Princess Diana Jacques Azagury Velvet Dress

A princess at the trade-show stand

In 1985 Jacques Azagury was a young designer who had just sold his first collection to a London department store and was showing new work at the London Design Trade Show. Anna Harvey, deputy editor of British Vogue and a quiet guide to Diana's wardrobe, brought the Princess of Wales to his stand. 'I turned around, and there she was, which completely threw me,' he later recalled.

Three weeks later Diana was sitting in his shop in Knightsbridge, buying the dress she had seen on display. It was a striking piece for its moment: a long black velvet bodice with a dropped waist and exaggerated shoulders, scattered with embroidered metallic stars, over a two-tier royal-blue organza skirt finished with a sash and a large bow. The ballerina-length cut has often been read as a nod to her love of ballet.

Accounts of how and when the partnership began are not entirely consistent. Several reports of the 2023 sale place the trade-show meeting in 1985, the year the dress was made and first worn; one report of the same sale says the two met in 1987. The 1985 dates are the ones tied to the dress itself.

The designer behind it

Azagury was born in Morocco and trained in London at the London College of Fashion and St Martin's School of Art. He opened his flagship boutique in Knightsbridge in 1987, and over the following years dressed a clientele that included Helen Mirren and Elizabeth McGovern.

For Diana he became one of a handful of trusted designers, visiting her at Kensington Palace for fittings. He has said she put him at ease immediately. He is credited with helping her move from frills toward the sleeker, shorter evening clothes she favored after her separation, including the red silk 'Venice' dress of 1995 and the ice-blue 'Swan Lake' cocktail dress of 1997. When she asked him to cut that one even shorter, he refused, telling her she would not have a dress left, 'and you are a princess.'

He closed his Knightsbridge store in 2023, only weeks before this dress set its record.

Florence, 1985

In April 1985 the Prince and Princess of Wales made an official tour of Italy, later joined by their sons. They met President Alessandro Pertini and had a private audience with Pope John Paul II. In Florence the mayor gave a dinner at the Palazzo Vecchio, and Diana wore the Azagury dress for the first time.

Diana was 23, married for less than four years, with William not yet three and Harry seven months old. Her clothes were followed as closely as her schedule, and the tour was photographed relentlessly.

She wore the dress again in May 1986 in Vancouver, at a Vancouver Symphony Orchestra performance during the visit in which she and Charles, with Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, opened Expo 86 on May 2. Those photographs, as much as the Florence ones, fixed the dress in the public memory.

From the wardrobe to the record

Diana herself sent a large part of her wardrobe to auction while she was alive, selling 79 dresses and giving $3.25 million in proceeds to charity. Since her death in 1997, dresses she wore have become some of the most sought-after clothing in the market.

This dress came to auction in Hollywood in December 2023, as part of a four-day sale of film and celebrity property, offered with a matching design illustration and estimated at $100,000. It sold for $1,148,080, more than 11 times the estimate, to a buyer who was not named. Reports give the sale date as December 17 or 18, and some round the figure differently; one report gives $1,143,000.

The result broke the previous record for a Diana dress, $604,800, paid in January 2023 for a Victor Edelstein velvet gown. In the same sale the pink chiffon blouse by David and Elizabeth Emanuel that Diana wore for her 1981 engagement portrait sold for $381,000. Months earlier, her red 'black sheep' sweater had sold for about $1.14 million, so a sweater and an evening dress ended 2023 at almost the same price.

How to recognize it

The dress is unmistakable in photographs: a black long-sleeved velvet top that runs past the natural waist, embroidered with blue and silver metallic stars, a sash and oversized bow at the hip, and a stiff two-tier skirt of bright royal-blue organza that stops at ballerina length. The shoulders are padded in the full mid-1980s manner.

Its label marks it as size 10, 100% rayon, made in England. One description of the sale noted that the silver metallic paint on the velvet sparkles alongside the embroidery, creating a design 'reminiscent of a night's sky.'

Its importance comes from documented wear on two separate public occasions on two continents, both widely photographed, and from its place at the start of Diana's long working relationship with Azagury.

The first Azagury

Azagury went on to make some of the clothes most associated with Diana's final years, in the period between her 1992 separation and her death in Paris on August 31, 1997. This dress, the first of them, belongs to the earlier princess: formal, padded, starry and romantic.

Its 2023 price made it the benchmark for Diana's wardrobe at auction, and a measure of how her clothes, more than almost any other royal possessions, have become collectible objects in their own right.

Timeline

1. Jul 1, 1961

   Diana Spencer is born at Park House, Sandringham.

2. Jul 29, 1981

   Diana marries Charles, Prince of Wales, at St Paul's Cathedral.

3. 1985

   Anna Harvey of British Vogue brings Diana to Jacques Azagury's stand at the London Design Trade Show; three weeks later she buys the dress at his Knightsbridge shop.

4. Apr 1985

   Diana first wears the dress at a dinner given by the mayor of Florence at the Palazzo Vecchio during the royal tour of Italy.

5. May 1986

   Diana wears it again at a Vancouver Symphony Orchestra performance during the visit when she and Charles open Expo 86.

6. 1987

   Azagury opens his flagship boutique in Knightsbridge.

7. Dec 1992

   Charles and Diana separate.

8. Aug 28, 1996

   The divorce is finalized.

9. Aug 31, 1997

   Diana dies in Paris after a car crash.

10. Jan 2023

    A Victor Edelstein velvet gown sets a Diana dress record of $604,800.

11. 2023

    Azagury closes his Knightsbridge store.

12. Dec 2023

    The dress sells at auction in Hollywood for $1,148,080, a new record for a dress worn by Diana.

The world in 1985

• Mar 11, 1985

  Mikhail Gorbachev becomes leader of the Soviet Union.

• Apr 23, 1985

  Coca-Cola launches its reformulated 'New Coke.'

• May 16, 1985

  Scientists announce the discovery of the ozone hole over Antarctica.

• Jul 13, 1985

  Live Aid concerts are held in London and Philadelphia.

• Sep 1, 1985

  Robert Ballard's team locates the wreck of the Titanic.

• Sep 19, 1985

  A magnitude 8.0 earthquake devastates Mexico City.

• Nov 19, 1985

  Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev meet in Geneva.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Princess Diana Jacques Azagury Velvet Dress is number 64 of 100 in the memorabilia entries of the FLOAT 100. 100 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (62 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Diana found the dress on display at a trade-show stand and went to the designer's shop three weeks later to buy it.
• It sold for more than 11 times its estimate.
• Diana wore it on two continents: in Florence in 1985 and in Vancouver in 1986.
• In 2023 Diana's 'black sheep' sweater and this evening dress sold for almost the same amount, each a little over $1.1 million.
• Diana once asked Azagury to shorten a cocktail dress further; he refused, reminding her that she was a princess.
• During her life Diana sold 79 of her own dresses at auction and gave $3.25 million to charity.