Diana dress fetches £192,000

A dress which catapulted the Princess of Wales on to the world stage when she wore it just weeks after becoming engaged sold for £192,000.

The 19-year-old, then Lady Diana Spencer, wore the black taffeta dress to a black-tie benefit event at Goldsmiths' Hall in the City in March 1981 - her first official engagement with her fiancé, the Prince of Wales.

The dress, which had been expected to sell for around £50,000, was bought at an auction in London by a fashion museum in Chile.

The revealing dress was created by former couple Elizabeth and David Emanuel, who would later design Diana's wedding dress.

The couple were attending an event in aid of the Royal Opera House development appeal and images of the royal bride-to-be stepping out of a limousine in the black gown with a plunging neckline made newspaper headlines and immediately established Diana as the most glamorous member of the royal family.

The princess returned the gown to the designers to have it altered as she had lost weight, but it was easier to make another and the original remained forgotten for many years.

Elizabeth Emanuel, writing in her book about the bridal gown, described how the infamous black dress began life as a sample that had been loaned out to the actress Liza Goddard.

Speaking about Diana, she added: "The transformation was incredible. She arrived looking like the nursery school teacher she was, but now she looked like a movie star.

"We gave her the dress, made a little shawl to go with it so she could cover up on the night and away she went.

"We hadn't considered the fact that when Diana bent over - as she would have to do when getting out of the car - she would show quite a lot of cleavage. We just thought she looked fabulous."