When Diana auctioned off 79 of her dresses for charity in 1997, this was Lot 37, described as "a long, dramatic evening dress of black velvet", and was bought by a Boston businesswoman for $36,800. Shortly after Diana's death she auctioned it to benefit a women's charity and it went to Maureen Rorech-Dunkel, who was collecting Diana gowns and would later exhibit them for charity in the Dresses for Humanity touring exhibit. The gowns were later auctioned again in London in 2013, and this one was purchased for approximately $68,000 by Historic Royal Palaces, which runs Kensington Palace and is part of their permanent Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection. It was showcased in their 2017 "Diana: Her Fashion Story" exhibit.

This particular gown is a good example of one of the many ways Diana assembled the volumnious official wardrobe she needed. Piecing together the story from accounts in the auction catalogs, the basis for this was a white sleeveless taffeta dress from Bruce Oldfield's spring 1981 collection. Diana saw her friend and fashion mentor, Vogue fashion editor Anna Harvey, wearing it at a charity event they both attended. Diana sometime thereafter ordered a custom version, requesting color and fabric changes and the plunging front and back necklines. (This necessitated Oldfield coming up with something to keep the dress from literally falling down off Diana's shoulders, so he used a strap across the back neckline concealed with a velvet flower.) And adding yet another life to the design, Oldfield then used this version as the basis for a cocktail dress, with a shorter skirt puffed out by a petticoat.(below)