A black sheep jumper, worn by the late Princess Diana of Wales and seen as a metaphor for being an ‘outcast’, will be auctioned in August and September for an estimated $80,000 (roughly 362,720 Malaysian Ringgit).
According to Reuters, the jumper is from the British knitwear label Warm & Wonderful and was discovered in an attic earlier this year by one of the brand’s co-founders. It will likely be a centerpiece of Sotheby’s “Fashion Icons” online auction, which will occur between August 31 and September 14.
Princess Diana originally wore the red jumper in June 1981, only a month before her wedding, while watching Prince Charles, her fiancé, play polo. The jumper has rows of white sheep with a single black sheep in the middle, causing conjecture regarding its symbolic meaning.
Diana’s personal secretary, Anne Everett, addressed a note to Warm & Wonderful’s co-founder, Sally Osman, inquiring about the feasibility of repairing and returning the sweater when the cuffs were damaged. Diana acquired a replacement a few months later and was photographed wearing it in 1983.
In March of this year, Osman uncovered Diana’s jumper in a box in her attic.
“If you’re Princess Diana, of course, you have a lot of things to wear,”
Sotheby’s global head of fashion Cathy Elkies said at a news conference in London.
“In fact, she wanted a replacement. She wore a replacement sweater two years later. I think it speaks volumes to the significance of this sweater to her.”
The jumper, along with the two letters Everett addressed to Osman, will be auctioned off for $50,000 to $80,000 (roughly 226,700 to 362,720 Malaysian Ringgit). The jumper and letters will be on display at Sotheby’s in London until Wednesday before travelling to New York in September.
Sotheby’s auctioned off a purple velvet off-the-shoulder evening gown worn by Princess Diana earlier this year, exceeding the pre-auction estimate by five times and selling for little more than $600,000 (roughly 2.72 million Malaysian Ringgit). The garment was featured in Victor Edelstein’s Autumn 1989 collection.
