Self-study activity:
Watch the video and answer the questions below.
1. What does Princess Diana style reflect?
2. When did she wear one red glove and one black glove?
3. Why did Diana order Victor Edelstein’s dress?
4. What transition did Victor Edelstein’s dress mark in Diana’s life?
5. What was Diana very involved in after her divorce?
6. How many clothes did Diana sell at an auction of her clothes whose money was given to an AIDS charity?
The eyes of the world followed her and her fashion choices. Princess Diana style both reflected the time whilst influencing others. And now fans of Diana can see some of her most well-known outfits at an exhibition at her former home at Kensington Palace.
It’s in this room that we first meet Lady Diana Spencer when she's about to step onto that international stage so this room really reflects her early love of frills, ruffles, lace and she really enjoyed that sort of new romantic style.
The exhibition charts how her tastes developed and her style matured, featuring iconic dresses by eleven different designers.
This point in the exhibition really marks the moment where Diana became more confident and playful in her fashion choices. Famously in 1987 she made the daring choice to wear one red glove and one black glove with this dress on an official visit to Spain.
Victor Edelstein designed one of the princess’s best-known dresses. She wore it for that envy-making moment when John Travolta whisked her around the dance floor at the White House.
When she ordered it, I didn't know when she was going to wear it and I don’t suppose she did either. She just ordered it because she liked it and then, well obviously she wore it to go to the White House. I was talking to the curator at Hampton Court and she felt it marked the transition from her being rather more girlish to suddenly looking like a sophisticated woman, and perhaps that's true because obviously it's not a girl dress, so perhaps that also made it so noticeable and dancing with John Travolta helps.
As her marriage came to an end, Diana style became more pared down. This red dress by Catherine Walker among one of the most recognizable at the time.
Her whole life was changing. She was very involved in charity work and I think she wanted to communicate the fact that she wasn't just a clothes horse, a fashion sort of clothes horse. She actually was a working mother, she had a job to do and she was deeply committed to many of the charities that she was patron of.
Diana wore the final dress in the exhibition to the preview of an auction of her clothes. The proceeds went to an AIDS charity.
She sold 79 of her most famous gowns and the press widely reported that this was her closing a chapter on her royal life and style and embarking upon a new one.
Diana Fashion Story opens to the public on Friday with those memorable dresses remaining on display for the next two years.
Alison Freeman, BBC News.
KEY:
1 her time and the way she influenced others
2 during her official visit to Spain in 1987
3 because she liked it
4 from her looking girlish to looking like a sophisticated
woman
5 charity work
6 seventy-nine
