When you think of the late Princess Diana, you probably think of a beautiful, classy woman who devoted her life and high-profile to helping important causes. Somehow, even after death, Princess Diana and her glamour are managing to help people in need.
According to The Wall Street Journal, a Florida businesswoman and charity advocate wound up with an insurmountable amount of debt as a tragic result of her entrepreneurial pursuits. She filed for bankruptcy protection last year and has some pretty interesting assets to sell in an attempt to repay her creditors.
The Florida woman must have been a fan of Princess Diana, which she proved when she bought 14 of the “English rose’s” gowns just months before the beloved Diana was killed in a tragic car accident. She had leveraged her dress collection to get loans while she owned them, but the Florida woman largely used the collection to raise awareness and money for worthy causes, including cancer and AIDS. She even started a charity called the People’s Princess Charitable Foundation.
When the economy turned around, business investments that the Florida woman made ended up losing her millions, when she still owed millions to creditors. To try to pay them back, WSJ reports that the woman’s dress collection will soon be auctioned off in Toronto. It is estimated that some of the precious gowns could bring in as much as $1 million.
Hopefully, whoever does purchase the invaluable gowns will use them for causes that would make their former owner proud.
Source
The Wall Street Journal: “Florida Entrepreneur to Sell 14 Princess Diana Gowns,” 22 Jun. 2011