Diana’s dress bears the weight of two ruined marriages

Adress went on display at Kensington Palace last week – you know, the dress – the one Diana, Princess of Wales was married in 40 (40!) years ago this summer, watched by 750million viewers.

Seeing it with fresh eyes is a revelation. First off, it is highlydecorated, something the cameras failed to pick up, Elizabeth Emanuel having to rope in her mother to help embroider pearls and sequins onto the lace on that lunatic 25ft train. Second, inspired by Queen

Victoria’s wedding dress, it is a very yellow take on white (“warm ivory”, according to my Kensington Palace source), as if it has a sepia nostalgia built in, unlike the false swatches the designers planted in their bins to fool the press. Accordingly, the original nuptial meringue looks more like a profiterole.

I was reminded of the quote in Hugo Vickers’s heavenly Malice in Wonderland that the Queen regarded this creation as “very Shaftesbury Avenue”. Now it boasts Miss Havisham vibes, heavy with the weight of two ruined marriages – Windsor and Emanuel. I asked a couple of twentysomethings what they know about frock. Answer: nothing. It issues from further away in time than the Queen’s ancient-seeming wedding was for me back in 1981.