Iconic dresses worn by the late Princess Diana, at pivotal moments in life, are to be sold at auction after the American businesswoman who owned them filed for bankruptcy.
Maureen Rorech Dunkel, a 50-year-old businesswoman based in Tampa, Florida, bought fourteen of Diana’s gowns at Christie’s in June 1997, just months before the tragic car accident in which the princess lost her life. The intention was to continue Diana’s legacy by exhibiting the dresses all over the world, via a charitable foundation Ms Dunkel set up after purchasing them.
However, due to numerous failed exhibitions, Ms Dunkel has instead found herself with debt problems to the tune of nearly $2.5 million. She filed for bankruptcy last year, after attempting to use the dresses as collateral for a $1.5 million loan she needed for a housing project. The project unfortunately failed, and Ms Dunkel must auction off the historic garments in order to raise money to pay her many creditors.
The pieces up for sale at the Waddington’s auction house in Toronto, Canada, include a midnight blue Victor Edelstein dress worn by Princess Diana at a White House event in 1985, at which she was pictured dancing with actor John Travolta. There are also two dresses used in Diana’s iconic photo shoots for Vanity Fair, which were shot by photographer Mario Testino.
Ms Dunkel expects to raise around $4 million in total from the sale of the fourteen dresses, some of which will go towards tackling her debt problems. A proportion of the proceeds will also go to the National Ballet School of Canada.
Posted in: 
0 comments:
Post a Comment