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'Mother Teresa and Cindy Crawford of our time': Diana's lasting appeal
By Annie Brown
The late fashion designer Gianni Versace once said of Princess Diana that she was the “Mother Teresa and Cindy Crawford of our time.”
In a 1985 cover story for Vanity Fair, the magazine’s then editor-in-chief Tina Brown wrote of Princess Diana: “Is it possible that the girl they picked to be the Royal Mouse of Windsor has turned into Alexis Carrington [the impeccable villain of ‘80s soap Dynasty] in the space of four years?”
Emma Corrin as Princess Diana in Netflix's upcoming fourth series of The Crown. Credit: Instagram/TheCrownNetflix
She had, after all, wrote Brown (who would later release a biography of the princess titled The Diana Chronicles) undergone an “extraordinary physical transformation from mouse to movie star”.
It is a transformation that began the day she wed Prince Charles on July 29, 1981. And last month, fans of Netflix's The Crown were given a glimpse of the memorable moment recreated in the upcoming fourth series starring actor Emma Corrin as a young Princess Diana. In it we see Corrin channelling the iconic royal bride, wearing a replica of the voluminous gown that ensured the spotlight shone solely on Diana, Britain's future queen.
It was a precursor for what was to come; as the newly minted princess stepped into her role as ultimate fashion muse – a role she continues to hold 23 years after her untimely death – in both her red carpet looks, and the more casual outfits she adopted as a young mother.
The late Diana, Princess of Wales, in her famous wedding dress by David & Elizabeth Emanuel in July 1981.Credit: AP
Princess Diana’s style was on Virgil Abloh’s mood board for the spring 2018 collection of his brand Off__White and the inspiration behind American fashion designer Tory Burch’s preppy spring/summer 2020 collection.
Last year Vogue Paris shot "it" girl Hailey Bieber in an homage to Diana’s extremely ‘90s "off-duty" aesthetic. Incidentally, those looks – bike shorts with oversized sweaters and high-waisted jeans paired with big shouldered blazers, cowboy boots and baseball hats – became the pin-up for lockdown style, according to Instagram feeds and dozens of articles written over the past few months.
Diana's wardrobe mirrors many of the trends we’re still slavishly wearing now. From athleisure to the oversized collars seen in collections from cool-girl Danish brand Ganni to Chanel; from puffed sleeves (see them at Cecilie Bahnsen, Miu Miu and more) to polka dots (Hedi Slimane recently sent them down the runway at Celine).
But it’s the fashion transformation of Princess Diana, from shy pie-crust collar wearing “Sloane Ranger” – the nickname given to a preppy Londoner – to a woman with undeniable magnetism, and the way she used clothes to project her new image, that remains most compelling.
Princess of Wales in a Christina Stamboulian gown at a party given at the Serpentine Gallery in London, 1994.Credit: AP
Former British prime minister Tony Blair once said Princess Diana represented not just a new way to be a royal, but “a new way to be British.”
In all this her clothes mattered.
NGV senior curator of fashion and textiles, Danielle Whitfield, says Diana used fashion to transform herself. As Whitfield notes, while Diana relied on the advice of the likes of ex-British Vogue fashion editor Anna Harvey in the early days of her royal life, she eventually started making her own choices.
“By the late 1980s Diana took greater ownership over her fashions and was choosing to wear more fashion-forward designers. By the time of her separation from Charles [in 1992] she was wearing high-profile labels like Versace and Christian LaCroix, et cetera.
“The famous posthumous 1997 Harpers Bazaar cover image of Diana in an ice-blue embellished Versace gown is actually a portrait that was taken in 1991, so you can see how she is starting to ‘rebrand’ at a critical point in time in her life,” she says.
“These looks allowed her to project a more empowered and independent image, even a slightly sexy one by association. To give another example of how her style became more daring in this decade, there is the [John] Galliano ‘lingerie’ dress Diana wore to the Met Ball in 1996, which was from his first collection for Dior.”
Perhaps the pinnacle of this though was the famous so-called “revenge dress” she wore to a gala at the Serpentine Gallery in London in 1994, the same night Prince Charles admitted in a national television interview that he’d been unfaithful. Designed by Christina Stambolian, it was black (royals typically only wear it when in mourning), daringly sexy and head-turning. Three years later Diana sold the dress at auction for $US65,000. The money went to AIDS and cancer charities.
Writer Eloise Moran, who documents Diana’s best ‘90s fashion looks post-divorce on the popular Instagram account @ladydirevengelooks, agrees the appeal of Diana’s fashion goes beyond clothes.
“Diana's ‘90s style transition represents something much bigger than a simple change of wardrobe aesthetic. It was utterly anti-establishment, and it was her taking control of her own narrative, after years of having it been dictated by the royal family and the press,” says Moran.
“Of course, over the last few years, ‘90s nostalgia has largely influenced fashion and trends, so it makes sense that people would be drawn to Diana … but I do think the surge in interest in the princess comes down to more than that. In the era of #metoo, and industries being revolutionised because of it, Diana is a hugely relatable figure.
“She was massively ahead of her time, and I think the understanding of Diana's personal story and challenges made her post-Charles outfits … eternally more appealing.”