By Teri Fitsell
In June 1997, Diana, Princess of Wales decided to auction off 79 of her famous frocks for charity. Buyers, who ranged from Di devotees to businessmen with an eye for investment, paid between $US20,000 ($37,000) and $US200,000 for the garments.
Two months later Diana was dead, leaving the new
owners of her clothes in an interesting position. For while people's opinions may differ about the sincerity of her famous good works, the infamy of her private life and the enmity of her relations with the rest of the royals, one thing you can't argue about is Diana's unchallenged reign as queen of the clothes-horses.
And Diana's untimely death undoubtedly meant the value of those dresses was going to soar.
Diana's Dresses (TV One, 7.30 tonight) politely inquires what's happened to the dresses and their owners, and finds that few have cashed in on the death of an icon.
Indeed, the only one shown to do so is a Frenchwoman who won one of the dresses in a Paris Match competition after the magazine bought it at the auction.
She and her daughter attempt to auction off the dress in Paris, and when it fails to reach the reserve price we're told they're off to the United States to try again.
That their section of the programme is followed by shots of the French tunnel in which Diana died, accompanied by choirboys singing a requiem, speaks volumes of what the programme-makers think of such vulgar monetary concerns.
Other buyers include a Scotsman who was so captivated when Diana spoke to him before the auction that he forked out $US65,000 for a little black number; and a romance-books publisher whose company toured several dresses around shopping malls immediately after the auction. The tour was titled "Dresses to Di For" until tragic events forced a hasty name change.
More eccentric participants are a woman who boasts a roomful of Diana memorabilia, and a 1.83m tall, frighteningly frou-froued cross-dresser called Zondra Foxx who didn't manage to secure the dress she wanted.
The programme's most bizarre image, though, is provided by one Fontaine Minor, a mature Southern belle who perches on a chair coyly, clad in black minidress and pink tea cosy. Behind her sits a black security man, apparently guarding the dress itself. It's a strange tableau.
Of buying the dress, Minor drawls: "It was ... probably ... [then hastily] next to my marriages and my children ... it was one of the most thrilling moments I can remember."
The programme's definitely one for the Diana devotees, although others may glean a couple of interesting frock facts. Like how those gravity-defying strapless numbers stayed up without any unseemly hiking on the part of the wearer? Fitted waists and boning, apparently.
And how come Diana never had so much as a royal bra strap or hemline showing, let alone - dare we say it - a RRVPL (Right Royal Visible Panty Line)?
The answer's in the dresses, literally.
By Teri Fitsell
In June 1997, Diana, Princess of Wales decided to auction off 79 of her famous frocks for charity. Buyers, who ranged from Di devotees to businessmen with an eye for investment, paid between $US20,000 ($37,000) and $US200,000 for the garments.
Two months later Diana was dead, leaving the new
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