Princess Diana purchased a Victor Edelstein-designed dress in 1997; it was auctioned off by Sotheby’s on Friday and sold for $604,800, well exceeding the auction house’s projected selling price.
According to Vanity Fair, Diana’s collection of 79 dresses, which included the purple ball gown, was auctioned off in 1997 to raise money for the Royal Marsden Hospital and the AIDS Crisis Trust. Throughout the 1990s, Diana wore the outfit several times, and she also posed for several formal pictures that are currently shown in the Royal Marsden entrance. Just two months before she passed away at age 36, the original auction, which raised $3.25 million in all, took place.
It was sold for $604,800 as a part of Sotheby’s “The One” sale, which features numerous expensive items from some of the most well-known persons in the world. That is significantly higher than the auction house’s estimate, which ranged from $80,000 to $120,000. The dress was initially designed in the late 1980s by Victor Edelstein’s fashion house.
“When you think of these very formal gowns, they do continue to come back,” said Sotheby’s head of fashion and accessories, Cynthia Houlton. “This gown in some respects looks very similar to gowns that would’ve been worn 100 years ago, and there’s some version of this gown that’s exactly the same today.”