In November 1995, Princess Diana sat down with journalist Martin Bashir in her apartment at Kensington Palace to record her famous interview for the BBC. Beyond her iconic line “there were three of us in this marriage”, the late Lady Diana left us with a sharp reflection on fame and its profitability: “You see yourself as a good product on a shelf that sells well, and people make a lot of money at your expense.”
Now, as the 29th anniversary of her tragic death in a car accident in Paris is marked, Diana, Princess of Wales’s status as a “good product” has not stopped growing. In 2026, the industry surrounding the mother of Princes William and Harry remains in full swing. Her presence is omnipresent in popular culture, thanks to series such as The Crown, to biopics in cinema, countless documentaries and even a musical.
Joining the Lady Di fever now is Swan Song: Diana, My Sister, the book his brother, the Earl of Spencer, is about to publish. “I want to put my own thoughts and memories in writing once and for all, instead of having to endure the discomfort of rereading the opinions of others, many of which are based on falsehoods that have been taken for true over time,” the aristocrat said about his decision to publish this title.
The reasons for Diana’s enduring appeal have been enumerated to death since 1997. From her ability to connect and empathize with ordinary people to the extraordinary glamour that surrounded her and the tragic nature of her death. This has led to the desire to own something that was hers remaining more relevant than ever. Her dresses and personal items fetch prices of hundreds of thousands of euros at multiple auctions.
Diana, Princess of Wales, Queen of Auctions
Just a few months before her wedding, the princess was photographed wearing a red sweater adorned with white sheep… and a single black sheep. Forty years later, the garment was reissued for a new generation of admirers. And the original was auctioned at Sotheby’s for a record price of 944,000 euros, making it the most valuable sweater in history.
Some of the princess Diana’s most famous dresses have also gone to auction, often to raise funds for causes that were very important to her. The first major auction of her wardrobe took place in June 1997, when she sold 79 of her dresses at the suggestion of her son William. Bids took place at Christie’s, and more than 3 million euros were raised for cancer and AIDS research.
Diana, Princess of Wales in Florence wearing the Jacques Azagury dress.
Over the years, her garments have raised fabulous sums at multiple auctions, but the record was reached by a velvet dress by Jacques Azagury. It instantly became one of her most memorable looks when she debuted it on a trip to Florence in 1985. She wore it again once, during a royal tour of British Columbia in 1986. And in December 2023 it was sold at auction through Julien’s Auctions, fetching a final price of 978,000 euros.
But it is not only her clothing that attracts collectors. Her exclusive black 1985 Ford Escort RS Turbo Series 1 sold for 656,000 euros at an auction held in London in 2022. A three-page handwritten letter addressed to Mrs. Pendrey, the former housekeeper at the Spencer family residence in Althorp, reached 37,000 euros. And a slice of the wedding cake of Prince Charles and Lady Di sold for 2,150 euros. Its owner was Moyra Smith, a maid to the Queen Mother at Clarence House, who kept it wrapped in plastic wrap.
The costliest celebrity mementos
Despite the collective frenzy that surrounds every sale of Diana, Princess of Wales’s belongings, she is still far from the two legends who have raised the most at auction. Elizabeth Taylor is the absolute queen in this regard. When Christie’s auctioned her jewelry, clothing and artworks in 2012, a total of 213 million euros was raised. And Sotheby’s 2023 auction of Freddie Mercury’s personal items and manuscripts raised nearly 50 million euros.
Los carísimos zapatos de Judy Garland.
And if we look at the most expensive items ever auctioned belonging to a celebrity, the crown jewel are Judy Garland’s ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz in her role as Dorothy: a collector purchased them for 24 million euros. The Babe Ruth World Series jersey from 1932 reached 20.6 million euros in 2024, becoming the most valuable sports memorabilia item in history.
