Very rare opportunity to get married in a vintage Dior wedding dress
Featuring in our March 2025 Works of Art Auction is a spectacular, one-off vintage Dior wedding dress, worn by the bride of the society wedding of the year in 1968. This stunning dress has lost none of its glamour or classic style over the years and will be sold at Bellmans Auction House in Sussex on 25th March, carrying an estimate of £1,000 - £1,500.
The custom gown retains the elegance and simple lines that Dior is so famous for. Each Dior garment, especially a wedding dress, is a meticulous creation, mixing heritage with the contemporary. Be it luxurious fabrics or intricate embroidery, Dior's designs became synonymous with excellence and refined elegance, both reflected in this dress.


The vintage ivory silk dress, worn by Juliet Durie when she married The Honourable John Greville Napier, third son of Lord Napier & Ettrick and descendant of one of Scotland's oldest clans, has a 2.25 metre train, both of which are in remarkably good condition despite the age and maintain the elegant and pared down style that Dior was so influential with in the 1960s.
Noted as the society wedding of the year, and on the hottest day of 1968, the bride and groom were driven in an open top classic car through the streets of Mayfair and St James’s including Piccadilly, then London's busiest road, closed especially for the wedding. Juliet, the only daughter of the Director General of the Automobile Association, the AA, had impeccably high standards and the dress was a bespoke design, commissioned by her as truly a one-off, reflecting the style and classic lines that Dior was famous for.
A host of press photographers captured the couple as they were driven through London and the wedding made headlines in the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Express, The Edinburgh Tatler and was also featured in many society pages and regional papers. As a result, Juliet’s Dior dress would not only have been admired by wedding guests and by numerous pedestrians passing through central London, but also been seen by millions in the press. The Dior Heritage archive was, in fact, keen to acquire the stunning dress, but the family decided to keep it as an heirloom.
The dress was tailormade by Dior and in today's sizing would fit a size 10. The sale of this dress represents a unique opportunity to own a one-off Dior wedding gown that is effortlessly glamorous and uniquely a Dior piece that exemplifies its late 1960s origin.

