Her innate sense of style resulted in thousands of fans following in her fashion footsteps throughout the '80s and '90s, and Princess Diana's sartorial success is still very much coveted.
Case in point: three daywear outfits worn by the late royal fetched three times as much as was estimated at an auction held in London last week.
The trio went under the hammer at Kerry Taylor Auctions on June 17, where they made a combined total of £262,500 (Dh1.2 million).
The priciest piece was a nautical-inspired navy and white striped look by David and Elizabeth Emanuel, which was worn by Princess Diana during an official visit to Bahrain with Prince Charles in 1986. The two-piece, imagined by the duo behind the royal's 1981 wedding gown, sold for £120,000.
"Diana's day wear is much rarer than her evening wear, which she auctioned a huge tranche off in the late 1990s," the auction house's founder, Kerry Taylor, told the Daily Mail. "Day wear dresses she wore for more formal functions she either gave to friends or charity shops, so they have mostly disappeared. These were very well documented outfits and one-of-a-kind as they were made specifically for her."
Also snapped up at the sale, in which a single collector offered up all three outfits, was a peach polka-dot number by Catherine Walker, a label now routinely sported by Diana's daughter-in-law, the Duchess of Cambridge. The double-breasted dress was worn by the princess during then-Turkish president Kenan Evren's state visit to the UK in 1988, and fetched £93,000 at auction.
A red skirt suit, designed by Jasper Conran, also sold at the event, making £62,500. The woollen two-piece, which was custom-created for Diana by the British designer, was most famously worn by the royal as she christened the Royal Princess cruise liner in 1984, and was estimated to fetch between £20,000 and £30,000.
The princess also re-wore the suit during a public appearance in 1985.
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