Two dresses worn by Princess Diana are expected to fetch £315,000 each when they go up for sale at auction on Thursday.
The dresses, worn by late Princess of Wales during the 1980s, they are the most prized items in a collection that includes some of his letters, accessories and souvenirs, as well as more than 200 items from members of the Royal Family, which are for sale in Los Angeles.
Julien’s Auctions called it the most extensive collection of Diana’s personal effects to be auctioned since she sold dozens of dresses during a charity auction in New York in 1997, shortly before she died.
A 1987 Victor Edelstein magenta silk and lace evening gown is part of the collection. Photo: AP
A pair of dresses sold during the New York auction two months before her death in a car accident in Paris are topping the upcoming sale, titled Princess Diana’s Elegance & A Royal Collection, at The Peninsula Beverly Hills.
Designer Murray Arbied made the first, a strapless midnight blue tulle dress that Diana wore twice in 1986 – to the Phantom of the Opera premiere, to dinner with King Constantine of Greece – and to a performance of Cinderella at the Royal Opera House the following year.
It has a top estimate of $400,000 (£315,000), as does an off-the-shoulder magenta silk and lace evening dress designed by Victor Edelstein, which Diana wore in London and Germany in 1987.
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Martin Nolan, co-founder and CEO of Julien’s Auctions, said: “People will know this name because Victor Edelstein also designed the famous navy blue dress that Diana wore when she danced with John Travolta at the White House in 1985.”
Diana, he said, was a “princess of thrift,” wearing dresses countless times, not only for environmental reasons but also to “use her celebrity status to highlight emerging, new or unknown designers,” including Edelstein, Caroline Charles and Catherine Walker – all auction participants.
One of Walker’s creations, a pink floral silk shirtdress that Diana wore to a sports day for Prince William in 1988 and when Prince Harry left school in 1992, has a top estimate of $200,000 (£158 thousand).
A pink floral silk shirt dress designed by Catherine Walker can cost more than £150,000. Photo: PA
William the Swift
In December, a dress designed by Jacques Azagury worn by Diana in Italy in 1985 became the most expensive dress worn by royals at auction, selling for more than $1 million (£790,000).
More than 20 of Diana’s handwritten letters, notes and Christmas cards are also on sale in this week’s sale.
The memories show “the kindness and concern that Diana had and also tell us that she was truly happy in her marriage,” Nolan said.
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Handwritten cards appear in the sale. Photo: PA
Many of the letters are to Maud Pendrey, former housekeeper at the Spencer family home on the Althorp Estate in Northamptonshire, where Diana grew up.
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