Diana: Designing a Princess


Diana: Designing a Princess

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Each of these dresses tells a story.

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Each is part of fashion history.

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All of them were worn by the late Princess Diana.

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By the end of her life,

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Diana had become the most fashionable woman on the planet.

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Elegance and style personified.

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To understand how she got there,

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you have to unpick the sequins and pearls,

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and undo every stitch, to discover how Diana evolved,

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using the power of fashion

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as a means of communication and self-expression.

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She came to rely on a small number of trusted designers to fashion

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a startling new image of a 20th-century princess.

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This is Diana's fashion story,

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told through the designers whose clothes helped to transform

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a shy teenage girl into Diana, Princess of Wales -

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the greatest British fashion star of all time.

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2017 marks 20 years since the death of Princess Diana.

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And to commemorate the anniversary,

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Kensington Palace are exhibiting many of her most famous outfits,

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lent by collectors around the world.

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Ahead of the exhibition,

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each item has been painstakingly prepared

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by the Hampton Court Palace conservation department.

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The collection here contains 10,000 objects of historic dress.

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So what we're looking at here

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is THE only surviving piece of Elizabeth I's wardrobe.

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The dresses of Diana, Princess of Wales,

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are as important as any of the pieces here,

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and can be read in the same sort of way.

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Diana was really an excellent silent communicator through her clothes.

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She really understood the language of clothes.

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Jasper Conran recalls that when she was trying on clothes

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she would look in the mirror and say,

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"What message am I giving off?"

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Diana's fashion story begins here.

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With this dress by a little-known designer, Regamus.

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The first owned by teenage Diana, youngest daughter of the Spencers,

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one of Britain's oldest aristocratic families.

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Diana, in those days, didn't follow fashion at all.

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And in fact, if you see her, kind of, early photographs,

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the frocks are very, very...

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Well, I think you'd call rustic, they are nothing.

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It was the kind of thing that her contemporaries,

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in that particular class, wore.

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Demure and pretty.

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Not have anything sensational.

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That would be considered showing off.

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But everything changed in 1980,

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when the press discovered she was dating Prince Charles.

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-Have you any comments to make about that?

-No.

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Lady Di? Lady Dianna?

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No comment all round.

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Quickly nicknamed Shy Di,

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her clothing was instantly scrutinised

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and she became the figurehead of a new upper-class trend.

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I think Diana started with a disadvantage,

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because she was a Sloane Ranger.

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And they didn't really, in those days, actually have fashion sense.

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They had a uniform.

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Nice pullover, expensive blouse or shirt.

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It was just quietly saying,

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"This is where I come from. I'm country, but I'm not country.

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"We have a place in town, as well as acres in the shires.

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"And, really, we are a separate little enclave of people."

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Diana had moved, aged 18,

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to West London to live in a flat share with friends.

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And worked as a nursery assistant.

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She may have come from an aristocratic family,

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but she wasn't spending money on clothes.

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When Diana began dating Charles,

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almost everything she wears is borrowed from her flatmates,

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and fashion is low on her list of priorities.

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It's hard to imagine now, but at that point in her life,

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the sum total of Diana's wardrobe includes the following...

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One smart dress.

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A shirt. And a pair of smart shoes.

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For the announcement of their engagement,

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Diana picked and off-the-peg blue suit from Harrods.

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The press were disappointed to find Shy Di

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dressed more like a politician than a princess.

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She looked a little prim,

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and I think she was a little prim then.

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Probably, the Palace wanted her to look prim.

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There's no point in having someone marrying a young prince

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who comes on like Zsa Zsa Gabor.

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But they wouldn't have to wait long for Diana's first transformation.

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In a portrait by Lord Snowdon for British Vogue,

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Diana had been dressed in a pink blouse

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created by an up-and-coming designer couple called the Emanuels.

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And she decided

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to visit their studio.

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I'm a natural hoarder.

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I hate throwing anything away.

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Elizabeth keeps everything from her years designing for Diana

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safe under lock and key.

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I don't know where to start.

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-Now, you remember the black dress?

-Yes.

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Well, this is made from the same fabric.

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And I think it's very much the kind of style

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we would have done for Diana.

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The black dress was the first time that she'd been seen out in public

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at a proper official function with Prince Charles.

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-As his fiancee?

-That's right.

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We thought, "Well, black, classic. Fine, let's do that."

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And we were so naive at the time,

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because not only are you not really supposed to put the Royals in black,

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but also, she had to get out of a car that was quite low.

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-And as she lent forward...

-An abundance of cleavage?

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Yeah, and the cameras caught her just there.

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As Lady Diana entered the hall for the concert,

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there were audible admiring gasps from those present.

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I think it was just a wake-up call for everyone.

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That she was no longer that little girl.

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She looked super glamorous.

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-She wanted to be grown-up in that dress, didn't she?

-Yeah.

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His lady had well and truly arrived

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in a manner few of those present were likely to forget in a hurry.

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Nobody really told her how to dress.

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She didn't know that Royalty

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are not supposed to wear black unless they're in mourning.

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She didn't know anything.

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Grace Kelly, or rather Princess Grace of Monaco, was there,

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whom Diana absolutely worshipped.

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And they got talking,

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and Diana was terribly upset about what had happened,

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and how she'd put her foot in it.

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So she's sort of complained to Princess Grace who said,

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"Don't worry, dear. You'll see it gets worse."

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So, for young designers who'd only been out of college, what, a year?

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That must have been quite an amazing time for you.

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Well, it was. Also, at that time

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we knew we were going to be making her wedding dress.

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-That early?

-Yes.

-How were you told?

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We got a phone call. And it was Diana who said,

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"Would you and David do the honour of making my wedding dress?"

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And it was just the most amazing few moments.

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And our life, at that point, just changed.

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But at the time of the black dress, you had no idea of protocol.

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No idea what was expected for royal dress.

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By the time you were making the wedding dress,

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were there rules you had to abide by?

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No. Basically, no rules, no protocols. Nothing.

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We were just left to get on with it.

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So this is the only pattern that exists of the royal wedding dress.

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-Here is some of the veiling, as well.

-Oh!

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You can still see the little sequins.

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-Oh, yes.

-I think the veil might have been a bit long

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cos we've obviously chopped it off.

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Cos there's the actual hem.

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Which was all done on a zig zag machine, by hand.

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It took forever.

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We wanted it to be longer than any other wedding dress,

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so we made it 25 feet.

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Ah! Here's the girls.

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Ah, so it's not a massive team, is it?

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-It's a small team.

-We were a tiny little company.

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You know, she'd come to our studio

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and it was a bit of a sanctuary for her, I think.

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And she knew she was safe there.

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She didn't want to disappoint anyone, you know.

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She knew they were looking forward to seeing this wedding.

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And we all wanted to give everybody

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the most beautiful vision of a fairy-tale princess.

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Hundreds of yards of veil.

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Ivory silk tulle veil, spangled.

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And now here she comes.

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If you can imagine, being at the top of the steps at Saint Paul's,

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our first view of Diana was the top of her head.

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And as she climbed the steps, more and more of her dress was visible.

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And immediately, it was apparent that she'd got creases in her dress.

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I was just... I mean, horrified, actually.

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David and I started to, you know,

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pull the creases out and arrange things.

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So by the time she actually walked down the aisle she looked perfect,

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the dress looked perfect.

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I think we did accomplish what we'd set out to accomplish.

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-To create a romantic princess?

-We did.

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Diana now turned to a designer

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with years of experience dressing royalty, David Sassoon.

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And he found a headstrong princess

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keen to keep the romantic style of her wedding.

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This is the fairy tale dress.

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Children related to it.

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It's their idea of what a princess should look like.

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As a 19-year-old, she had a very romantic idea of dressing,

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but I have to say,

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that that particular period of fashion was very romantic.

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So it was a period of pretty clothes.

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Pussycat bows at the neck, ruffled collars.

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Soft, very girlie clothes.

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Diana and young people across Britain

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had fallen under the spell of the New Romantic trend.

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Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran,

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fashion dominated by foppish frills and excess.

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Did she come to you with ideas or sketches?

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On one occasion she did.

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It was the only time she ever did it.

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She sent me a very rough sketch,

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because it was a rather important dress.

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It was her first dress she wore to the State Opening of Parliament.

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And she sent me a letter about it.

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Here we are. It was dated September the 15th, 1981.

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"I have drawn in rough a diagram, which I hope you can understand!

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"I wondered if it would be possible

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"for the front and the back of the dress to be of the same shape,

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"as it is slightly padded.

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"If it is too difficult, for heaven's sake, let me know."

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So she trusted you, but she wanted to experiment for herself?

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Yes. I have to say, it wasn't her most successful dress.

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She never ever asked us to do

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something that was her own idea again.

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She relied on us

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because she had gained enough confidence in us to be guided by us.

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And with their help, Diana navigated a rapid makeover in the early '80s.

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She gave birth to both her children,

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embarked on worldwide tours,

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and swapped fairy tale frills for a more experimental look,

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modernising the codes of Royal dress.

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Fashion was changing in itself, and becoming much more relaxed.

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And the mood in lifestyle had changed.

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She was the first to wear trousers.

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She was the first official royal lady

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to stop wearing little white gloves.

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And hats.

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She didn't wear hats and gloves with everything,

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which is, like, the most traditional,

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most important piece in a royal wardrobe.

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She, very tactfully,

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went through the idea of being slightly rebellious.

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And she also liked to surprise.

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She loved the fun of saying,

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"Oh, the press are going to love this!"

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So she knew what they would be like?

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Oh, she absolutely knew certain dresses would cause comment.

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And she enjoyed that.

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The press and the public

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couldn't get enough of Diana's ever-evolving '80s wardrobe.

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Embracing their high-street trend for shoulder pads and glitz.

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She looked more like a modern celebrity

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than the royalty we were accustomed to.

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Whether seeing her in "Disco Di mode"

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at a film premiere...

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..skiing with Sarah Ferguson,

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or on down time as a young mum,

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Diana was remoulding not only the fashion,

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but the public image of the monarchy.

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What Diana did was break with royal protocol

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in a very, very significant way.

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Because she said, "I'm not just a member of the Royal family,

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"I am a multifaceted person.

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"I am a young mum, I'm someone who likes fun and excitement, sometimes,

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"depending on the me I am at the time."

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And that's not what being a member of the Royal family is about at all.

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It's being, you know, stable and unchanging.

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So she really blew it away with the variety of her clothing

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and the way that her clothing reflected an actual breadth of life.

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But the best remembered of all Diana's '80s outfits

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was the one that helped her to become fashion royalty,

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created by designer Victor Edelstein.

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A classic couturier a trained at Dior.

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It is today remembered as the Travolta Dress.

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One big influence on her life, early on,

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was the couturier Victor Edelstein,

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who really took her in hand and made her look modern.

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Simplified her silhouette, and put her on the right road.

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When I first went to meet her, I was utterly enchanted.

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I really was. I just had never met anyone quite like her.

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I remember when I left, I walked down the stairs, almost in the air.

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I just, erm, was totally bowled over.

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She'd see the dresses sometimes

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by coming to the rehearsal of our shows if she could.

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She never came to the actual shows because, obviously,

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nobody would look at the show, at all.

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There'd be so much attention, terribly unbearable.

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When she came to the rehearsal,

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I would always, obviously, sit with her.

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It did actually make doing the rehearsals

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that little bit more tricky,

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but I wasn't going to say, "Don't come."

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But it was very nice that she did come.

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It also made us get on with it,

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because if she was coming at a specific time

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we jolly well would begin at the time she came,

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so that was quite a good discipline.

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I never quite knew what she liked during the rehearsal.

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She'd let me know later which ones she was interested in.

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I noticed her progression

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in that she wore simpler and simpler things,

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which is always a good sign.

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The world was introduced to a more pared-back Diana

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on a tour of America in 1985,

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when she met the Reagans and outshone Hollywood,

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dancing with film star John Travolta.

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Victor Edelstein, his clothing,

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they look simple and straightforward,

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but they are not.

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So, for example, the very famous Travolta dress

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as it's now been called, it looks quite simple,

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but the way that the velvet is ruched at the bodice,

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it is very difficult to achieve.

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It makes it look so classical, it must have moved beautifully.

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And I think, if it had been a different dress

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that she was wearing,

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it might not have made such an iconic photo.

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In the case of the John Travolta dress,

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I had various, faintly ridiculous telephone calls

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from fashion journalists in America.

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How they got my telephone number in the middle of the night,

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I really don't know. Sort of asking questions.

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I don't know the answers they were hoping for.

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You know, "Why navy blue? Why a midnight? Why off the shoulder?"

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All I want to say was,

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"Look, I just want to go back to bed, if you don't mind."

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Edelstein became one of Diana's favourite designers,

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and she learned the rule that less is more.

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By the tail end of the '80s,

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she had developed a timeless signature style,

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and won universal fashion acclaim.

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But as she grew more confident on foreign tours,

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and increased her charity work,

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she looked to fashion a new working wardrobe,

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and she came to rely on the designer Catherine Walker.

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Walker designed 1,000 pieces for the Princess,

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often producing up to 40 outfits for each official tour.

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And today, the Chelsea atelier

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retains the Royal connection, as one of the Duchess of Cambridge

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Kate Middleton's preferred designers.

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Catherine Walker is inseparable from Diana's fashion story.

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Catherine took designing for Diana very seriously.

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She sort of treated it in that tradition of court dressmakers,

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and wanted to give Diana a royal uniform of sorts,

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in that sort of old tradition of the Georgian court, something regal.

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What she called the dignified showstopper.

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Catherine Walker died in 2010.

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But her husband, Said, now runs the atelier.

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And was her co-designer through her time working with Diana.

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If anybody sees the end result of what we used to do for the Princess,

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they may be surprised at the amount of research and background work

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that my wife and I used to do in order to achieve the end result.

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We decided that we would research the roots

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that defined modern British royal dressing.

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The chapter we are living in now,

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seemed to begin 100-years ago with Queen Alexandra and Queen Mary.

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This was an era of grace and calm.

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Fine lace, fine silk, exquisite embroidery.

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Whether you articulate the thought or not, unconsciously,

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there's a distinct connection in the visual symmetry from 100-years ago,

0:18:320:18:39

brought into the 20th century in this shiny, polished,

0:18:390:18:43

modern royal garment.

0:18:430:18:45

In addition to creating these very glamorous evening outfits

0:18:460:18:50

and evening gowns,

0:18:500:18:52

Catherine also specialised in creating a very pared-back

0:18:520:18:56

day wardrobe for Diana.

0:18:560:18:58

So two-piece suits, very simple sheath dresses,

0:18:580:19:02

And that really chimed very well with Diana's move in the '90s

0:19:020:19:07

to become known as a workhorse, not a clothes horse.

0:19:070:19:11

And she realised that the way to concentrate

0:19:110:19:14

the press' attention on her work was to dress down.

0:19:140:19:18

Whether visiting children in hospital,

0:19:200:19:22

as an ambassador for a charity,

0:19:220:19:25

or later, when raising awareness of land mines,

0:19:250:19:28

Diana converted her wardrobe into that of a professional woman.

0:19:280:19:32

During the... Particularly, the later part of her life,

0:19:360:19:39

what do you think her clothes were saying about her?

0:19:390:19:41

Towards the end, she'd moved out of that, sort of,

0:19:410:19:43

very vulnerable, demure look.

0:19:430:19:45

And much more into a power-dressing statement.

0:19:450:19:49

Quite slick, tailored, quite bold colours.

0:19:490:19:53

These were clothes that actually lifted her up

0:19:530:19:57

and gave her much more a sense of authority.

0:19:570:20:00

Of real cut and thrust in what was, by now,

0:20:000:20:03

a world that she was very confident in.

0:20:030:20:05

But behind the power dressing during the first years of the '90s,

0:20:070:20:10

her marriage was breaking down,

0:20:100:20:12

and Diana's clothing at public appearances

0:20:120:20:15

suggested a growing independence.

0:20:150:20:18

All fashion is a shield, and a sword, and a tool for everybody.

0:20:180:20:25

You know, everybody uses fashion to send out messages.

0:20:250:20:28

It's just that, you know, Diana's messages were seen and amplified

0:20:280:20:32

and pored over around the world.

0:20:320:20:35

So, for her, fashion was, you know, quite a nuclear weapon.

0:20:350:20:39

And never more memorably than on the evening when Prince Charles

0:20:390:20:42

admitted their marriage had irretrievably broken down

0:20:420:20:46

and she stepped out in what the press termed the Revenge Dress.

0:20:460:20:49

Diana was mindful of what ever she wore, whenever she wore it,

0:20:510:20:55

and certainly got a dressing down in the early days for wearing black,

0:20:550:20:59

but chose an occasion

0:20:590:21:01

immediately after the announcement of his infidelity.

0:21:010:21:05

She not only wore a black off-the-shoulder dress,

0:21:050:21:10

but it was very short,

0:21:100:21:11

revealing, sort of, acreage of toned legs.

0:21:110:21:16

And it was a kind of masterpiece, really, of image management.

0:21:160:21:19

And I think that was, you know, the moment when she was saying,

0:21:190:21:22

"I've played by the rules and where did it get me?

0:21:220:21:25

"I ain't playing by them no more."

0:21:250:21:28

Diana now had a final transformation,

0:21:310:21:34

moving away from monarchy and marriage

0:21:340:21:36

and toward self-definition as a newly-independent woman.

0:21:360:21:41

Her fashion was becoming ever bolder and more body confident.

0:21:410:21:45

'Jacques Azagury created many of Diana's best-remembered dresses

0:21:490:21:53

'in the final years of her life.'

0:21:530:21:54

These dresses, which we see here,

0:21:560:21:58

so identifiable as the later part of her life.

0:21:580:22:01

Now, she wasn't necessarily a risk taker,

0:22:010:22:03

but do you think she got more risque as she got older?

0:22:030:22:07

Yes, absolutely.

0:22:070:22:09

She went completely away from the very, sort of, grand ball dresses,

0:22:090:22:13

and went down to these more fashionable looks.

0:22:130:22:18

You know, it was the time of the supermodels.

0:22:180:22:20

It was the time of all those great girls,

0:22:200:22:22

looking fantastic and wow, wow, wow.

0:22:220:22:24

And, you know, she wanted to be on the same level.

0:22:240:22:28

Dresses were getting shorter, cleavage was getting lower.

0:22:280:22:31

For instance, with the little blue dress there,

0:22:310:22:33

it ended up, really, very short on her.

0:22:330:22:35

She was 5ft 10.5, 5ft 11 without shoes on.

0:22:350:22:38

And from the waist to the hemline is 20 inches.

0:22:380:22:42

And she wanted to go even shorter, but, of course, Paul Burrell,

0:22:420:22:47

her butler, said, "No way. You can't go any shorter than that."

0:22:470:22:52

So she did take many more risks towards the end.

0:22:520:22:55

She started wearing black a lot more,

0:22:550:22:57

started wearing more figure-hugging dresses.

0:22:570:23:00

Sexier dresses.

0:23:000:23:01

This black dress here,

0:23:010:23:03

I saw her the night before the famous interview with...

0:23:030:23:07

-Martin Bashir.

-..Martin Bashir.

0:23:070:23:09

And she says, "Well, I've done this interview.

0:23:090:23:12

"Tomorrow night, I have to be at an event

0:23:120:23:15

"when it's going to be broadcast."

0:23:150:23:18

And she wanted something black and something sexy,

0:23:180:23:20

and something that says,

0:23:200:23:21

"I'm a free woman, I'm going to do what I want."

0:23:210:23:23

And that's why she went for this figure-hugging dress, with a train.

0:23:230:23:26

Very, very simple.

0:23:260:23:28

So it was saying a lot of things in the one dress.

0:23:280:23:31

In 1997, Diana decided to sell

0:23:330:23:37

many of her most famous dresses for charity.

0:23:370:23:39

Meredith Etherington-Smith was responsible for organising the sale.

0:23:410:23:46

She wanted to sell the clothes because she wasn't an HRH any more,

0:23:460:23:50

she would always be part of the Royal family

0:23:500:23:52

because she's mother of the future King.

0:23:520:23:55

But she wasn't going to be Queen.

0:23:550:23:57

And she could start to build a different life for herself.

0:23:570:24:00

When we started taking photographs for the catalogue,

0:24:000:24:03

Lord Snowdon took some wonderful portraits.

0:24:030:24:06

But it was her past he was photographing, not her future.

0:24:060:24:09

And I was much more interested in her future.

0:24:090:24:13

Meredith called upon the help of fashion photographer Mario Testino

0:24:140:24:19

to create a set of pictures for a Vanity Fair article

0:24:190:24:22

showing off a new look and titled, "Diana Reborn".

0:24:220:24:26

She'd arrived with all her jewellery and I said,

0:24:270:24:29

"Look, no more chokers, ma'am. No more chokers."

0:24:290:24:33

And I said, "We want much less.

0:24:330:24:35

"We want to make you look as if

0:24:350:24:37

"you've just stepped out of the shower."

0:24:370:24:40

We all had lunch together.

0:24:400:24:41

Sort of sandwiches and this, that and the other.

0:24:410:24:44

And then Mario did a fantastically funny imitation

0:24:440:24:47

of Naomi Campbell doing catwalk.

0:24:470:24:49

And not to be outdone, the Princess did a turn, as well.

0:24:490:24:53

She could do no wrong in front of the lens.

0:24:530:24:56

What I'd done was just strip away

0:24:560:24:58

all the props and the cascades of diamonds and things,

0:24:580:25:03

and just shown her as she now had become.

0:25:030:25:06

Two weeks before the sale in New York,

0:25:060:25:09

what you saw was this shock.

0:25:090:25:12

And that was a shock.

0:25:140:25:16

That was Diana as you really hadn't seen her before.

0:25:160:25:19

32,000. 35,000.

0:25:230:25:25

The sale of the 79 dresses held in New York

0:25:250:25:29

made over 3 million for AIDS and cancer charities.

0:25:290:25:32

Last time, at 65,000.

0:25:320:25:35

For you, sir.

0:25:350:25:37

The whole world has always followed her fashion moves,

0:25:370:25:40

and it is a complete collection. It will never happen again.

0:25:400:25:43

With the Travolta Dress breaking records

0:25:430:25:45

as the most-expensive item of clothing ever sold at auction.

0:25:450:25:49

I knew she was going to say that!

0:25:490:25:50

200,000!

0:25:500:25:52

It was a suitably momentous,

0:25:520:25:54

metaphorical ending to Diana's royal fashion story.

0:25:540:25:57

Now, this beautiful black dress, this was her last public outing

0:26:020:26:05

-that she was seen in this, wasn't it?

-It was.

0:26:050:26:08

And this was actually the night after the Christie's auction.

0:26:080:26:12

It was for her 36th birthday at the Tate centenary.

0:26:120:26:15

Cos you gave it to her as a birthday present?

0:26:150:26:17

I gave it to her as a birthday present, yeah.

0:26:170:26:19

Now, you were planning more pieces for her, which, sadly,

0:26:190:26:22

she didn't get to wear.

0:26:220:26:23

When she was coming back from Paris, she was going to a premiere.

0:26:230:26:26

A film premiere. And we did, actually,

0:26:260:26:29

the last fitting before she went to Paris.

0:26:290:26:31

And it was probably just about the most daring dress

0:26:310:26:35

she would have worn to that stage,

0:26:350:26:37

it was a very low-cut plunge at the front, very high slit,

0:26:370:26:41

all black sequins.

0:26:410:26:43

With a train, you know.

0:26:430:26:44

And, sadly, she never got back to wear it. Yeah.

0:26:440:26:47

Now, looking back on it, I think, "Wow," you know, "I dressed Diana."

0:26:510:26:55

You know, Princess Diana, who's just like a big part of history now.

0:26:550:27:00

And I was one of the designers who was lucky enough to dress her.

0:27:000:27:03

When Diana died on the 31st of August 1997,

0:27:070:27:11

the outpouring of grief was unparalleled in British history.

0:27:110:27:15

She was buried in a black dress,

0:27:170:27:18

sent by her favourite designer, Catherine Walker.

0:27:180:27:21

We would never get to see the reinventions that Diana had planned,

0:27:230:27:27

the way she'd mature and change.

0:27:270:27:29

But in her short life, along with her trusted designers,

0:27:290:27:33

they managed to craft a new and lasting blueprint

0:27:330:27:36

for the modern royal.

0:27:360:27:38

Diana understood how fashion could be a powerful tool of communication,

0:27:390:27:44

a means to design your own public image.

0:27:440:27:47

And through her mastery of this,

0:27:470:27:48

she transformed herself into one of the most stylish

0:27:480:27:52

and influential women of all time.

0:27:520:27:54

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