Three of Princess Diana’s dresses sold at auction on Friday for an estimated $1.62m (£1.3m).
Items of clothing worn by the former Princess of Wales before her untimely death at age 36 following a 1997 car crash in Paris were among 1,400 items up for auction at Julien’s Auctions and Turner Classic Movies Presents “Legends: Hollywood and Royalty.” which was held from Wednesday to Friday in Beverly Hills and online.
The three items sold were a crimson red silk dress by Bruce Oldfield and two designs by Catherine Walker: a strapless black silk dress in velvet and white silk crepe and a black off-the-shoulder bodice and draped jade silk skirt.
Princess Diana’s extraordinary dress is going up for auction – and it’s from the designer of Queen Camilla’s coronation dress
Princess Diana in a crimson silk dress by Bruce Oldfield at the premiere of Hot Shots! in November 1991
Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty
It was worn by Princess Diana at the premiere of the film Dudes! starring Charlie Sheen in November 1991, Bruce Oldfield’s short-sleeved pleated dress cost $571,500 (£458,480) when it was originally estimated to cost $200,000 (£160,450), according to Daily mail.
Catherine Walker’s black and jade design with a minimum bid of $100,000 (£80,220) — worn by the princess to a gala dinner at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto, Canada, in 1991 — went for $571,500 (£458,484). , trans Daily mail.
How Princess Diana’s glamorous dress going up for auction proved she was the ‘people’s princess’
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Princess Diana wears a black and jade evening dress at a gala dinner in Canada in 1991.
Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty
The publisher also reported that the black and white Catherine Walker dress worn by Diana to a private event sold for more than eight times its estimated sale of $60,000 (£48,130) for a whopping $508,00 (£407,540).
“Our record sales of these dresses exceeded all expectations,” said Martin Nolan, founder and CEO of Julien’s Auctions, per Daily mail.
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According to the publication, Ellen Petho — a businesswoman from Ann Arbor, Michigan who “ran a successful design business” for a decade before she died at age 82 in January 2023 — originally bought the dresses, along with two others worn by Diana , at an auction held at Christie’s auction house in New York in June 1997 with the money she had saved to buy a house.
Ellen’s husband Louis Petho, 83, auctioned off the dresses “to help raise money for a scholarship fund for senior art and design students”. Daily mail reported.
Ellen’s daughter, Karrie Petho, 60, told the outlet about her mother’s decision to show the dresses to the public for charity before her death: “‘Our mother read the inscription inside [the auction catalogue] about Prince William telling his mother that her dresses shouldn’t be in the closet; that they should be out in the world doing good. I think that inspired her.’”
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Source: HIS Education