The Princess of Wales attends a dinner at the Al-Qudaibiya Palace in Manama, Bahrain, on November 16, 1986 (Anwar Hussein/Alamy)
Today, our Tiara Time Machine is stopping in 1986, when the Prince and Princess of Wales headed to the Middle East for a tour through several nations. In Bahrain, Diana wore her family tiara with a classic ivory gown.
The Prince and Princess of Wales attend a dinner at the Al-Qudaibiya Palace in Manama, Bahrain, on November 16, 1986 (David Cooper/Alamy)
Charles and Diana spent one day during their Middle Eastern tour in Bahrain, where they were guests of Emir Isa bin Salman Al Khalifa. He hosted a dinner in their honor at Al-Qudaibiya Palace during the visit. For the black-tie affair, Diana wore an ivory silk moss crêpe evening gown designed by David and Elizabeth Emanuel, who also famously made her wedding dress.
The Princess of Wales attends a dinner at the Al-Qudaibiya Palace in Manama, Bahrain, on November 16, 1986 (David Cooper/Alamy)
Diana brought both of her usual tiaras with her on the trip, and for this dinner, she selected the Spencer Tiara. The jewel belonged to her father, the 8th Earl Spencer, who allowed her to make regular use of it during her marriage. (After his death, the loan was extended by her brother, the 9th Earl.) The tiara was made in the 1930s for Diana’s grandmother, Cynthia, using diamond ornaments that had been in the family since the nineteenth century.
The Princess of Wales attends a dinner at the Al-Qudaibiya Palace in Manama, Bahrain, on November 16, 1986 (Anwar Hussein/Alamy)
With the tiara, she wore a pair of diamond and pearl earrings from her own personal jewelry collection. The earrings were given to Diana as a wedding present by the Emir of Qatar five years earlier.
The Princess of Wales attends a dinner at the Al-Qudaibiya Palace in Manama, Bahrain, on November 16, 1986 (Anwar Hussein/Alamy)
The jewelry look was completed with another famous piece from Diana’s own jewelry box: her diamond and sapphire engagement ring. The same ring, of course, has been worn by her daughter-in-law, the present Princess of Wales, since the autumn of 2010.
Kerry Taylor Auctions
As Diana’s dresses have become such hot commodities since her death, it’s worth noting what happened to this one. At some point, Diana gave the gown to one of her childhood friends, Caroline Twiston-Davies, who lived at The Mynde, a country house in Herefordshire. In 1996, the family’s housekeeper brought the dress to a local second-hand shop. There, a few months later, it was purchased by a woman who planned to wear it for a hunt ball—but changed her mind and wore something else instead.
The new owner kept the dress carefully packed away in storage, which helped to keep it in excellent condition over the years that followed. At some point, thanks to press coverage, she realized that the dress she owned once belonged to Diana. In December 2018, she sold it through an auction at Kerry Taylor Auctions in Bermondsey. The dress sold for £130,000. The name of the buyer was not officially released, but Taylor herself told one outlet that “the dress sparked a bidding war between an anonymous private collector and a British museum, before eventually being won by an overseas museum.” (The “overseas museum” is the Fundación Museo de la Moda in Santiago, Chile.)
