NEWS
Princess Diana’s Black Sheep Sweater Sells For $1.1 Million At Auction
Courtesy of Sotheby’s
Princess Diana’s iconic “one black sheep” sweater sold for $1.1 million at auction on Thursday, marking the highest price paid at auction for a garment worn by the late royal.
Sotheby’s held its latest Fashion Icons auction during New York Fashion Week, and the auction house had estimated the sweater would fetch between $50,000 and $80,000.
The red sweater is covered in white sheep, with a single black sheep in the bunch. Photographs captured Diana wearing the sweater after her engagement but before her wedding King Charles III, then the Prince of Wales, at a 1981 polo match.
The sweater was created by a small knitwear brand called Warm & Wonderful, led by Joanna Osborne and Sally Muir, who told Sotheby’s that at the time, Diana’s nod of approval didn’t carry the weight that it later did, and their sales hardly budged, though David Bowie and Andy Warhol were moved to buy sheep sweaters.
“No one really knew it was ours and there was no way to tell them,” Osborne told Sotheby’s. “It absolutely put us on the map, but it didn’t have quite the significance that it has now.”
“Probably, at that stage, she didn’t realize she could say things with her clothes,” Muir said. “It was just a fun sweater that she liked.”
But it became a symbol of then-Lady Diana’s future struggles to blend in to the royal family. She wore it again two years later to another polo match, fully aware of the statement she was making.
According to a press release from Sotheby’s the black sheep sweater sold for $1.143 million after a 15-minute bidding war.
The previous auction record for a garment worn by the People’s Princess was $604,800 paid for the Victor Edelstein velvet aubergine evening gown in which she posed for both a royal portrait and a Vanity Fair photo shoot.
TMX contributed to this article.
