Diana Spencer as a fashion icon is one of her immortal image strengths, even more than her humanitarian side. In all the productions that revive her trajectory, be it Diana, Spencer or The Crown, a large part of what fans want is to relive the glamor that the princess had, whether she was dressed for a gala or wearing sneakers while going to the gym. It’s no surprise then that pieces of her clothing that have fallen into the public domain are auctioned off from time to time, but even 27 years after her death, they are only growing in value.
An example is that in 2023, a Victor Edelstein model was sold for no less than 600 million dollars. This is after in the same year, a diamond necklace, known as Swan Lake, worn by Diana in the last public event before her death, fetched more than 70 million dollars. And how can we forget the black sheep sweater that broke the million-dollar barrier?
And just weeks before the year comes to an end, one of the princess’s most famous dresses, designed by Jacques Azagury, set a new record after being auctioned for more than $1.14 million. That’s right, it’s the most expensive dress in Diana’s vast collection and one of the most expensive in the world.
Diana’s partnership with Azagury, a Moroccan-born British designer, began in the late 1980s, but the 1990s marked some of the princess’s most significant events, including the blue dress she wore with the Swan Lake necklace for her last official appearance. But it is the ballerina-length balloon dress with embroidered blue stars that is so famous today.
Everything about the dress screams the 80s: the skirt, the velvet fabric, the shoulder pads, the two-tone low waist, the sash, and the bow. The first time Diana was seen in it was on an official trip to Florence in 1985 when she was still married to Charles. It was precisely Azagury’s first model created especially for her. The two had been introduced just three weeks before the trip.
In a purple-blue, the dress has a fabric chosen by Jakob Schlaepher, embroidered with metallic stars on the blouse, carefully sewn by the designer’s design team. The balloon skirt – a must at the time – was actually a tribute to Diana’s passion for ballet in general.
With a striking look, the dress was seen on Diana again the following year, on her trip to Canada. She used it to attend a concert.
According to Azagury, each piece he created for Diana was carefully discussed with the princess keeping in mind every detail of her public appearances. For example, in the black halter dress, she wore to a charity gala in November 1995, “by chance” on the same night that her infamous BBC Panorama interview was aired, she calculated that she would get out of the car the moment the interview was starting to air so I needed “a really good, sexy dress”. The designer took three options and Diana chose black because it was a color that the Royal Family avoids, or rather, only wears when they are in mourning. As he said in an interview, it was Diana’s message that “she was free and liberated”.
The star-studded dress had an initial estimate of $100,000 but reached 11 bids higher. Obviously, this record can be broken when the next item comes up for auction. Something that shows how exploiting Diana’s name still generates a lot of profit for a lot of people. Her memory will not have peace anytime soon.
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