Diana 20 years on
With her playful approach to whatever she wore, the late Princess has latterly become a muse for a new generation
Harry Mount
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Anji Hunter
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Iwasn’t around to witness the fairytale moment of Diana Spencer’s marriage to the Prince of Wales in 1981, nor to be dazzled by how she carried herself as a thoroughly modern member of the Royal family. I was probably too busy playing with dolls to pay attention to her Panorama a interview. But, growing up, she was my go-to style icon – and remains so, 20 years after her death.
I was nine years old in the summer of 1997, and living in Rome with my family. Hello! magazine was a lifeline for my homesick mother and there was rarely a week that Diana was not on the cover. I remember being excited by every new issue that landed on the doormat and became fascinated by this beautiful woman who featured in its pages: a princess, yes, but not like the ones I’d seen in Disney films or read about in stories. Instead of having long hair, dreamy gowns and a handsome prince to save her, this one wore chinos and walked across landmine-scarred fields. She hung out on yachts in leopard-print swimming costumes and put her arm around people in hospitals and tearful pop stars at funerals.
I was mesmerised. And d then, she was gone. Diana’s death was the first “Where werew you when…?” moment that I can remember. We were back in the UK visiting my grandparents at the time, and it was my grandad who broke the news to us all, booming “Diana’s d dead!” from his bedroom door at 7a 7am. All I remember about that morningmorn is sitting around listening to the radio and watching TV, the tributestr and reports about the circumstancescircumsta of her death pouring in on a loop that felt like it would never end. “I thoughtth I’d wake up and it would allal have been a nightmare,” Mum re remembers.
The followingf week, back in Italy, wew did all the same things as everyoneeveryo else to try to make sense of wh what had happened. I might notn have fully understood what was going on, but I queued to write something in the book of condolence at the British Embassy. We laid roses and went to a memorial service at an Anglican church. The following, sweltering Saturday, we watched the funeral on television. I was still wearing my pyjamas and it was the first time I had seen my father cry. I was swept up in the surrealness of it all.
Maybe it is because Diana’s death became a seminal moment in my childhood, but ever since that week in 1997, I have come to admire her – idolise her, even. My fascination with Diana, in what turned out to be the final months of her life, helped shape my choice of career.
As a fashion journalist, I have always been interested in so much more than the latest must-have item; for me, clothes are the most powerful tool by which we can say something about ourselves before we open our mouths, and there are few who played on that truth more expertly than Diana. She taught me that fashion, which I once thought of as a personal pleasure, could shape a public persona – whether you were a princess or not.
Take that red jumper, covered in white sheep and one black sheep, by London knitwear designers Warm and Wonderful, which Diana used to wear to polo matches in the early Eighties. I can’t help but marvel at the mischievous undertones which it may – or may not – have had. I like to think it was her tongue-incheek way of recognising that she was different, perhaps not feeling entirely that she belonged either in the Royal family or among the public who adored her. In the context of what came to pass in the following decade or so, that black sheep motif has become imbued with so much more potential meaning.
This year especially, I have explored my enthusiasm for Diana, interviewing her personal stylist Anna Harvey, the designers who dressed her, and covering
I like to think it was her tongue-in-cheek way of recognising that she was different
Diana: Her Fashion Story, the exhibition currently at Kensington Palace and which uses the Princess’s wardrobe to chart her remarkable evolution from shy teenager to global celebrity.
In the process, I have learnt so much more about how she used clothes to her advantage and to amplify her message.
Although she hardly invented the idea of dressing diplomatically, nobody had dared to do it with such panache. In 1986, she paid tribute to her hosts on a royal tour of Japan by wearing a white outfit covered in red spots to reflect the country’s rising sun motif. It struck the perfect note between deferential and jolly.
Diana gave us so many royal firsts – most notably, perhaps, shaking hands with Aids patients – but in her style choices, too, she broke boundaries. No female royal before her had worn a trouser suit in public, but Diana took things up a notch by sporting bow ties with her Jasper Conran tuxedos, making an androgynous outfit instantly playful. Mostly she eschewed gloves, but when she did wear them, she would mix and match the colours or choose a dark pair, which was seen – would you believe – as rather daring.
Often when she visited hospitals, she would wear bright, floral dresses – one of her most famous was a violet design with yellow blooms by Bellville Sassoon – to give the patients something cheerful to look at. If she knew she would be meeting small children, on would go a chunky necklace to g give them something to grab and play with. She called it her “caringcaring wardrobe”.
If “People’s Princess” is the epithet that best est encapsulates Diana, then her er clothes were one of her most st important allies in creating ng that image. Even when she he was off-duty
(but still knew w she would be photographed), d), her choices were brilliantlyly judged, like the Philadelphiadelphia Eagles varsity jacket she wore to visit sit Alton Towers with her sons in
1994 – casual, witty and utterly unregal. al.
I am not alone ne in being fascinateded by the minutiae of Diana’siana’s style. She has become a muse for many millennials, who are too young to remember much about her life. On Instagram, we follow accounts which post streams of images of the Princess, and underscore the sheer variety of styles she experimented with.
We are inspired to incorporate her signature looks into our own wardrobes. Indeed, recently, some of her most famous outfits – from tartan suitsu to blazers and jeans – were reimagined by the fash fashion website Man Repeller. While Vi Virgil Abloh, creative director o of streetwear label Off-White, posted an image of his moodboard,mo covered in picturespict of Diana as a teaser for h his September fashion show.
In our digital ag age, where individual ta tastes can be cannibalis cannibalised moments after they are posted online, an and “street style” photogra photographs can make us all tem temporary fashion icons, I struggle to imagine anyone ever coming close to the impact Diana had. Which is why that week in 1997 makes so muc much more sense now, 20 years on, that it did ba back then.
‘She used clothes to her advantage and to amplify her message’