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Day: 11 September 2026

Online shopping shake-up: EU plans tougher rules and new fees on low-cost Chinese imports

by: Cassandra Tanti
11/09/2026

The European Commission is preparing a major overhaul of product import rules that would place greater responsibility on online marketplaces and introduce new charges on goods entering Europe, as Brussels intensifies its response to the huge volume of low-cost products arriving from China.

The proposed legislation, known as the European Product Act, is expected to be formally presented on 6th October and is designed to close loopholes that allow unsafe or non-compliant products sold online to reach European consumers. According to a draft obtained by Euronews, the reforms would introduce greater liability for online marketplaces, strengthen EU-level enforcement and create a new market surveillance fee on imported goods.

While the draft does not specifically target China, it comes amid mounting concern in Brussels over the enormous growth of e-commerce imports from Chinese platforms and the safety of some products entering the European market.

The issue has become increasingly significant as Europeans turn to online marketplaces for everything from cosmetics and electronics to toys and clothing. In 2025, almost six billion low-value items were shipped directly into the EU from third countries, while more than 90% of e-commerce parcels entering the bloc originated in China.

Why this matters for Monaco

Although Monaco is not an EU member state, it is treated as part of France for EU customs and VAT purposes, meaning EU customs rules apply in the Principality. This makes the continuing overhaul of European import controls directly relevant to consumers ordering goods into Monaco.

The latest proposal would require an economic operator established in the EU to be legally responsible when an imported product fails to comply with European standards. Where a manufacturer is outside the EU, responsibility would have to fall to an importer or an authorised representative.

Online marketplaces would also be required to verify that products carry either a Digital Product Passport, containing key information about their identity and compliance, or another responsibility record identifying the manufacturer.

Platforms notified about an illegal or non-compliant product would have to remove it and prevent it from reappearing. In certain circumstances, marketplaces that fail to meet those obligations could themselves become legally responsible for the product.

Safety concerns behind the crackdown

The scale of non-compliance identified by European authorities is significant. During coordinated checks carried out across the EU in 2025, authorities examined products including cosmetics, toys, small electronics, food supplements and personal protective equipment bought online from sellers outside the bloc.

Among the cosmetics inspected, 65% failed to comply with EU product standards, with Chinese products accounting for 63% of those found to be non-compliant. Some 60% of personal protective equipment inspected also failed compliance requirements, with 91% of those non-compliant products originating in China.

Brussels has already stepped up enforcement against major online platforms. In May, the Commission fined Chinese e-commerce giant Temu €200 million over shortcomings linked to products including dangerous baby toys and faulty chargers, according to Euronews. Shein is also under investigation over the sale of illegal products.

New fee on imported goods

Under the European Product Act proposal, importers would also face a new EU market surveillance fee, designed to help finance the cost of checking imported products. The charge would be linked to the estimated cost of carrying out market surveillance, with goods imported in bulk expected to attract a lower fee than individual parcels sent directly to consumers.

Monaco Life is written by qualified journalists, writing original content. Sign up for our free newsletter, listen to our podcasts on Spotify, and follow us across Facebook,  Instagram, LinkedIn, and Tik Tok. 

Image by Monaco Life

 

Diana’s ‘Revenge Dress’ to go under the hammer in December

by: Cassandra Tanti
11/09/2026

The black silk evening gown that Diana, Princess of Wales, wore to the Serpentine Gallery in 1994, the dress that entered fashion history as the ‘Revenge Dress’, will be sold at Sotheby’s in New York on 9th December, its first appearance at auction since 1997. Designed by the Greek couturier Christina Stambolian, it carries an estimate of approximately €130,000 to €260,000 and will be offered during the auction house’s Luxury Week.

Diana wore the strapless, figure-hugging dress on the evening of 29th June 1994, arriving at a Vanity Fair fundraising dinner at the Serpentine, one of London’s best-known galleries, to a wall of camera flashes. The image was transmitted around the world within minutes. What gave it meaning was the timing. That same evening, Prince Charles, from whom she had been separated for close to two years, admitted on national television that he had been unfaithful. The revelations had leaked days earlier, so Diana knew that whatever she wore would be read as a response.

She had considered staying away but attended, changing her outfit at the last minute and setting aside a Valentino gown in favour of the Stambolian dress, with its asymmetric hem and chiffon train. According to her stylist at the time, Anna Harvey, Diana simply “wanted to look a million dollars”.

A dress three years in the waiting

Diana had owned the dress for three years before that night, having judged it too daring to wear in public. Stambolian later compared the princess’s choice of black to Odile, the black swan in Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, a deliberate turn away from the innocence associated with white. She finished the look with black heels, red nail varnish, a clutch and a choker made from an antique diamond and sapphire brooch that had been a wedding gift from the Queen Mother.

Princess Diana wearing the ‘Revenge Dress’ in 1994. Photo by Jayne Fincher/Getty Images, licensed for editorial use by Sotheby’s

The gown is a version of the little black dress, the silhouette Coco Chanel introduced in 1926 as a break from the fashion conventions of the day. In the decades since Diana wore it, the term ‘revenge dressing’ has entered the fashion vocabulary as shorthand for clothing chosen to project confidence and independence, and the look has been reproduced repeatedly for screen and exhibition.

“Fashion can be a language when words fail or are simply not enough. Princess Diana understood that instinctively,” said Morgane Halimi, Sotheby’s Global Head of Handbags and Fashion. “She walked into a moment in which so much of her story was being told for her and, through what she chose to wear, reclaimed the narrative for herself.”

From the 1997 sale to a global tour

The dress was last sold in June 1997, when Diana auctioned 79 of her gowns to raise money for cancer and Aids charities, a sale that Prince William is credited with suggesting. A numbered copy of the original catalogue, signed by both the princess and the designer, will be offered alongside it. Part of the proceeds this time will go to NHS Lothian Charity on behalf of the Royal Edinburgh Hospital.

The buyers from that 1997 sale are now the sellers. “Princess Diana was walking into the worst night of her life and you would never know it to look at her. It went from a cocktail dress to a statement in the time it took to photograph her,” the consignor said. “Thirty years on, you can say the words anywhere in the world and everyone knows exactly which dress you mean.”

After the 1997 sale the dress was shown at charity events in Scotland and later at Paisley Museum, before dropping out of public view for close to three decades.

Where to see it

The dress will go on public display at Sotheby’s London from 18th to 24th September, during London Fashion Week, before travelling to Hong Kong and Geneva. It will then move to New York, where it will be shown at Sotheby’s Breuer Building from 2nd December ahead of the sale on 9th December.

Monaco Life is written by qualified journalists, writing original content. Sign up for our free newsletter, listen to our podcasts on Spotify, and follow us across Facebook,  Instagram, LinkedIn, and Tik Tok. 

Main photo by Campbell Addy for Sothebys