Princess Diana’s iconic red gown from 1991 movie premiere is going up for auction

Princess Diana’s iconic red gown, which she wore to a movie premiere in 1991, will be going up for auction.

On 28 July, Julien’s Auctions and Turner Classic Movies announced that the gown will be included in the  “Legends: Hollywood & Royalty” auction. The event will be taking place online and in Beverly Hills, California, from 6 to 8 September.

According to the auction house, the upcoming occasion is “in honour of the 100th anniversary of Warner Bros,” with “costumes, props, behind-the-scenes production material, photographs, memorabilia, artifacts” and more from “legendary films produced by the storied Hollywood studio” being offered to the public. The collection includes more than 1,400 items that are associated with Hollywood legends, including Audrey Hepburn, Judy Garland, and Elizabeth Taylor.

During the auction, participants will have the opportunity to bid on a beloved piece worn by the late Princess of Wales: A red silk gown by Bruce Oldfield gown. The look was first worn by Diana in 1991, when she attended the premiere of Hot Shots! at the Odeon Leicester, alongside then-President of Hungry, Arpad Goncz, and his wife, Szusza.

The scarlet gown is “a draped short sleeve bodice” with “ruching to the waist and hips with a lamé tartan motif,” as noted by the auction house.  While attending the movie premiere in the look, Diana paired it with a red clutch purse and pearl jewels.

The iconic outfit is expected to be sold between $200,000 and $400,000 at auction, according to the Daily Mail.

Along with the red gown, a white strapless gown with bands of black velvet, worn by Diana at a private event, will be up for grabs at the auction. The look was designed by Catherine Walker, who dressed Diana for more than two decades.

In addition, a Catherine Walker gown - which Diana wore to a 1996 gala dinner at the Royal York Hotel - will be featured in the auction. According to Julien’s Auctions, the dress consists of “an off the shoulder black faille bodice with a décolleté neckline with a draped jade silk skirt with fringed sash and side slit”.

Along with styling Diana’s outfit for the premiere of Hot Shots! Oldfield worked with the late royal for multiple events throughout the 90s. Speaking to British Vogue in 1997, one year after Diana died in a car crash in Paris, he opened up about his first time meeting and styling the royal.

“I think for all of us there was always this problem that there wasn’t a clear idea of how she should dress,” he said. “She was aware that even in some far-flung part of the world she was representing Britain, and she couldn’t be a glamorous clotheshorse. I remember one occasion where I urged her to shorten her skirt. But she still resisted going too far. I said: ‘You should look at the miniskirts Princess Margaret wore in the 60s.’”

Oldfield claimed that while Diana “didn’t care about clothes” when they first started working together, she “gradually grew to enjoy fashion”.

“One thing I noticed was that she’d lock her knees backwards. She wore her skirts below the knee at that time and I’d look at pictures of her and think: ‘What the hell is she doing?’ Then I realised that she was pushing those knees backwards, I’d tell her not to and she’d say: ‘Stop nagging,’” he recalled.

Oldfield has continued to work with the royal family, as he designed Queen Camilla’s gown for her coronation in May. Her outfit consisted of an ivory, silver and gold coat-like dress embroidered with garlands of wildflowers.

According to Buckingham Palace, the look was “simple and tailored,” as Oldfield’s vision when designing it was to create a sophisticated and modern dress that showcased Camilla’s style and personality in its details.

Some of the other items included in the upcoming auction, in addition to the three dresses worn by Diana, are the wands that Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger used in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1, a “USS Yeager” starship model used in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and a straw wide-brim hat worn by Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face.