Princess Diana’s ‘revenge dress’ up for grabs at auction with an eye-watering price tag

The famous “revenge dress” worn by Diana, Princess of Wales, is expected to sell for up to $US300,000 (about $A420,000) when it goes under the hammer. It will also be on display in London in October ahead of the sale, placing the outfit back into the spotlight more than 30 years since it first wowed the world.

Diana hit the headlines when she was photographed wearing the black silk gown in 1994, on the same night her then-husband the Prince of Wales publicly admitted his infidelity on national television. Designed by Christina Stambolian, the dress quickly became a fashion statement after it was worn by Diana during a Vanity Fair fundraising dinner at the Serpentine Gallery in London.

Diana, who died aged 36 in 1997, also turned heads with the outfit as it broke traditional expectations of royal dress with its colour, its plunging neckline and its above-the-knee hemline. The dress will be up for auction at Sotheby’s in New York in December as part of its luxury week and is estimated to sell for between $US150,000 and $US300,000 ($A209,000 and $A419,000).

It marks its first sale since June 1997 when Diana sold 79 of her dresses to raise funds to benefit cancer and Aids charities. Part of the proceeds from the sale will be donated to NHS Lothian Charity on behalf of the Royal Edinburgh Hospital, which is dedicated to funding extra care, equipment and projects. It will also be sold alongside a copy of the original catalogue, numbered and signed by Diana and Greek designer Stambolian, crediting the Prince of Wales with the idea of the charity fundraiser.

The “revenge dress” will embark on a global exhibition tour ahead of its live sale on December 9 – stopping at Sotheby’s locations Hong Kong, Geneva and New York where it will be on display. Morgane Halimi, Sotheby’s global head of handbags and fashion, said: “Fashion can be a language when words fail or are simply not enough. “Princess Diana understood that instinctively. “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. It is what it communicated.”