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A British Lung Foundation sweater, jeans, cowboy boots, and a blazer on top—it’s one of Princess Diana’s most famous off-duty looks. And now a checked Turnbull & Asser blazer, believed to be worn by the royal at the Guards Polo Club in Windsor in 1988, is going up for auction.
David Quelch, the former managing director of Burberry, reportedly gave the blazer (valued between $380 and $640) to his assistant in 1997 upon his retirement—explaining at the time that the piece had been sent in by Diana as she had wanted it to be remade in a different fabric.
Unfortunately, though, it’s not possible to prove for certain it’s the exact jacket the princess wore. “Upon close examination, the Turnbull & Asser blazer consigned for sale is identical to the one Diana, Princess of Wales, is famously photographed wearing,” Lucy Bishop, auctioneer at Kerry Taylor Auctions, tells Vogue. “However, as the blazer is ready-to-wear, it means more than one would have been made. We are laying all the evidence gathered fairly on the table, and allowing those bidding on the day to decide what they choose to believe.”
The provenance given by the seller definitely seems plausible though. “Interestingly, the princess is photographed wearing an identical blazer—but in a different fabric—in 1996,” Bishop continues. “The blazer is an exact copy of the Turnbull & Asser one, right down to the shape and placement of the suede elbow patches. This supports the provenance provided by the vendor and fits in with the timeline of events.”
While Princess Diana sold many of her formal gowns in a charity auction in New York in 1997 shortly before she died, pieces from her day-to-day wardrobe are still turning up today. “Over the years, we have discovered clothing worn by the princess in the most unlikely of places,” the auctioneer explains. “I am always amazed by the items people have hiding forgotten in their closets.”
Kerry Taylor Auctions’s “Passion for Fashion” sale takes place on June 21.
This piece was originally published in British Vogue.
