Princess Diana’s Major Wedding Dress Mishap
42 years after a shy 20-year-old wed the future King of England in the walls of London’s impressive St Paul’s Cathedral, the world is still obsessed with the late Princess Diana’s quintessentially 1980s wedding gown (or rather, the dress that sparked the trend for oversized, poofy dresses of the era.) Valued at a whopping £9,000 in 1981, the ivory silk taffeta adorned with antique lace, hand embroidery, sequins and 10,000 pearls was designed by the duo Elizabeth and David Emanuel, however, the dress did not make life easy for its creators.
Image: David Levenson
Formulating a wedding gown for a senior Royal is one of the most challenging tasks one could place on a fashion designer. From keeping all sketches and details a firm secret (a second dress, a slightly different one, was created in case designs for the main were leaked) to simply knowing this moment could make, or break, a career. That one little mistake could throw the entire project. With every aspect of the wedding planned to the very moment, Diana chose to spritz herself in the floral scent Quelques Fleurs from the heritage French fragrance company Houbigant Parfum. Unfortunately, perhaps due to a nervous hand, the soon-to-be Princess accidentally spilt the perfume over the front of her dress, a mistake she sought to cover with her hand during the ceremony televised to 750 million. Thankfully, the stain was hardly noticeable.
Seeking a grand gown, Diana had asked the Emanuels to ensure her once-in-a-lifetime frock would feature the longest train in Royal wedding history and thus a 25-metre train was included. Alas, this too would cause the designers a slight headache. As revealed by Andrew Morton in his infamous biography Diana: Her True Story, it turns out that no one had quite considered how the train would fit in relation to the size of the coach Diana and her father rode in en route to the ceremony. After being stuffed and crushed in such a tight space the dress took quite a battering creating visible wrinkles up and down the gown as she emerged on the step of St Paul’s.
While moments did go awry, the dress is no less loved in the public domain. Although, it may teach us to be delicate in our perfume application and to always, always, always consider how transport impacts our clothing!
