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(soft music)
- [Interviewer] Do you find it a daunting experience
that yesterday you were a nanny looking after children,
now you're about to marry the Prince of Wales
and one day you would, in all likelihood, be Queen?
- [Diana] It is, but I've had a small run up to it all
in the last six months.
(Diana giggling)
And next to Prince Charles, I know I can't go wrong.
- [Paul] She tore out pages from that dusty old book
and she rewrote those rules.
She changed the royal family forever.
(upbeat music)
- Princess Diana's fashion style is iconic,
and really, it can be divided into three major eras:
pre-Charles, during the royal years, and post-separation.
- It was just like a phenomenon.
I mean, people would scream when they saw Diana,
it was almost like Beatlemania.
(upbeat music)
- [Natasha] People are still channeling looks
that she wore decades ago.
She inspires designer collections from Off-White to Celine.
- [Paul] That's a sign of an icon of our times
because she was truly inspirational and unique.
(upbeat music)
(soft music)
In the summer of 1980, the Queen told me
that a young girl was coming to stay for the weekend.
- Prince Charles did give us a hint himself.
He said we wouldn't have to wait too long.
- Careful!
- He said we wouldn't have to wait too long.
Was he completely off beam? - Excuse me.
- Was he?
- Sorry, I, sorry.
- Was he completely off beam when he said
we wouldn't have to wait too long?
- No.
- My name is Paul Burrell.
@ For 21 years, I looked afterú the British Royal Family.
@ For 11 years, I lookedú after Her Majesty The Queen,
and for the following 10 years, Princess Diana.
So I'm standing in the front hallway of Balmoral Castle,
on the black and white tiles.
Waiting for this car to arrive.
And out of the car comes a shy, young girl
that nobody knew who she was.
She had one little suitcase in the back.
"Is that all you've brought with you?
You're here for the weekend.
You have to go to hunting, shooting.
You have to go to the Ghillies Ball, tea parties,
lunch parties, and that's all you have."
She says, "Will it do?"
I said, "I think we better take you to a room and find out."
- Well, Princess Diana was the daughter of an earl.
Her father was Lord Spencer,
and he was a later Viscount Althorp.
They had a house on the Sandringham Estate.
And then when Diana's grandfather died,
they moved to the family stately home, Althorp.
And the Spencer family were quite an ancient
aristocratic family,
and Diana was very proud of her heritage.
@ I mean, they wereú actually probably grander
than the royal family.
- [Penny] So in the early years,
Diana was very much conservative, very, very shy,
and you can tell from when she is posing in pictures
in that era, she sort of had a head to the side,
and she's very stooped,
so it's as if she's trying to disappear.
@Hi, my name is Penny Goldstone.
I'm the fashion editor at "Marie Claire UK."
She didn't really deal well
with media attention at the time.
She saw photographers following her,
and she said, "Look, I'm working at this kindergarten.
Do come and follow me,
@and you can take a picture of me
and then sort of leave me alone."
And she was wearing a sweater vest over a shirt
and a long skirt and ballet pumps,
and one of the iconic pictures of that time,
and it just made headlines.
While she was taking the pictures, the sun shone,
and she didn't realize it was shining through her skirt.
So you could see her legs,
which in itself is not particularly shocking,
but she didn't realize she was giving the paps
what they wanted,
and she was said to be horrified by it
and that it was a very hard lesson to learn.
And you can tell then, throughout the years,
that she knew what shots not to give them.
- [Natasha] She grew up in Althorp Estate,
so she had this country style.
It was more functional than anything else.
And as she moved into Coleherne Court,
when she lived with her housemates, when she was younger,
her style remains quite pared back.
It's demure.
She wears pie crust collars and cardigans and sweater vests
and pleated skirts.
I mean, she works at a kindergarten.
It's not as much a focus for her.
My name is Natasha Hardy,
and I'm fashion editor for "Cosmopolitan UK."
In her early years,
I think the most memorable style that she wore
was obviously for her engagement shoot with Prince Charles.
And that dress has quite an interesting story behind it.
It's a two piece electric blue suit,
and it's got this glorious white
pussy-bow blouse underneath.
And what originally happened
is she went to Bellville Sassoon to find her look.
- And the sales assistant didn't recognize her.
It was a bit like that "Pretty Woman" thing.
@ They were very much like, ú "No, we can't help you,"
@ but luckily David Sassoonú then realized the mistake
and invited to her back.
- [Natasha] From there, the three of them started to form
quite a glorious fashion relationship,
and they went on to design her honeymoon outfit.
But the Bellville Sassoon outfit that she wore
for the engagement shoot was quite considered.
It matched her sapphire blue engagement ring,
and it was the sort of how we know Diana now,
and she's starting to use fashion for a reason.
- [Interviewer] Well, now you can appear
in public. - Yes.
- [Interviewer] It must be a great relief to you.
- Well, it is rather, yes.
- [Interviewer] Can you find the worst to sum up
how you feel today, both of you?
- Difficult to find the right sort of word,
isn't it, really?
Just delighted and happy.
And I'm amazed that she's been brave enough to take me on.
(Diana chuckling)
- [Interviewer] And I suppose in love?
- Of course.
- Whatever in love means.
- Yes.
- You put your own interpretation.
- Well, it obviously means two very happy people.
- Yes, absolutely. - As you can see.
- [Interviewer] Well, for us, congratulations.
- Thank you very much. - Thank you very much.
You're very kind.
- [Ingrid] No, Diana wasn't prepared for overnight stardom.
Nobody is.
You know, she was a country girl.
She was very naive.
She'd never even had a proper boyfriend.
So she wasn't remotely prepared for that kind of stardom,
and it was frightening.
There's nobody helped her.
Nobody told her
because this was the first time it had happened.
- [Penny] Balmoral is the Royal Family holiday home.
Every summer, the Royal family just decamped
to the Scottish Highlands,
and it's actually said that it's one of
the Queen's favorite places to be.
They do a lot of hunting there, walks,
sort of nature focused activities.
The dress code is quite laid back.
However, that is very much during the day,
so it is said that the royals actually change outfits
several times a day for various occasions.
So they'll have an outfit for breakfast.
They'll have an outfit for going out
and outdoor activities, dinners.
So it's not as laid back as you would think.
And actually, that is kind of part of
what they would have called
a bit of a test for Princess Diana for her first visit there
a couple of months before the royal wedding.
- [Paul] "Will you stay for awhile and have a chat with me?
I'm completely out of my depth," she said.
So I stayed.
"What time do you go down for tea?"
"Four o'clock, you go down to the small drawing room.
The Queen would pour you a cup of tea."
"I don't like tea."
"I'll make sure she has coffee there waiting for you."
"Then what happens?"
I said, "When tea is cleared, you go into the drawing room,
and then the Queen will pour you a gin and tonic."
"I don't drink."
"I'll make sure there's a glass of water there for you."
"Then what happens?"
"Then the Queen plays cards on her card table.
Do you play bridge?"
"Yes."
"Then make sure you're sat at the card table
to play bridge with the Queen.
That's a good way to get to know Her Majesty
Then the Queen will take the dogs into the garden.
Maybe you could suggest you went for a walk with her,
also a good time to get Her Majesty's ear.
That's what you want to do."
This young girl was fascinated by this routine
of royal households.
And as I closed the door that day,
I noticed the name on the door, Lady Diana Spencer.
- [Natasha] Diana having the upbringing that she had,
she passed with flying colors.
And one of the looks which stands out most
from her trip to Balmoral
is one where she's standing next to Charles,
and they're posing front of a fence.
And Diana was wearing this really kitschy, hot pink jumper.
And she looks really relaxed,
and she's got a turtleneck underneath,
and she's wearing these corduroy trousers
and these bottle green Hunter boots.
And you can just tell by the outfit that she's wearing,
the way she's holding herself,
she's so relaxed, she's really at ease.
- [Penny] For her off duty look at Balmoral,
Princess Diana was photographed
with the famous Hunter boots.
We all know them now as a festival essential.
Kate Moss wears them.
All the celebrities wear them,
and they're deemed really cool,
but actually you could argue that Princess Diana
is the one who put them back in fashion
because she was photographed wearing them
at the Scottish estate.
- One of Diana's most famous pieces
was her black sheep jumper.
And we first see her wearing it when she goes to the polo,
she's engaged to Prince Charles,
and in the picture, she's quite shy,
she's not performing for the cameras,
and she has this little tiny collar poking out
of the black sheep jumper.
And she's wearing jeans, she's very casual.
And interestingly, this Rowing Blazers' design,
she then re-wears two years later.
- And you can very much tell that there has been a shift
between the two pictures.
In the second image, she's standing straighter,
she's kind of looking at the camera,
and the jumper obviously has a black sheep on it.
So I think the first time she wore it,
it was obviously just, she found it.
It was a cute jumper,
wasn't thinking anything about it.
The second time, the jumper is slightly different,
so we don't actually know what happened between the two,
if she lost weight or just lost it.
And the sheep is actually facing a different direction
to the white sheep.
And she was also wearing a white shirt underneath
with a black bow that sort of points to the black sheep.
And a lot of people were saying that it was a statement
at the time because there were already a few arguments
with Prince Charles,
she was instead of bit of a rebel,
she didn't wanna follow all the rules in the family,
so it sort of symbolized her being the black sheep
of the royal family.
- [Ingrid] Well, the cracks in their relationship,
I think they began to show very quickly
because Diana didn't understand
after she became engaged to Prince Charles,
he never seemed to be around.
He was always so busy.
And she was moved into Buckingham Palace,
and she had her own apartment there,
and he was sort of down the corridor,
and she was absolutely on her own.
I mean, a friend of mine actually, was her footman
and told me a lot about her at the time.
And she was very lonely,
she didn't feel she could have a girlfriend's there,
and I mean, Buckingham Palace is a quite a strange place
for a teenage girl to be incarcerated,
which is really what she was.
- I personally think that Diana fell in love
with Prince Charles.
It's obvious to me that she was a young, naive girl,
and she fell in love with the prince.
Now, if you watch that piece of footage
when Prince Charles is asked,
"Are you in love, sir?"
Princess Diana's beaming,
and she's giggling saying, "Yes, yes, yes."
And he says, "Whatever love is,"
and she looks at him as if to say,
"What are you talking about?
Don't you know what love is?"
That was the problem from the beginning.
Charles didn't really know what love was.
(soft music)
- [Priest] I, Diana Frances.
- [Diana] I, Diana Frances.
- [Priest] Take thee, Charles Philip Arthur George.
- [Diana] Take thee, Philip Charles Arthur George.
- [Priest] To my wedded husband.
- [Diana] To my wedded husband.
- [Priest] To have to happen to hold.
- [Diana] To have to happen to hold.
- [Priest] From this day forward.
- [Diana] From this day forward.
- [Priest] According to God's holy law.
- [Diana] According to God's holy law.
- [Priest] And thereto I give thee my troth.
- [Diana] And thereto I give thee my troth.
- [Natasha] Diana's wedding dress really
is one for the ages.
It is peak eighties extravagance and opulence,
and it was a statement.
It is arguably the most iconic wedding dress
throughout history, or at least one of,
the reason being when she stepped out
at St. Paul's Cathedral, all eyes were on her.
She had these glorious, huge puff sleeves.
She had ruffles down the front, a full skirt, sequins,
10,000 pearls, and a train that ran for 25 feet.
- [Penny] It was designed by
at the time husband and wife duo,
David and Elizabeth Emanuel.
@ And really interestingly, theyú didn't have a brief for it.
So obviously for the designers,
it was quite a momentous task to undertake,
@ and the pressure for theú designs not to be revealed
was really quite high.
- [Reporter] David and Elizabeth Emanuel
set up their fashion business
in London's Brook Street in 1977.
They're a young team, specializing in expensive,
high fashion, romantic clothes,
particularly evening wear and dreamy wedding dresses,
but they've never made a Royal wedding dress before.
All their designs are individual.
If you have a dress made here,
you won't see anyone else wearing the same thing.
Princess Anne shops here, so does Princess Michael of Kent,
the Duchess of Kent, and Bianca Jagger.
Although the couple have made clothes for Lady Diana before,
they never really thought they'd get this job,
and tonight, they said it was too early to say
how it might look.
But how did they feel when they first heard?
- Very honored and very happy and delighted,
obviously, with the news.
- [Reporter] And what about you, Elizabeth?
- Over the moon, very thrilled.
- How long will it take to make?
- Early days, from now till the end,
till the day of the wedding,
we'll be working on it.
- [Reporter] Any ideas at all?
- Not yet because it's early days,
and a lot of discussion has to take place, and you know.
- [Reporter] What are you going to do tonight to celebrate?
- Just go home and see the children, I think.
- [Reporter] Do they know yet?
- They're too young to know,
but we'll tell them when they get older.
- [Penny] It was such a huge deal.
It was the biggest Royal wedding in decades,
if not more because the Queen had quite a pared back wedding
and it wasn't a televised affair,
whereas this, everyone was going to watch.
So what they did is they actually
did a second wedding dress,
which never really saw the light of day.
It was very similar to it, but more pared back.
They say it had a deeper v-neck neckline
and just fewer ruffles, fewer pearls, more understated.
- [Natasha] Their wedding marked this new sort of era
in the royal family, so it had to be a big moment,
and because it was going to be such a big moment,
the identity of the dress and what it looked like
had to be kept really under wraps.
- [Penny] Although you don't really see
Princess Diana's shoes in any of the pictures or the videos,
they were designed by the Emanuels, as well,
and they were designed to much the dress,
and they featured lace, a few pearls,
had a heart on the toe.
And really there was a lovely little romantic detail to them
because Princess Diana was rather romantic,
so she had C and D designed under the sole of the shoe.
So you didn't see it, but obviously she knew it was there,
and it was a sweet nod to her husband to be.
Really interestingly, it said that after her divorce,
Princess Diana didn't want to wear any Chanel logo items
because it was the interlocked two Cs,
so it's thought she thought it was too much of a reminder
of Prince Charles and Camilla.
- [Paul] I remember the wedding of Prince Charles
and Lady Diana Spencer very well
because I was at Buckingham Palace.
At the end of a very long, red carpeted corridor,
I noticed this ball of white racing towards me,
and I realized it was Princess Diana.
She'd rolled her train up into a ball,
tucked it under her arm,
she had a slippers in one hand,
and she was racing down this corridor.
She says, "But you know, the most wonderful thing
was walking down the aisle of St. Paul's Cathedral
with my father."
She says, "But did you ever look at the footage of that?"
She says, "Next time you look at it, watch me."
She says, "Can't you see me looking from side to side?
Can you see me doing that?
Do you know what I'm doing?
I'm looking for her.
I'm looking for Camilla, and she was there.
She was even at my wedding."
So this specter of Camilla was always there
in the Princess's life.
- [Ingrid] I think Diana had terrible jitters
on her wedding day.
@ In fact, the night before,
she'd wanted to get out of the whole thing.
@ And she'd had a sort of funny
@jokey evening with her sisters,
and they said, "You can't get out of it now.
Your face is on the tea towels."
And that made her laugh, but she'd discovered about Camilla.
She discovered that Charles was giving her gifts,
and she didn't know the half of it,
but she knew that Camilla was a very important person
in her fiance's life,
and she says she became obsessed, absolutely obsessed,
so that when she was walking down the aisle,
she spotted Camilla in the congregation.
But she said what sort of helped her at that moment
was concentrating on her father
'cause he just had a stroke, and she was really,
and he's a very big man,
and she was really guiding her father,
and she concentrated on that.
So of course she got the names wrong,
she was all of a dither.
- [Penny] Princess Diana fell pregnant quite quickly
after the royal wedding with Prince William,
and that was going to mean the heir to the throne,
the first royal baby in a long time.
Naturally everyone was interested
and already in love with her,
so wanted to photograph her maternity style
at every step of the way.
- Perhaps the most notable thing
about Diana's maternity style
is that she didn't try to blend in.
- A lot of pregnant women, even today,
probably don't feel comfortable
or don't want to showcase their growing bump.
And historically in the royal family,
you didn't really show your bump either.
You know, as recently as the Victorian era,
you had Victorian pregnancy corsets.
- [Natasha] And she would wear bright colors.
She would wear prints.
Often she embraced the polka dot print in her looks,
and she would wear statement outfits
that didn't try and shy away from the spotlight.
And one of the most significant looks
for her maternity wardrobe was this Catherine Walker gown
that she wore in 1984.
She wore it on the red carpet,
and the gown itself was incredibly beautiful and elegant,
and it was powder blue,
and it had a sort of blazer top,
and a dropped waist and a full skirt,
but the dropped way served a function
of sort of exaggerating her bump,
and it really embraced her shape,
and it was a celebration of all things to do
with maternity chic.
- [Reporter] The Princess had left her packing
to the last minute,
undecided as to which clothes to take with her,
and no doubt, adding some wet weather gear
for Alice Springs.
Still, the departure went smoothly.
Among the farewell party, Australia's High Commissioner,
Sir Victor Garland, and Lady Garland.
The British press have dubbed it,
"The Royal Tour Into the Unexpected,"
making much of the potential weather problems
and the Republican leanings of Prime Minister, Bob Hawke.
And as the Prince has long been
a familiar figure in Australia,
there's no doubt in London that it will be
the Princess and her baby who captured the limelight
in the weeks ahead.
It will be May by the time they return to London
after their Australian and New Zealand tour.
They'll then prepare for a similar tour of Canada
in mid June.
- [Penny] The Royal tour of Australia and New Zealand
was a big deal for Diana.
It was the first international tour
that she was going to do,
and it wasn't that long after she gave birth
to Prince William.
And she actually asked for him to come on tour,
even though it wasn't the done thing.
- Because the Prime Minister of Australia wrote to them,
and said, "Would you like to bring
your little baby with you,"
they also extended the tour,
and they included New Zealand, as well.
So it was a six week tour, which is a long, long time.
And it was, you know, as Diana described it,
as a baptism of fire.
- [Reporter] And then there was a question and answer
session revealing some minor royal secrets.
Question: what is prince William's favorite toy?
- Jamie, he loves his koala bear he's got,
but he hasn't got anything particular.
He just likes something with a bit of noise.
(Charles whispering to Diana)
He got a plastic whale that throws things out the top,
little balls.
- [Jamie] Thank you.
- [Reporter] Question: how many rooms are there
in Buckingham Palace?
- I haven't actually counted them,
and even if I did, I dare say there'd be quite a lot
that people didn't know about,
but somebody had been living in for many years,
unbeknownst to anybody else.
- [Reporter] Question: are you going to get a horse
for Prince William?
- I expect we will.
In England, we have something called a Shetland pony,
which is just a little bit smaller than your idea of a pony.
So we probably will one day hopefully,
just to encourage him.
- [Natasha] Throughout that tour,
you can start to see the initial signs
that Diana is embracing her fashion.
So she's wearing brighter colors.
She's wearing turquoise, hot pink, and yellow,
but notably, the silhouette's still quite feminine.
So she'll wear ruffles, and she'll have a cinched waist,
and quite a flowy skirt.
So they're still quite safe looks
considering what she went on to wear.
But there's one outfit that she wore in Perth,
and it's a hot pink dress with polka dots,
and she has a hat to match.
And I think what people loved is that
obviously, she would stand out in a crowd,
and what is more gloriously eighties
than a princess wearing hot pink?
- [Paul] In the early days, Diana's light was small,
but he began to shine brighter and brighter and brighter,
and it was a sort of a star is born situation.
Prince Charles would say to her, "Why, I married you.
I made you a princess.
You weren't born royal.
I'm the royal."
So it would peeve him, when on royal visits,
people would be shouting on one side of the street,
"We want Diana, we want Diana."
(crowd cheering)
- [Charles] I've come to the conclusion
that really it would have been far easier
to have had two wives.
(audience laughing)
To have covered both sides of the street.
(audience laughing)
And I could have walked down the middle,
directing the operation.
(audience laughing)
- [Paul] This is a man who has been born to be king.
This is a man who has been treated, from the very beginning,
as a god, suddenly being eclipsed by this woman.
He wasn't very happy.
- To be engaged as such a lovely lady,
and my goodness,
I was lucky enough to marry her,
and we have many, many messages...
(audience laughing)
It's amazing what ladies do when your back's turned.
(audience laughing)
- The royal tour of Australia sort of cemented this idea
and the start of what we now know as Dianamania.
What she wore became a focus,
and people wanted to see her outfit.
She was carving out this place for herself as an icon,
which we now know and love.
And her looks at the time,
started to show the early signs
what she'd go on to achieve sartorially.
- [Penny] Her wardrobe there was really,
she was pushing the boundaries.
It was really sleek yet bold.
There was a beautiful sheer blue metallic dress
she wore a ball.
There was the dress she was photographed in,
dancing with Prince Charles.
There was a bright pink gown,
which she walked with her Spencer Tiara,
and people loved it.
The pictures just went everywhere.
- [Reporter] In these six weeks, the Princess of Wales
has probably become the world's most photographed woman.
It must have been an ordeal, but she's rarely shown it.
She's responded to adulation with modesty and spirit.
The monarchy will be the benefactor.
And the wearer, of course, clothes,
fashion with a completely individual flair,
50 outfits in 42 days.
(soft music)
(upbeat music)
- [Penny] Originally, she was very much the Sloane Rangers,
@ very middle-class conservativeú fashion, blazers, high necks,
trousers, long skirts,
very shy, not really knowing what her style was.
And although her wedding dress was really the first moment
where she broke boundaries,
actually, there was a dress she wore just before,
which was also designed by the Emanuels,
and she wore that to a charity gala with Prince Charles,
and it was a black sweetheart, strapless neckline dress,
showed a bit of cleavage,
and even Lord Snowden actually mentioned
she looked stunning in it.
And really, everyone looked at her,
and it was so spectacular that the next day
was meant to be a reveal of the budget,
but her dress instead made all the headlines.
So they released the budget a day later
because this dress was so phenomenal.
- [Natasha] The eighties was a significant period
of transformation for Diana.
In this decade, she becomes a wife, a mother, a princess,
and also an international icon.
At the start, we start to see her
in a preppy sort of aesthetic.
She's got high cross colors.
She's wearing cardigans, sweater vests, pleated skirts,
and she'd carry a little woven basket with her
when she was spotted around London.
On the royal tour, by 1983,
she starting to experiment a little bit
and play with her style,
her colors that she's wearing,
and different shapes that she'll start to experiment with.
By the end of the decade,
she's really hit her stride,
and she is wearing almost all of the eighties trends,
and she's playing quite a significant role
in setting them, as well.
She'll wear tailored angular pieces.
She'll wear block colors, dropped waists, padded shoulders.
- [Penny] As the eighties went on,
she became increasingly confident.
So towards the late eighties, for example,
she wore lots of sequined gowns,
which would perhaps have been thought to be
more for Hollywood actresses,
but she would wear them and wear them really well.
And she actually earned the nickname Dynasty Di
thanks to them.
One of the most famous dresses of that era
was the John Travolta dress,
which was designed by Victor Edelstein,
and it was off the shoulder, long skirted,
midnight blue dress,
which she wore to dance with John Travolta
at the White House.
- [Paul] I did notice that one day,
going through the drawing room,
@ the old Queen Mother, sheú passed the magazine table,
@ and Diana's face was on theú front of "Hello Magazine."
And as she walked past the table,
she flipped the magazine over onto his backside
and carried on walking.
That to me said she's not really accepted.
They don't like it.
@ She's beginning to outshineú even the senior members
of the Royal family.
This is dangerous territory.
- [Penny] Then my favorite look of Diana's in the eighties,
although I'm tempted to say the John Travolta dress,
it was actually a more understated style
by one of her favorite designers, Catherine Walker,
and she wore it for a dinner in Melbourne in 1988.
And it was a light pink kind of ruched dress.
It was strapless, sort of a column dress, very chic
with pale blue flowers imprinted on it.
And at the back, it featured quite a big spectacular bow
that really elevated the dress.
Princess Diana and Catherine Walker's
relationship really blossomed in the later eighties,
which is when Princess Diana really found
her true sort of permanent style,
and the one that a lot of people know and love.
Her designs were well known for being sleek, very tailored,
and a very sort of minimal aesthetic.
And actually, Princess Diana was buried
in one of Catherine Walker's black coat looks in 1997.
- [Natasha] My favorite Diana look from the eighties
has to be when she goes to the polo.
And the specific outfit she's wearing
has got this two piece set.
It's a puffy blouse with a big print on the front of it.
It's monochrome, and she wears a black leather belt
with white trousers,
and her hair has kind of blown out
in this Farrah Fawcett type vibe.
And I think this signals the start of another era for Diana.
She's starting to find her confidence
and starting to use fashion as a way to express herself.
And the fact that she also looks
quite comfortable and confident,
I think is reflected in the outfit
and back into how she must've been feeling back then.
- [Penny] So after Princess Diana and Prince Charles
separated in the early nineties,
the Princess's confidence grew,
and that directly translated into her fashion choices.
So she kind of threw the rule book out the window,
and that resulted in a more minimal aesthetic,
but she didn't deprive yourself of wearing anything,
you know, that would have been deemed more sexy
or too sexy before.
Sleek, fitted designs, nude tones,
sort of a pastel color palette, beiges, blacks, whites,
and very sleek and tailored designs, more fitted.
- So in the eighties, Diana's style is quite experimental,
and she's playing around with the latest trends,
and she's starting to really hit her stride
in terms of her fashion, her aesthetic.
By the nineties, her style matures once again,
and she starting to dress more for her.
And it's believed that this is perhaps her freest decade
in terms of what she wears and why she wears what she wears.
So instead of donning bright glittery, sequin dresses,
she'll lean in more towards a less overt look,
she'll go more minimalist,
she'll wear simple shift dresses,
or she'll wear tailored suits.
- [Penny] As her style became simpler,
it was actually more accessible.
So whereas before she was the unattainable princess,
now she was more of a chic civilian, as it were.
Her looks were copied,
and they influenced a lot celebrities
from Madonna to Cindy Crawford, to Elizabeth Taylor.
Princess Diana revealed her very famous
nineties sleek haircut on the "Vogue" cover in 1990,
and that was arguably her most iconic look
and spurred so many copies.
You know, she was the original The Rachel.
A lot people went to hairdressers asking to copy that look,
and it was beautiful, sleek,
and really went with her wardrobe of the nineties.
When she was a princess,
she wore a lot of UK brands and very traditional ones,
but when she left the royal family,
she became even more of an international icon
because she embraced lots of other big brands,
such as Versace and Dior.
And of course, we all know that they named
a Dior bag after her, so the Lady D bag.
- There was a memo came from Buckingham Palace,
"Diana, when you're in public,
please wear a hat and please wear gloves
because you're touching the public,
and you might catch something."
- Historically speaking, the royal family,
when they met with crowds,
they often wore gloves as a way of not catching germs
and not becoming ill,
but Princess Diana made headlines
because she chose not only not to wear gloves
to meet patients with AIDS,
but she also hugged them and held their hands.
And at the time, there was still the belief that
that is how you could catch AIDS,
if you touched AIDS patients.
- [Diana] HIV does not make people dangerous to know,
so you can shake their hands and give them a hug.
Heaven knows, they need it.
What's more, you can share their homes, their workplaces,
their playground, and their toys.
We all need to be alert to the special needs
of those whom AIDS is the last straw
in an already heavy burden of discrimination and misfortune.
- We lived in a world of ignorance.
We lived in a world where people were not educated.
They didn't know.
The Princess introduced me to the first person
dying with HIV and AIDS.
She would sit and hold people's hands and counsel them.
- [Natasha] Diana really put an emphasis
on coming to contact with the public
and relating to them and creating a bond,
and removing the gloves is symbolic of that.
And there's a picture of her in 1991
where she's shaking hands with an AIDS patient,
which was significant in so far as it helped
dispel a lot of the misconceptions around AIDS at the time,
and it was something that there was a marked departure
from what we'd seen previously in the royal family.
- [Penny] She visited a lot of sick children in hospital.
And for those visits,
because it was already a glum environment,
she chose to wear really bright, floral, neon dresses
with jangling jewels so that they would sort of see her
as a bit of a clown and they could play with her,
and it was, you know,
all about touching the textures of the dress,
and she made them feel like
they were really at home with her.
- [Paul] Single acts of humanitarianism
were what she brought to so many people's lives
that she shone a light on their plight.
She took the world's media
and showed us that we should do more for these people.
- That's my sister in law.
(Diana speaking faintly)
@ - [Reporter] Did you try toú be faithful and honorable
@ to your wife when you tookú on the vow of marriage?
- Yes, absolutely.
- [Reporter] And you were?
- Yes.
Until it became irretrievably broken down,
I suppose having tried.
- [Interviewer] Prince Charles did an official biography
with Jonathan Dimbleby and also a TV program.
It was really all about being Prince of Wales.
@ It was the anniversaryú of being Prince of Wales,
@ but of course, Dimblebyú being a very smart operator,
asked him the question,
which was about Camilla and about his marriage.
And I think that very honestly, Charles answered it.
He probably regrets it, but he was honest.
@ - And the Princess, thatú evening, was due to go out
@ to the Serpentine Galleryú to see her old friend,
Lord Palumbo and open his new exhibition.
"I can't go.
I'm not going.
I'm not going, it'll be too humiliating.
The whole world now knows
that Charles has been having an affair.
He's admitted it."
"You are going," I said.
"I've got nothing to wear."
"Yes, you have got something to wear."
I went up to her wardrobe room and picked out
the Christina Stambolian dress with a fish tail.
"This is what you're going to wear," I said,
"I can't fit into it."
"Yes, you can.
Put it on."
So she slipped it on.
"Now to compliment that,
I think we should have the pearl choker and the sapphire.
That's all you need, high heels and those jewels."
Right, she put them on, and she looked a million dollars.
"Remember, when you go out there," I said,
"you stride, you hold your head high, you smile,
you engage, firm handshake.
Say to yourself, 'I am Diana Princess of Wales,
and I'm here to stay.'
Say it to yourself."
(soft music)
- [Natasha] Three years earlier, she'd had the dress made,
and it was perhaps thought to be a bit daring.
It was quite fitted.
It was off the shoulder.
- [Penny] We can't prove that Diana knew she would eclipse
Prince Charles in the headlines the next day,
but we do know that she's told her stylist
that she wanted to look like a million dollars,
and that obviously resulted in her pictures
@ being splashed across allú the papers the next day,
and Charles being vilified.
- [Natasha] It really is a testament to the power
of a particular outfit and the impact it can have.
- I was told long time ago, I backed the loser.
I'd gone with a one who'd be forgotten,
and here we are.
We're still talking about her.
We're talking about her because she changed the rule book.
She changed the rules for the women she'd never meet.
- [Penny] Some of Princess Diana's most beloved looks
were actually some of her final looks in the nineties
because she always looked chic but understated,
and she actually wore some of her most casual looks
in those days,
especially when she went to sports days
at Prince William and Prince Harry's schools
because she didn't want to draw attention to her
and away from the boys,
so she just wore outfits that any normal mum would wear.
But even when she was off duty,
Princess Diana's style never faltered.
She always, always looked chic.
- So in the eighties, her outfits are very much
the focal point of a lot of her sort of public appearances.
And she uses it as a tool to effectively communicate
and express herself with the public.
And in her final years, you can see that her style
starts to become more pared back,
and one might argue that that could be
because she doesn't want the focus to be
as much on what she's wearing,
although she looks incredibly chic in her outfits,
but more what she's doing, her philanthropic ventures,
and she wants to be forefront.
- Princess Diana had a bit of an athleisure phase
in the nineties.
The fact that she would wear slouchy jumpers
and cycling shorts and trainers
and double denim when she was either doing the school run
or if she was going to the gym.
- These looks have become kind of cemented
in cultural history,
so much so that years later, decades later,
people are still channeling them and paying homage to them.
- So Hayley Bieber's "Vogue" shoot
@ took some of her mostú iconic athleisure wear looks
and re-imagine them today
because the thing about Diana's style
is that it remains timeless,
and it remains cool and relevant.
- [Penny] And actually, that coincided with cycling shorts
coming back in fashion across the catwalk
from various designer collections.
Princess Diana often wore these cycling shorts,
chunky trainers, which again,
are massively in fashion again,
and a Virgin Atlantic oversized, baggy sweatshirt.
Princess Diana actually wore the sweatshirt
to taunt photographers a little bit
because they were constantly hounding her,
bearing in mind, this was after the separation.
So she thought if she re-wore the same
Virgin Atlantic sweatshirt,
they would grow bored of her and not photograph her as much.
We all remember the two iconic swim suits
she wore when she was on holiday with Dodi Al Fayed.
So one of them was a leopard print swimsuit
while she went jet skiing with him,
the other one was a blue swim suit with a plunging back
that she wore to sit at the end of a diving board,
and that is a picture that we all remember.
- Hasnat Kahn had been the Princess's companion
for over two years.
Nobody knew about Hasnat Kahn.
That was not played out on the world stage.
Whereas after they'd broken up,
the Princess was invited to the south of France
by the Mohamed Al Fayeds.
Did you know that the romance of the Princess
and Dodi Al Fayed was 30 days from beginning to end?
It only lasted 30 days.
That was not the love of her life.
That was not the man she was going to marry.
That's all fabrication.
I spoke to her regularly when she was away.
"Have you seen Hasnat?"
I said, "Yes, I went for a drink with him last night."
"What does he think of me being here in south of France
with Dodi Al Fayed?"
"Well, he's not too pleased."
"Has he seen the pictures in the papers?"
"Yes, he has because you know his routine,
you know every morning he goes to the corner shop
and sees the press.
You know that, and I know that's what you're doing.
You're manipulating the world's media
by having these pictures taken to show Hasnat
who you're with as sort of a
are you jealous, do you mind,
do you care, are you bothered?"
That's what Diana was saying to Hasnat Khan
through those pictures in the world's media.
And of course, Hasnat was bothered.
And I didn't find out until recently
that he called her the day before she died
on her mobile phone.
He called her to try and patch up their relationship.
Had she returned to London,
I truly believe the romance between Hasnat Khan
and the Princess would have been rekindled.
It was too strong.
It was too deep.
They were true soulmates.
- [Penny] Princess Diana's style,
especially in her later years,
is still very much referenced today
and very much influences designers and trends.
From cycling shorts to high-waisted jeans,
oversized blazers, square neck dresses,
a lot of people want to be like Princess Diana.
- [Natasha] During her life,
Diana wearing some of the biggest trends
and influencing the fashion industry is undeniable.
I think her legacy today
is people are still channeling looks
that she wore decades ago.
She inspires designer collections from Off-White to Celine,
to "Vogue" main cover fashion shoots.
She's still incredibly relevant,
and I think that needs to be remembered.
Whenever Kate Middleton or Meghan Markle step out,
and they wear a look
which resembles something Diana has worn,
the internet goes wild for it
because they love to see these comparisons
to a person who is arguably one of Britain's
most famous fashion icons.
She remains relevant,
and she remains part of the nation's identity.
- It's hard to choose a favorite look of Diana's,
but if I had to, I would say one of her final outfits,
which was a blue cocktail dress by Jacques Azagury,
which she will to a performance of "Swan Lake"
at the Royal Albert Hall,
and it was very, very simple, very Audrey Hepburn-esque,
and it had fixed straps, a square neckline,
which has come back in fashion again,
another perfect example of how she's influenced
designers today.
And it was bright blue,
and it was embellished with sequins,
and it stopped just above the knee,
and it was impossibly chic.
- [Natasha] While Diana's revenge dress
is undeniably a favorite for many Diana fans,
my favorite look is one that she wore
in the 1988 polo match.
She's wearing this oversize masculine blazer
over this British Lung Foundation charity jumper.
She's wearing Levi's with cowboy boots and a cap,
and part of this look and why it's become so famous
and so ingrained in the Dianna history
is because it typifies her approach to fashion.
She's quite casual,
she's laid back and she is effortlessly cool,
and I think that's what this look really sort of represents,
and that is why it's one of my favorites.
- [Paul] And we're still talking about her.
That's a sign of a great woman.
That's a sign of an icon of our times.
But I'm also talking to a generation of people
who were never around.
There's a whole new generation of people
who didn't know Diana,
and I think I have a moral obligation to say
to those young people,
"I knew her.
I stood beside her.
I could feel the warmth, which she radiated
because she was truly inspirational and unique."
(uplifting music)
- Her journey throughout the eighties and into the nineties
is one that the nation watched as she grew
and as she flourished,
and you could see that very much so
in what she decided to wear.
Her legacy now, the fact that the outfits that she wore
years and years ago are still being celebrated or recreated
means that we all agree that Diana was incredibly timeless
and stylish and iconic.
- [Penny] How I remember Princess Diana's style
is bold, chic, colorful, pared back,
a lot of contradictions and rule breaking.
- [Paul] I watched Diana blossom from a shy young girl,
18 years old at Balmoral Castle.
I watched the years pass by.
She was pushed in the deep end and told to swim.
She was told to survive.
She was never taught to survive.
She learned very quickly.
And through the romantic years
and then through the power dressing years
and then the simple dressing years,
becoming a global business woman, becoming an icon.
I watched all of that.
Becoming the most famous woman in the world.
I saw her as beautiful inside as she was on the outside.
What an incredible human being.
(uplifting music)
(soft music)