Midnight Blue Gown Highlights Biggest Sale of Princess Diana’s Belongings Since 1997

The largest auction of Princess Diana’s belongings in 27 years, including clothes and accessories, will be held this summer in Los Angeles.

Julien’s Auctions will hold a sale of Princess Diana’s most important garments and accessories, both in Los Angeles and online, on June 27.

The collection, titled “Princess Diana’s Elegance & a Royal Collection,” will be the largest to go to auction since the Princess of Wales sold 79 of her dresses at Christie’s in 1997, just two months before her death, according to a news release from Julien’s Auctions, which is holding the sale on June 27. The previous sale brought in US$3.25 million for charity.

“Julien’s is honored to present this historic auction that will celebrate Princess Diana’s iconic fashion style and her reign as the People’s Princess,” said Martin Nolan, co-founder and executive director of Julien’s Auctions, in a news release.

The Julien’s auction will include some of the princess’s most famous cocktail and evening dresses, suits, shoes, hats, and accessories.

Princess Diana wore a yellow and navy Catherine Walker skirt suit during her visit to Hong Kong in in 1989.
Hong Kong Red Cross

Among the highlights is a Murray Arbeid midnight blue strapless tulle diamante star gown that the princess wore twice in 1986, to the premiere of Phantom of the Opera and to a dinner at Claridge’s in London for King Constantine of Greece. The gown is estimated to sell for between US$200,000 and US$400,000.

Another highly anticipated piece is an off-the-shoulder magenta silk and lace evening dress, designed by Victor Edelstein, that’s also estimated between US$200,000 and US$400,000. Diana wore the dress in London and in Hamburg, Germany, in 1987. Edelstein also designed one of Diana’s most famous looks—the ink-blue velvet, mermaid-style gown she wore while dancing with John Travolta at the White House.

Other garments that will be offered in the auction include a pink floral shirtdress (estimate: US$100,000-US$200,000), a Victorian revival evening gown with a fitted bodice and a Basque waist (estimate: US$100,000-US$200,000) and a two-piece yellow and navy skirt suit (estimate: US$30,000-US$50,000), all designed by Catherine Walker, one of Princess Diana’s closest collaborators.

Kurt Geiger evening shoes
Julien’s Auctions

Many of Diana’s accessories, such as shoes, handbags, and hats, will also be sold. Some notable items include a pair of Kurt Geiger emerald green satin-jewelled vamp evening shoes (estimate: US$2,000-US$4,000) and a yellow and black felted wool turban-style hat, designed by Royal milliner Philip Somerville (estimate: US$10,000-US$20,000).

A portion of the auction proceeds will benefit Muscular Dystrophy U.K. Additionally, highlights of the collection will be on view at K11 MUSEA in Hong Kong from April 18-29 and at the Museum of Style Icons in Newbridge, Ireland, from June 11-27.

“We are also delighted to bring back many of Diana’s favourite fashion ensembles to Asia and Europe that she wore on some of her highly publicised international royal appearances and humanitarian efforts, such as her Catherine Walker suit from her 1989 visit to Hong Kong,” Nolan said.

Gold is one of the market’s go-to hedges in rocky times. Don’t forget that gold miners’ stocks are too.

The stock market’s gains in 2026 belie the rocky macroeconomic picture: elevated inflation, heightened geopolitical tensions, and jitters about the artificial-intelligence trade. That backdrop, in theory, should be the time for gold to shine. Instead, the price of the yellow metal has tumbled more than 5% so far, after last year’s blistering 65% rally. In part, the U.S. dollar’s recovery has stymied gold, which benefited from the greenback’s weakness in 2025.

Even with the precious metal’s recent weakness, gold mining stocks could be the best way to profit from this year’s uncertainty.

Gold miners “are a valuable hedge against macro risks that would likely be damaging for equities,” BCA Research’s Noah Weisberger and Rishabh Shah wrote this week.

Concerns about the Federal Reserve’s next moves to tackle inflation, the increasingly crowded AI trade, and steep valuations for tech stocks are just some of the drivers that could help gold’s price get on even footing— and lead to even bigger gains for miner stocks.

These stocks’ prices tend to outpace gold’s moves, because the companies have fixed operational costs. So when gold’s price rallies, their profit margins soar, and vice versa. For instance, the VanEck Gold Miners GDX +7.39% exchange-traded fund has fallen 11% this year as the metal has slumped.

Now, gold’s price just needs to stabilize to help miners’ stocks take off, and that seems to be happening. The precious metal has recently found support above the $4,000 level, and has stuck in a narrow range since the end of June. But its price rose ever so slightly in July, ending a four-month losing streak for the metal. Technical analysis also suggests that gold is due for a comeback.

Barron’s recently wrote that the pullbacks for both gold miners and the metal itself are overdone. Senior technical analyst Doug Busch noted that the VanEck ETF is on the “verge of a breakout” and has the potential to hit $11o in early 2027, up more than 40% from its current price.

Gold miners also have more than their role as a market hedge going for them. Their fundamentals are solid, too, says Chris Mancini, portfolio co-manager of the Gabelli Gold Fund.

“Precious metals miners are generating substantial amounts of free cash flow given profit margins of over $2,000 per ounce, and are returning this cash to shareholders through buybacks and dividends,” he said in an email.

“Buying the miners is a cheap way to get exposure to the price of gold,” he added. His fund owns Newmont NEM +6.71%, a Barron’s stock pick last year, and Agnico Eagle Mines as top holdings, as well as miners Northern Star Resources, Endeavour Mining, and Kinross Gold K+8.59%.

Miners are better businesses than they used to be, the BCA team added.

“Capex is more disciplined, margins are high and rising…and they are largely independent of the AI story,” Weisberger, BCA’s head of equities, and Shah, a senior analyst, wrote.

That last part is key. AI is disrupting the software industry and many other services and information-oriented businesses, and investors have piled into AI stocks. But ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, and other large-language models aren’t going to replace the need to mine for metals.

“Equity portfolios can benefit from exposure to quality that is uncorrelated to AI risk, and gold miners fit the bill,” the BCA team said.

They recommend that investors buy the VanEck Gold Miners ETF, which owns top miners such as Agnico, Barrick Mining ABX +7.24%, and Newmont.

An important bonus for big gold miners’ stocks is that their valuations are attractive after the gold’s pullback, too. The VanEck ETF is now trading at just a little more than nine times next year’s earnings estimates. That’s a big discount to its five-year average price-to-earnings ratio of 14, according to FactSet.

What’s more, the ETF is currently valued at a more than 50% discount to the S&P 500 SPX -0.17%, which is trading for about 19 times earnings estimates for 2027. Mining stocks have typically traded at just a 25% discount to the broader market over the past five years. So there is significant upside for the group if valuations move back toward normal levels.

One factor that complicates mining stocks as a market hedge, of course, is if stocks bounce back, which has been the case so far in August.

But both the market and economic outlooks remain cloudy, and investors remain nervous about the Fed’s next moves and AI stocks. Gold miners should do just fine, even if the anxious mood on Wall Street persists.