How the most photographed woman in the world used clothes to tell her own story.
By Shreya S · Last reviewed 15 November 2026
What was her wedding dress like?
For her marriage to Prince Charles on 29 July 1981, the young designers David and Elizabeth Emanuel made an ivory silk taffeta gown with huge puffed sleeves, lace, sequins and a 25-foot train. It was pure 1980s romance, and copies were in shop windows within hours.
What was the “revenge dress”?
A fitted, off-the-shoulder black silk dress by Christina Stambolian, which she wore to a gala at the Serpentine Gallery in June 1994, the night Prince Charles admitted adultery in a television interview. She had owned it for years but thought it too daring. It became the defining image of her independence.
How did the Lady Dior get its name?
In 1995 France’s first lady gave Diana a new Dior handbag, and she carried it so often that Dior renamed it the Lady Dior in her honour. With its cannage quilting and dangling D-I-O-R charms, it is still one of the house’s signature bags. See the It-Bags.
Why is her off-duty style so popular now?
Because it looks just like today’s street style: oversized sweatshirts, cycling shorts, white socks and trainers, blazers with jeans, baseball caps. In June 1997 she auctioned 79 of her gowns at Christie’s in New York for charity, a symbolic break with royal dressing, two months before her death.
Read on Ayerhs: What Is Royalcore? · The History of Wedding Fashion · What Is Preppy?