Princess Diana’s ‘revenge dress’ goes up for auction

Princess Diana’s “revenge dress”, worn at a Vanity Fair party in London just hours after then-Prince Charles admitted in a television interview to an affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles, is going up for auction. Her dramatic arrival at the Serpentine Gallery in 1994 in a custom-made black silk evening dress by designer Christina Stambolian became an iconic pop-culture moment. The media dubbed her outfit the “revenge dress”. Auction house Sotheby’s expects the dress to sell for up to $300,000 (£220,000) when it goes under the hammer on 9 December.

A press release from Sotheby’s said it is the first time the dress has been offered at auction since 1997, when the late princess sold 79 of her dresses to raise money for charities. Morgane Halimi, Sotheby’s Global Head of Handbags and Fashion, said in a statement that Princess Diana “understood instinctively” that fashion can be a language in its own right. “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,” Halimi 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. ” According to Sotheby’s, Anna Harvey, her stylist at the time, said Diana “wanted to look a million dollars”. The princess made a last-minute wardrobe change for the…