Butler & Wilson: the cheapies Diana loved
Finding herself with a rare afternoon to spare, diana would ask her driver to take her to Fulham Road.
There, she donned a baseball cap and sunglasses to dodge the paparazzi and snuck into Butler & Wilson, West London’s finest purveyor of costume jewellery — and the Princess’s guilty pleasure.
diana first discovered the shop, run by flamboyant glaswegian Simon Wilson, in 1984 when she spotted something she liked in the window.
After that, she used to pop in every few months.
‘She wasn’t grand. She just came in with a single bodyguard and behaved like a normal customer,’ explains Simon today.
‘The bodyguard would stand in the corner and she would go and look at the earrings and hold them up to herself in the mirror and say to the other customers: “What do you think? do you like these?”
‘Some of them nearly fainted when they saw it was her.’
He adds: ‘ She used costume jewels to customise her clothes and to add wit and individuality to her wardrobe.’
The faux-pearl heart earrings pictured on the cover of this pullout were her first Butler & Wilson pieces.
‘ They were very girly, very youthful,’ says Simon. ‘it gave her a kick that they were fake.’ But diana wasn’t the only royal customer. Astonishingly, the avant-garde military- style star brooch (left) was bought for diana by Charles, who picked it up at a Butler & Wilson concession in Marshall Field’s department store in Chicago in 1986.
diana waited just a month before debuting the £48 token, boldly pinned to the centre of her Murray Arbeid dress.
Another Butler & Wilson purchase, slithering up the left lapel of her black Jasper Conran tuxedo, was a black bead and gemstone snake (top left), which looked the epitome of Eighties bling as the Princess stepped out at a rock concert in 1986.
And the Princess really fooled royal-watchers with her crescentshaped earrings (above centre), first worn in Saudi Arabia in 1986. The Press assumed them to be real gold and diamonds; a gift from her generous host.
But the jewels were Butler & Wilson paste and cost just £23.
diana’s striking monochrome necklace (top right), was another classic from the Fulham Road shop, comprising star- shaped white beads interspersed with onxy-lookalike paste gems.
As was the dazzling starbust clip (above right), which kept her elegant chignon in place and seemed perfectly co- ordinated with her diamond ‘ tennis’ necklace. Worn to a fashion show in Sydney, Australia, in 1988, the piece was pure diamante.