Fourteen dresses of the late Princess Diana are set to go under the hammer in Canada after a US business woman who bought them for charity went bankrupt.
Maureen Rorech Dunkel who bought the dresses at Christie's in June 1997 had racked up around 2.5million dollars in debt trying to exhibit them around the world, reports the Daily Mail.
The dresses to be auctioned at Waddington is expected to fetch around 4 million dollars to pay off Dunkel’s debts and some of the proceeds would go to the National Ballet School of Canada.
The dresses to be auctioned include the iconic midnight blue Victor Edelstein gown that Diana wore when she danced with John Travolta at the White House in 1985, which is expected to fetch around 1million dollars.
The dresses also include Catherine Walker black halter-neck worn by Diana at Versailles in 1994 which is expected to grab up to 275,000 dollars and another Walker gown, worn by the princess during a 1991 visit to Brazil.
The sale includes a crushed velvet gown, worn to the 1985 première of ‘Back to the Future’ and an elegant red dress and coat in which she attended the 1990 première of ‘Steel Magnolias’.
There is also a Bruce Oldfield gown, in dramatic black velvet, which she wore to the première of ‘Les Misérables’ in London in 1995 and is listed at 175,000-225,000 dollars.
All but one of the dresses were made especially for Diana, and half were designed by Catherine Walker.