Princess Diana’s purple velvet gown was unseated as the most expensive of her auctioned gowns in December 2023. According to Reuters, a private buyer shelled out $1.1 million to claim the black and blue gown that the late princess wore in the mid-’80s for themselves. The auction was orchestrated by Julien’s Auctions, a famous auction house which has sold items belonging to some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, including Elvis Presley and Lady Gaga. “Julien’s now holds the new world record for most expensive dress worn by Princess Diana sold at auction,” the company boasted in a statement.
However, this feminine number was one of several of Diana’s gowns the auctioning house was fortunate enough to acquire. The remainder of the collection, around 150 pieces, was also set aside for the public to purchase at the end of June 2024. If you’re wondering how the famous auction house acquired the covetable pieces, including her Catherine Walker black velvet evening gown, which has a starting bid of $25,000, well, their record-setting sale in December helped a lot. “Because of that record amount, you’ve got press, then of course, people started to come to us and say, ‘We have this to sell, we have that to sell,'” co-founder Martin Nolan told Today. “So we built this sale. We’re still building it, in fact.”
