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Designed by Victor Edelstein, the dramatic evening dress worn by Princess Diana sold for more than five times its pre-auction estimate at Sotheby’s.
A striking ball dress from the Collection of Princess Diana and designed by Victor Edelstein in 1989, sold for $604,800 at Sotheby’s January 27. The stunning strapless evening dress of deep aubergine silk velvet, with a tulip-shaped stiffened skirt, is augmented by three paste buttons at the back.
The dress is now the most valuable of the late royal’s ever sold at auction, surpassing the black, off-the-shoulder gown Diana wore when she danced with John Travolta at the White House in 1985 which sold in 2019 for $347,000. Edelstein also designed the so-called “Travolta Dress.”
Edelstein designed dresses for Princess Diana for more than a decade, from 1982 to 1993. Looking back on this time, Edelstein recounts: “When I started designing for her she was just starting to move away from the first period of clothes – what I think were rather like little girl’s clothes made bigger. Her style became more sleek and sophisticated, and more grown up.”
The Sotheby’s dress is a prime example of this sleek and sophisticated style. Sotheby’s pre-auction estimate for the dress was $80,000 to $120,000.
The dress was first auctioned off in June 1997, shortly before Diana’s death on Aug. 31, 1997 as the result of a car accident. She was 36. At the time, the Princess of Wales sold almost 80 dresses from her wardrobe for charity in an auction at Christie’s New York on behalf of the Royal Marsden Hospital Cancer Fund and the AIDS Crisis Trust.
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