Reportar MensajeSome women signal the beginning of a new chapter in their lives with a new hairstyle, but Princess Diana had something more radical in mind. It would be a gesture both grandiose and humble and, in typical Diana fashion, would benefit only others. It was the summer of 1997. The royal marriage was over, a bright new future beckoned. The Princess rifled through her extensive wardrobe and selected her most famous dresses. Out she came from her closet with 79 couture creations designed by such names as Catherine Walker, Bruce Oldfield and Victor Edelstein. ‘Sell them!’ she ordered.At the same time as hauling her 53ft trailer around some of America’s more obscure backwaters, Mrs Dunkel had been dabbling in a Florida property deal that went badly wrong, leaving her owing creditors £1.5 million, two-thirds of which was secured against the dresses. A bankruptcy court in Florida ordered the sale of Diana’s dresses in order to pay the money she owed. And so, bizarrely, in 2011 the dresses that will shortly be auctioned in Bermondsey were to be sold at the auction house of Waddington’s in Toronto, Canada. With some pride, on June 23 that year, Waddington’s seemed to have sold the Diana dress collection for just over £2 million — more than enough to cover Mrs Dunkel’s debts. Except they didn’t. Only three dresses sold at the auction. One more was bought afterwards. It later emerged that because of what Waddington’s referred to as ‘complications regarding the sale’, initial reports that all dresses had sold were somewhat wide of the mark. Al Gomez, the Florida attorney charged with regaining his clients’ money lost in the property deal, told me he thought the Toronto sale was ‘unorthodox, especially in such a prestigious auction house’. Maybe there will be better luck this time around. But it presents a huge challenge for Kerry Taylor, the South London auctioneers charged with restoring the value of Diana’s much-abused garments. True, the auctioneers created worldwide interest with the sale of Diana’s stand-in wedding dress, made by David and Elizabeth Emanuel in case of accident, when it was sold for £84,000 just over a year ago.
