Pink Blouse from Princess Diana’s 1981 Engagement Portrait Is Expected to Net Up to $100,000 at Auction

(Image credit: Getty Images)

published 27 November 2023

After the release of part one of the sixth and final season of Netflix’s The Crown (which focuses heavily on Princess Diana), it seems as though Diana fever is alive and well—and some are keen to strike while the iron is hot.

People reports that the blouse that the former Princess of Wales wore for her engagement portrait to then-Prince Charles is expected to net around $100,000 at auction. (Yes. $100,000. For a blouse.) The pink blouse was actually designed by David and Elizabeth Emanuel—who also designed Diana’s iconic wedding dress when she married Charles on July 29, 1981.

The blouse will be available to purchase as part of Julien’s Auctions and Turner Classic Movies’ Hollywood Legends auction, where Julien’s reports it is expected to bring in somewhere between $80,000 and $100,000.

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The engagement portrait was taken by Lord Snowden, and the blouse is described as a “pink crepe blouse with ruff-like collar and loose pleats.” According to Julien’s, Diana picked the blouse from a rack of clothing presented to her by former Vogue fashion editor Anna Harvey. The portrait appeared in the February 1981 issue of the same publication—when Diana was just 19 years old.

“When she saw our blouse on the rack, she fell in love with it, asked who had made it, and was directed to us,” Elizabeth Emanuel wrote in her book A Dress for Diana, adding that the blouse came to be after a client left a mascara stain on a custom-made gown, prompting the Emanuels to use the materials for the blouse, which appeared on display at Diana’s former home, Kensington Palace, from 2017 to 2019.

The auction will take place from December 14 to December 17 in Beverly Hills and online. In addition to the engagement portrait blouse, an evening gown worn by Diana in Florence, Italy in 1985 designed by Jacques Azagury will also be for sale and is expected to net between $100,000 and $200,000. Pieces worn by Audrey Hepburn and Barbra Streisand will also be among the items up for auction.

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Rachel Burchfield is a writer, editor, and podcaster whose primary interests are fashion and beauty, society and culture, and, most especially, the British Royal Family and other royal families around the world. She serves as Marie Claire’s Senior Celebrity and Royals Editor and has also contributed to publications like Allure, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle, People, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and W, among others. Before taking on her current role with Marie Claire, Rachel served as its Weekend Editor and later Royals Editor. She is the cohost of Podcast Royal, a show that was named a top five royal podcast by The New York Times. A voracious reader and lover of books, Rachel also hosts I’d Rather Be Reading, which spotlights the best current nonfiction books hitting the market and interviews the authors of them. Rachel frequently appears as a media commentator, and she or her work has appeared on outlets like NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s Good Morning America, CNN, and more.