Who wore it better? Kim Kardashian dons Diana’s cross for the first time in public
For a woman with the name and the funds to be able to commission any designer she likes, Kim Kardashian has a strange and enduring penchant for wearing niche pieces worn by deceased famous people. She has outbid collectors at auctions of clothing and jewellery worn by Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Jackson and Elvis, and once wore Marilyn Monroe’s “Happy Birthday, Mr President” dress to the Met Gala.
Her latest trinket? A large amethyst cross once worn by Diana, Princess of Wales, which Kardashian acquired in 2022 but has only just worn in public, breaking it out for her appearance at Saturday night’s LACMA Art+Film gala in Los Angeles.
Once you have seen the Attallah cross on Kim, it’s rather hard to imagine it on the late princess. It would be fair to say they styled it somewhat differently.
When Princess Diana wore it to a charity gala in London in 1987, she paired it with a black and burgundy Catherine Walker dress with a high, Elizabethan-style neck ruff. The gold, silver, amethyst and diamond pendant hung on a long string of pearls. The whole effect was very Catherine of Aragon meets Madonna.
Kim’s look entails, well, whatever the opposite of a high necked Elizabethan ruff is. The neckline plunges to the navel, the pearl chain is wrapped around her neck in a choker style so that the cross nestles perfectly in her cleavage. Who is to say who wore it better?
The necklace, which has a total diamond weight of 5.25 carats, was bought from Garrard, the former crown jeweller, in the 1980s by publisher Naim Attallah. He loaned the necklace to Princess Diana, who was a friend, on a number of occasions.
“Few people could carry this piece off but Diana really could,” his son Ramsay said, ahead of the auction of the necklace at Sotheby’s in 2022. “When I was growing up, we’d always have it on the table for Christmas lunch, but it was never worn by anyone other than Diana and it hasn’t been seen in public since she died.”
Believed to have been created in the 1920s by crown jeweller Garrard, it is one of very few jewels worn by the princess ever to be sold at auction. When the princess first wore it, it was deemed a perfect example of her occasionally mischievous approach to fashion.
In hindsight, it’s also evidence that she was one step ahead of the oversized cross look beloved by pop stars in the Nineties. Her enduring connection with Garrard is worth noting too. Her iconic sapphire engagement ring – now worn by the current Princess of Wales – is a Garrard creation.
She wore a Garrard tiara on her wedding day (the Spencer Tiara having been adapted by Garrard for her family in the 1920s), and was sporting a pearl and diamond necklace created by the jeweller at one of her last ever public engagements, a performance of Swan Lake at the Royal Opera House in 1997.
Ahead of the cross’s sale, Kristian Spofforth, head of jewellery at Sotheby’s, said jewellery owned or worn by the late princess “very rarely comes on to the market”.
“Especially a piece such as the Attallah cross, which is so colourful, bold and distinctive.
“To some extent, this unusual pendant is symbolic of the princess’s growing self-assurance in her sartorial and jewellery choices, at that particular moment in her life.”
Bidding at the 2022 auction opened with a guide price of £80,000; Kardashian bought it for £163,800.
The reality star has form in this area. She once bought a set of Elizabeth Taylor’s bangles for $64,900 (£50,230) at auction. The jeweller Lorraine Schwartz had offered to simply make Kardashian her own pair – she only had eyes for Taylor’s.
“She loved those bangles for a long time,” said Schwartz. “She bought them because they’re Elizabeth’s.”
Then there was the $4.8m Marilyn Monroe “Happy Birthday, Mr President” dress which Kardashian wore to the Met Gala in 2022 on loan from Ripley’s Believe It Or Not!. She lost 16lbs in order to wear the dress (which hadn’t been worn since Monroe wore it and is usually kept in a temperature-controlled environment) and was criticised afterwards by a collector who claimed she had inflicted “permanent damage” on the dress, citing buckled fabric and missing crystals.
Family members have benefitted from Kardashian’s love of a second-hand find. She bought her brother, Rob, a set of Elvis’s rings at auction, while her daughter North once received the fedora Michael Jackson wore in the Smooth Criminal music video for Christmas.
She was six and probably just wanted a Barbie Dreamhouse, but perhaps she’ll appreciate the white hat stained with Jackson’s makeup when she’s older.
And if she ever wants to dress as one of the wives of Henry VIII for Halloween, she can always raid her mother’s jewellery box and give the Attallah cross a spin.
