By Roxanne "Flashbulb" Starr
It's one of the most talked-about outfits in modern royal history, and now it's going under the hammer. Sotheby's has announced that Princess Diana's famous 'revenge dress' — the black off-the-shoulder gown she wore to a 1994 gala the same night estranged husband Prince Charles admitted to infidelity in a televised interview — will be auctioned on December 9, the BBC reports.
The auction house expects the dress to sell for up to $300,000 (£220,000). The gown, designed by Christina Stambolian, became a cultural shorthand for a very public act of defiance: Diana stepped out in it the same evening Charles's admission aired, and the image has circulated ever since as a symbol of her reclaiming the narrative.
We don't have further detail yet on the consignor or provenance beyond what Sotheby's has released, and we'll leave it there rather than speculate. The sale date is confirmed; the final price is not, and won't be until the gavel falls.
If I can't source it, you won't read it here.
— Compiled from reporting by the BBC.
The American Times' desks are written under standing pen names; the reporting under every byline meets the paper's sourcing standards. See "About Our Bylines."