What was it about Diana, Princess of Wales, that made her a style icon in so many people's eyes? She wasn't a fashion leader in the usual sense - she didn't launch new trends and rarely sported daring looks. But through her clothes, she sold an idea, a dream and a lifestyle that evolved throughout her life.
People around the world first connected with her style of dressing as an effective expression of Diana's, and their, hopes and aspirations. In her youthful, colourful style was the promise of love and a new life. Her hair was soft, her clothes often floaty and oversized - rarely emphasising her figure. A portrait celebrating her engagement shows Diana in a deep emerald green, puff-sleeved, wide skirted gown - the ultimate Cinderella dress. The billowing wedding dress that was to follow - designed by British couple David and Elizabeth Emanuel - reinforced that princess identity.
Diana's dedication to millinery, a fashion that had been in decline for some time, also spoke of an earlier, simpler time, when genteel, fashionable ladies, not just older women (like the Queen, for example) wore hats for every occasion. Through her, the public could experience what it meant to be a "young royal".
Glamorous life
Throughout the 1980s, while the dream of a perfect princess was still alive, Diana dressed for the glamorous, yet refined life everybody hoped she was leading. Performing her duties at home or abroad, Diana was seen in demure, elegant, long-skirted suits - rarely in trousers - and pastels and primary colours. It was unusual to see her in anything black or above the knee.
It was at evening functions that she really glowed, in gowns by her favourite British designer, Catherine Walker. Her outfits played to the trends regular British girls were following, although in an altogether more glamorous way: dresses were often one-shouldered, brightly coloured or metallic, but always deeply classy.
But this princess lifestyle came at a price, as the world would later learn. In her later years, Diana never hid the fact that, throughout her life, she had suffered from the eating disorder bulimia. Looking back at the voluminous styles she sported in the Eighties, it's shocking to realise that it was often a gaunt figure that peered out from beneath that backcombed head of enormous blonde hair.
By the time of her separation in 1992, the "princess" dream Diana had expressed though her clothes was all but over. Evidently, the young girl had grown up and was ready to try more sophisticated looks. At the same time, Diana's exile from royal circles meant she began socialising with the alternate royalty - celebrities - among them Gianni Versace, Elton John and George Michael.
Pared down
Her look began to evolve drastically - with a paring down that reflected the emotional loads she had shed, in tandem with the slimmed-down lines that defined the Nineties. Dresses, which had previously been floor-sweeping gowns, stopped at the knee and hugged her now gym-trim figure.
It was a surprising change, which is best seen in the short black dress, by little-known designer Christina Stambolian, that Diana wore to a function on the night Prince Charles admitted his adultery to the world. Thigh-high, off-the-shoulder and plunging at the neckline, it won Diana the first battle in the "War of the Waleses", knocking Charles's confession off the front pages of the British press the following day.
It was a look she stuck with for the last years of her life - shorter dresses and shorter hair (including a jazzy slicked-down version for the Council of Fashion Designers of America Awards the following year). As a single, if not entirely independent woman (she still needed royal permission to take her sons on holiday, for example), she still stuck by her favourite designer, Catherine Walker, but also introduced outfits by Versace and other -more risqué - European designers into her repertoire. She was also an early fan of Jimmy Choo shoes, and the Malaysian-born designer used to visit the Princess at Kensington Palace to fit her for pairs.
In her final, fatal summer, Diana, looking for life, love and an identity, after so many years conforming to royal diktat, continued using what she wore to identify her aspirations. What was she hoping for from those weeks spent on a luxury yacht in the French Riviera with Dodi Al Fayed? One look at her diving gracefully in the sea wearing a leopard-print swimming costume tells all.
Auctioning her past
A year after her divorce, and at the suggestion of Prince William, Diana decided to auction off a number of her dresses. The event, which Diana called Sequins Save Lives, gave all proceeds to charity. Christie's New York sold the collection of 79 gowns worn by the Princess from 1981 to 1996. The auction (and the parties before and after in New York) gave Diana, an increasingly isolated figure in London, the chance to socialise in a city that had always loved her. The auction raised $3.2 million (Dh12 million) for Aids and breast cancer charities. The highlight? The dress Diana wore at a 1985 White House dinner where she danced with John Travolta, which fetched the highest bid of $222,500 (Dh816,000).
