Remembering Diana
Her influence — from the royals to fashion — is lasting
Did Princess Diana anticipate becoming a #styleicon? By all accounts, she would have hated the negative-feedback loops of Instagram and Twitter. But she certainly knew the power of clothing for personal branding, long before the Kardashians made a fortune from it. And her meticulous use of fashion for messaging helps explain the enduring fascination with her style 20 years after her death.
“I suspect there are many aspects to Diana’s continuing iconic status, but a central issue has to be her ability to communicate in personal terms across mass media,” says Jude Davies, a professor of American literature and culture at the University of Winchester in England and author of Diana, A Cultural History.
The intensely personal messages coded in her clothing, particularly in tandem with her charitable work, set her apart from the Angelina Jolies and Madonnas of today, Davies says. “Crucial to this was a sense of not only her own feelings but her own vulnerability,” he says. “Hence, she didn’t come across as patronizing — rather, as seeking a genuine positive contact with other human beings.”
While she was still Her Royal Highness, she famously ditched the customary gloves favored by Queen Elizabeth II — a strategic move that allowed skin-on-skin contact with the masses she met at hospitals and homeless shelters. That included people with AIDS at a time when patients were often treated like lepers.
“That a fascinating young royal person would do this made much more of a difference than a lot of well-intentioned propagandists,” says British author Peter York.
Her work for land mine removal further let her ditch the princess
persona and literally and symbolically roll up her sleeves.
“My favorite image of her, apart from the Mario Testino portraits, is her walking through a minefield in jeans and a white Tshirt. That was so brave,” says Meredith Etherington-Smith, former creative director of Christie’s International who worked with Diana on a sale of her dresses at the auction house in 1997.
But Etherington-Smith notes that Diana wasn’t always so keenly dressed, leading royal watchers to characterize her as demure and somewhat dowdy when she first hit the spotlight. In the early ’80s, she became the poster-child for “Sloane Rangers” — a term coined by York and Ann Barr. Referencing Sloane Square in the posh Chelsea neighborhood of London, the term described old-money preps who went to the right exclusive schools, had an affinity for country life
and traditional values. “We got her wrong. Self-servingly, we got her wrong,” says York, noting that he and Barr chose a photo of the princess for the cover of their book The Official Sloane Ranger Handbook. “We had taken it for granted that she would be a nice upper-middle Sloane girl in her behavior, and of course what she was was a wacky aristocrat with a very firm idea of her own value.” As Diana grew into her public role, she was no wilting
British rose. She “began increasingly to find her own best friends in fashion land and entertainment land,” York says. “And she became this international type.”
The most famous display of her international glamour came in the form of a blue velvet gown by Victor Edelstein that she wore while dancing with John Travolta at the White House in 1985. It sold for $222,500 in the 1997 Christie’s auction, breaking a previous record of $145,000 for a garment — coincidentally, the white polyester suit that Travolta wore in Saturday Night Fever.
But the personal messaging inherent in her clothing could be calculated, with occasional digs at her ex-husband or the press. On
the day Prince Charles was to confess in an interview to having an affair with Camilla Parker Bowles, now the Duchess of Cornwall, Diana showed up to the annual Serpentine Gallery summer party in a short, figure-hugging Christina Stambolian dress that became known as the “Revenge Dress.”
“It was quite deliberate,” says Etherington-Smith. “She was very good at obliterating the press. Princess Diana, she was out for the hero shot.”
And it played well to her audience, who loved the perceived slap back against Charles and the confines of the monarchy and her inherent treatment of fashion as important.