Midnight Blue Gown Highlights Biggest Sale of Princess Diana’s Belongings Since 1997
3 min
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 honoured 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.
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.
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 favorite 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.
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Technology and semiconductor shares fell sharply as investors questioned the debt financing the AI infrastructure boom and confronted higher rates and Chinese competition.
Technology and semiconductor shares fell sharply as investors questioned the debt financing the AI infrastructure boom and confronted higher rates and Chinese competition.
4 minA sharp technology sell-off has exposed a new anxiety on global markets: whether the enormous borrowing behind the artificial-intelligence infrastructure boom can generate sufficient returns as interest rates rise and Chinese competition intensifies.
The artificial-intelligence investment boom has powered technology shares, semiconductor manufacturers and data-centre operators to extraordinary heights. Last week, investors were given a reminder that much of this expansion is being built with borrowed money.
The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 4.5 per cent over the week ended October 16, its weakest performance since late June. Semiconductor shares suffered an even deeper correction, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index losing about 11.4 per cent.
The selling spread quickly through global markets. Micron Technology fell 14.6 per cent over the week, while South Korea’s Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix dropped approximately 18 per cent and 24 per cent respectively.
This was more than a routine bout of profit-taking. Investors were reassessing three interconnected risks: higher interest rates, the rapidly expanding debt burden attached to AI infrastructure and the prospect of stronger competition from Chinese memory-chip manufacturers.
The debt behind the AI build-out
Artificial intelligence requires a physical infrastructure network of enormous scale. Data centres must be built, advanced processors purchased, power supplies secured and cooling systems installed before customers begin generating meaningful revenue from them.
Technology companies are increasingly supplementing their own cash with corporate bonds, syndicated loans, equipment leases, private credit and project-level financing.
JPMorgan describes the emerging funding model as a combination of conventional corporate borrowing and project finance tied to individual data-centre assets. In Australia, the Reserve Bank estimates that syndicated loans accounted for approximately three-quarters of data-centre financing during 2025 and 2026 to date.
The numbers are becoming large enough to affect broader credit markets. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas has cited Wall Street estimates suggesting AI-related investment-grade bond issuance could approach US$300 billion in 2026 alone.
That borrowing is not automatically problematic. Debt can be an efficient way to finance long-lived infrastructure when future revenue is sufficiently predictable. The concern is that AI technology, customer demand and computing economics are changing much faster than the repayment schedules attached to the assets.
A data centre financed today may carry debt for years. Investors must therefore make assumptions about future utilisation rates, electricity prices, chip performance, customer concentration and the amount businesses will ultimately pay for AI computing.
When interest rates rise, those assumptions become less forgiving.
Inflation changes the calculation
September’s US inflation data intensified the pressure. Consumer prices increased 3.7 per cent over the year, ahead of market expectations and up from 3.4 per cent in August.
The hotter reading reduced confidence that interest rates would fall quickly and pushed bond yields higher. That matters particularly for companies whose valuations depend on profits expected well into the future, as well as highly leveraged infrastructure operators that may need to refinance.
CoreWeave has emerged as a closely watched test case. The specialist cloud-computing company has accumulated substantial debt and lease obligations to build AI capacity, while relying on a concentrated group of large technology customers.
Its shares fell sharply during the sell-off, while the cost of insuring its debt against default climbed. CoreWeave has argued that its contracted backlog more than covers its obligations and that financial markets do not always understand its business model. Nevertheless, its securities have become a proxy for investor confidence in debt-funded AI infrastructure.
Oracle, another major investor in AI computing capacity, fell 8.8 per cent in Friday trading, while CoreWeave dropped 15.5 per cent.
The question is shifting from how much AI infrastructure can be built to how profitably it can be operated.
China adds another source of pressure
Interest rates were not the only catalyst. Reports of advances by Chinese memory-chip producer ChangXin Memory Technologies raised concerns that lower-cost Chinese products could increase competition across the global semiconductor industry.
Memory chips are essential to AI systems, but the industry is historically cyclical. Periods of tight supply and high pricing can encourage rapid investment, eventually producing oversupply and falling margins.
The prospect of a well-funded Chinese competitor expanding its technological capabilities unsettled investors in Samsung, SK Hynix and Micron. It also demonstrated that AI-related demand does not insulate chipmakers from conventional competitive pressures.
That combination—slower rate cuts, more expensive financing and potentially cheaper supply—challenged the assumption that every company exposed to AI would enjoy continually expanding margins.
A reset rather than the end of the boom
The sell-off does not establish that the AI boom is ending. Demand for computing power remains strong, the largest technology companies continue to generate formidable cash flows and many infrastructure projects are backed by long-term customer contracts.
What has changed is the market’s willingness to overlook the price and financing structure of that growth.
The most resilient companies are likely to be those able to fund investment from operating cash flow, secure long-duration customers and demonstrate that new capacity will earn returns comfortably above its financing costs.
More speculative operators may face greater scrutiny, particularly where debt is expensive, customers are concentrated or expected revenue depends on demand that has not yet materialised.
For Australian investors, the lesson extends beyond US technology shares. Local data-centre operators, infrastructure funds, electricity suppliers and property groups are increasingly exposed to the same investment cycle.
Artificial intelligence may remain one of the defining growth themes of the decade. But last week’s correction showed that enthusiasm for the technology does not eliminate financial discipline.
The next stage of the AI boom will be judged not only by computing power, model performance or demand for chips, but by something more traditional: whether the assets being financed can generate enough cash to repay the money borrowed to build them.
Fact box
Nasdaq Composite: Down 4.5 per cent for the week ended October 16, 2026
Philadelphia Semiconductor Index: Down approximately 11.4 per cent
Micron Technology: Down approximately 14.6 per cent
Samsung Electronics: Down approximately 18 per cent
SK Hynix: Down approximately 24 per cent
US September inflation: 3.7 per cent annually
Estimated 2026 AI-related investment-grade issuance: Approximately US$300 billion
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