Camera phones at the ready: Princess Diana’s iconic wedding dress is on display in London for the first time in 25 years, and you can book tickets to go and see it this summer.
Oh, how we love a wedding dress. For many, lusting over photographs of celebrity wedding dresses is a certain kind of calming therapy. We’ve swooned over a lot recently, from Hailey Bieber’s lace Vera Wang gown, to Lily Allen’s Chanel mini-dress. And then there are the royal wedding dresses: Princess Beatrice’s recycled dress from the Queen, and Meghan Markle’s long-sleeved gown by British designer Clare Waight Keller.
But most of us can probably agree that the most iconic wedding dress of all time is Princess Diana’s.
Diana wore the infamous David and Elizabeth Emanuel gown for her wedding to Prince Charles at St Paul’s Cathedral in London in 1981, sparking a wave of copycat designs. The elaborate embroidery featured 10,000 pearls and it had a record-breaking 25-foot train.
She had a blue ribbon stitched to the inside of her waistband to count for her ‘something blue’, and wore an 18th century-era tiara from her family’s heirloom collection as her ‘something borrowed’. Inside the back of the gown, the Emanuels fixed an 18-carat gold trinket studded with white diamonds to the label.
In the latest season of The Crown, David Emanuel helped to create the dress for Emma Corrin to wear, reminding viewers just how spectacular it was. And now, the original dress is going to be on display in Kensington Palace for the first time in 25 years.
Diana’s children, Princes William and Harry, have loaned the gown to a new London exhibition, Royal Style In The Making. Along with the wedding dress, the collection also includes Princess Diana’s ‘going away’ dress that she wore as she set off on her honeymoon, a pink dress designed by David Sassoon.
Other features include dresses worn by the Queen and the Queen Mother, such as a rare, surviving toile for the coronation gown that the Queen Mother wore to King George VI’s coronation in 1937. There are also lots of beautiful sketches, swatches and designs.
Matthew Storey, the curator at Historic Royal Palaces, said: “Royal Style In The Making offers visitors the chance to discover some of the greatest talents of British design, whose work has helped shape the visual identity of the royal family across the 20th century.”
The exhibition at the Kensington Palace Orangery runs from Thursday 3 June to 2 January 2022. Head to the palace’s official website to book tickets.
Images: Getty, Netflix
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