25 years after her death, style and beauty icon the late Princess Diana continues to inspire through the clothes, accessories and events that shaped her life.
It's no coincidence that auctions attract hordes of curious and enthusiastic people willing to pay astronomical sums to acquire a piece of Diana Spencer's history. Her elegance, style and charisma remain unmistakable even today, decades after the princess' death.
One of them is the wool sweater from the brand Warm & Wonderly that did not go unnoticed, sold at Sotheby's "Fashion Icons" auction for a record amount.
This sweater was worn for the first time by Diana in 1981 during a horse race, when she was only 19 years old, and a few weeks later she was to marry Prince Charles. The uniqueness does not lie in the material of the sweater, but in the design. A black sheep standing out among other white sheep is such a special detail.
The sweater was bought by Diana for $50, while the auction house estimated it at $50,000 to $80,000, but in the end, the sweater was sold for $1.1 million.
How was the famous sweater found?
The princess wore the sweater several times, which suffered minor damage, but Diana's associate asked the brand to repair it or exchange it for a new one because the princess liked it so much. The firm's founders, Joanna Osborne and Sally Muir, decided to send her a new one and kept the damaged one in storage, where it was accidentally rediscovered last year, folded in a box of similar vintage sweaters.
The record-breaking black sheep sweater
The sale marks a new record. Until now no item belonging to the princess had sold for such a high sum. This sweater also surpassed the record held by Kurt Cobain's green T-shirt, worn at Nirvana's MTV Unplugged concert in 1993, which sold for $334,000 in 2019.
Source: Elle
