Nearly three decades after Princess Diana last put her famous black “revenge dress” up for sale, the iconic outfit is heading back to the auction block.
According to the BBC, the late Princess of Wales wore the strapless black silk evening dress to a party in London in 1994, hours after her then-estranged husband, Prince Charles, admitted to being unfaithful during their marriage. Her arrival at the Serpentine Gallery that night became one of the defining fashion moments of her life.
Sotheby’s will offer the Christina Stambolian dress at auction on 9 December in New York. The current estimate is $150,000 to $300,000. It will be the first time the dress has returned to auction since 1997, when Diana sold 79 dresses to raise money for charity, just months before her death.
Morgane Halimi, Sotheby’s global head of handbags and fashion, said Diana “understood instinctively” that fashion could serve as a language of its own.
“On her own terms, Princess Diana turned the dress into one of the most powerful messages she ever made, during one of the most scrutinised and emotionally charged episodes of her life,” she said.
“She walked into a moment in which so much of her story was being told for her and, through what she chose to wear, reclaimed the narrative for herself.”
That same evening, a documentary aired in which the then-Prince of Wales, now King Charles III, admitted he had been unfaithful to Diana after years of rumours and media reports. The contents of the ITV interview had leaked days earlier, and Diana’s first public appearance after the broadcast was widely seen as her response.
Her stylist at the time, Anna Harvey, reportedly said Diana “wanted to look a million dollars”.
Diana made a last-minute change to her outfit before the event. She abandoned a less striking Valentino gown and chose the off-the-shoulder Stambolian dress instead. The black silk design featured an asymmetric hemline and chiffon train. She paired it with a royal necklace, black clutch and black heels.
Before the auction, the dress will tour internationally. It will be displayed at Sotheby’s London showroom from 18 to 24 September, followed by Hong Kong in early October, Geneva in early November and New York ahead of the sale.
Diana herself previously sold the dress at auction as part of a collection of outfits to raise money for cancer and Aids charities. Glasgow resident Briege Mackenzie and her husband, Graeme, bought it for £39,098.
Mackenzie later told The Independent that they bought the dress for its charitable purpose rather than to wear it. “I can’t fit in it,” she said, noting that the proceeds supported Children First.
In a statement issued by Sotheby’s, Mackenzie recalled the significance of the dress and the night Diana wore it.
“Princess Diana was walking into the worst night of her life and you would never know it to look at her,” she said. “It went from a cocktail dress to a statement in the time it took to photograph her.”
“Thirty years on, you can say the words anywhere in the world and everyone knows exactly which dress you mean.”
Mackenzie decided to sell the dress after her husband’s death. She described their bidding on it as “one of the great days of our life together”.
Sotheby’s will also offer a rare copy of the 1997 auction catalogue alongside the dress. Diana and Stambolian signed the catalogue, which credits Prince William with the idea of auctioning the dress.
Part of the sale proceeds will go to Royal Edinburgh Hospital through the NHS Lothian Charity.
The vintage Jaguar XJ40 in which Diana arrived at the Serpentine Gallery event sold at auction earlier this year for £66,250.
The dress is expected to command a much higher price. It would not, however, be the first piece from Diana’s wardrobe to fetch a significant sum. In 2023, Sotheby’s sold one of her sweaters, featuring a single black sheep among rows of white ones, for £920,000 in New York.
