Princess Diana’s black and blue ballerina-esque 1985dress was sold at an auction for 11x the listing price, selling for a whopping USD 1.15 mn after being listed for USD 100-200k, Julien’s Auctions said.

It’s a record, just not the record:The sale broke the record for the most expensive dress sold at an auction from Princess Diana’s wardrobe, Reuters reports, confirming that the People’s Princess continues to be seen as a timeless style icon, a fashion critic tells the New York Times. However, Marilyn Monroe still holds the chart for the most expensive dress sold in 2016. The dress she wore for JFK’s birthday on 19 May 1962 was sold for USD 4.8mn, and in 2011 her Seven Year Itch dress was sold for USD 4.6 mn.

DIana’s dress was designed by British-Moroccan fashion designer Jacques Azagury. The late Princess of Wales was seen wearing it during King Charles’ (then-Prince of Wales) speech in Florence 1985 (runtime: 2:05) and a year later in her visit to the Expo 86 in Vancouver during her royal tour of Canada (runtime: 2:49).

Lots more sold at the auction: The dress was sold along with an illustration of the gown piece at the Hollywood Legends auction by Julien’s Auctions and Turner Classic Movies in Los Angeles. Also sold at the auction was Diana’s pink chiffon blouse with a bow at the collar — which she wore for her 1981 engagement portrait with Charles — with a closing price of USD 380k. The blouse was designed by the Welsh David and Elizabeth Emanuel, the same designers who designed her wedding dress, and was originally listed for USD 80-100k.

Apple could be compelled to stop the US sale of the Ultra 2and Series 9smartwatches over a patent dispute, Bloomberg reports. In an unprecedented dispute in Apple history, the International Trade Commission (ITC) issued a ruling last October stating that the tech-juggernaut had infringed patents of a global medical technology company Masimo. This will force the company to stop offering these watches on its websites starting Thursday, 21 December, and from its 270 retail outlets by Sunday, 24 December. But it can still sell them through third-party retailers, such as the US’ Walmart and Target.

Where is this all coming from? The watch’s oxygen level detection hardware, which uses light reflected on human skin to detect oxygen levels, has been deemed an infringement of Masimo’s patent on the technology.

Apple is working around the clock to find a solution by augmenting the software — but that isn’t quite enough: The company’s engineers are racing against time to modify the algorithms used by the device to measure the user’s blood oxygen level, mainly focusing on refining how the technology calculates the oxygen saturation and presents the corresponding data to the customers. However, Masimo argues that its patent is for the hardware, leading Apple to seek another way for the watches to get the levels of oxygen saturation to the user.

Other ideas? Apple strategized working around the block by not displaying images of the two contested watches and boosting the SE version instead in its Apple stores. Otherwise, the White House could step in to overturn a court ruling.

The watch has been a crucial income-generating wearable product for Apple. This product alone brought in USD 17 bn in FY 2023, according to analysts’ estimates. The Series 9 and Ultra 2 account for the large majority of Apple Watch sales.

The blood-oxygen feature was first introduced to the Apple watch in 2020 through the Series 6 model, coinciding with the covid-19 pandemic. The company is planning to implement two noteworthy health features for its next watch in the year 2024.

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