Princess Diana’s ‘Travolta’ dress brushed off at auction

A midnight blue velvet gown worn by Princess Diana when she danced with actor John Travolta at the White House is being put up for sale, an auction house said on November 18, 2019. Image: LEON NEAL/AFP

A midnight blue velvet gown worn by Princess Diana as she danced with John Travolta at the White House got the cold shoulder at auction, the Kerry Taylor house said Monday.

Diana wore the off-the-shoulder Victor Edelstein dress when she and then-husband Prince Charles attended a state dinner hosted by the late president Ronald Reagan on November 9, 1985.

Diana was photographed dancing with Travolta to the song “You Should be Dancing” from his film “Saturday Night Fever”.

Estimated at £250,000-£350,000 ($324,000-$454,000 or P16.6 million-P23.3 million), the dress did not even attract a reserve, or minimum, bid of £200,000.

Two other dresses owned by Diana fared much better, however.

A long-sleeved dress from 1986 by Katherine Cusack, also in midnight-blue velvet, was snapped up for £60,000, or £71,000 with fees, which was double the estimated maximum value.

A Catherine Walker navy wool day dress from around 1989, that Diana wore in private, according to Kerry Taylor, was bought for £35,000 or almost six times its estimated value.

The Edelstein dress was part of a collection of outfits that Diana herself sold for charity at auction in June 1997, just weeks before she died in a car crash in Paris. NVG

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