Fashion, said of the dress: “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.
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