The black silk evening dress by Greek designer Christina Stambolian is estimated to fetch as much as £220,000 (US$298,110) when it goes on sale on December 9 during Sotheby’s Luxury Week in New York, the auction house said on Thursday.
Diana wore the dress in June 1994 as she arrived at the Serpentine Gallery in London for a fundraising dinner.
It gained notoriety because the then Prince Charles – from whom she had been separated for nearly two years but not yet divorced – was widely expected to say in a national television interview broadcast that same evening that he had been unfaithful to her.
According to a later documentary, her decision to wear the dress was a last-minute one after initially setting aside a more traditional Valentino outfit. “She wanted to look a million dollars,” her former stylist Anna Harvey said on the programme, according to Vogue. “And she did.”
