LONDON — Twenty-five years after the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, the world is still mourning and her legacy lives on in the hearts of the people, which earned her the moniker of “the People’s Princess” and an iconic place in popular culture, where she’s been documented, mused and gossiped over.
It was during the U.K. recession of 1981, when the country was in decline and the monarchy wasn’t winning any favors, that Prince Charles, 32, revealed that he would be taking Diana Spencer, 19, as his wife. The fascination with Diana had begun.
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The couple wed in a televised ceremony that drew in roughly 750 million viewers from 74 countries with an audience of 600,000 observers waiting outside the streets of London hoping to catch a glimpse of the future king and queen of England.
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“Here is the stuff of which fairy tales are made — the prince and princess on their wedding day. But fairy tales usually end at this point with the simple phrase ‘They lived happily ever after,’” said Robert Runcie, the archbishop of Canterbury, who officiated the wedding at St. Paul’s Cathedral.
In hindsight, the speech is tragically predictive of what came next for the couple’s turbulent relationship. In the chaos of being inside the firm, Diana was silenced, but her wardrobe and presence were plangently “wynorrific.”
Diana’s endurance in popular culture is different from when she first appeared on the scene. She’s remembered with sympathy and adoration as opposed to an egotist as branded by the British tabloids later in her marriage.
And she’s being experienced by a whole new generation that sees things differently — Diana is a muse for the social media age.
“She’s this totally unique figure in that she still comes up so often as a reference in so many different things, whether you’re talking about a trend for blazers or women being empowered and using their own voice,” said Bethan Holt, author of “The Queen: 70 years of Majestic Style” and “The Duchess of Cambridge: A Decade of Modern Royal Style.”
“There’s still so much about her as a figure that represents this kind of empowerment, this kind of using your voice and idea of a woman just going out there and standing her own ground against the world that still resonates so much today and feels so relevant and modern,” Holt added.
Diana’s visual language transmitted what she wanted the world to hear. Overnight she went from a nursery teacher’s assistant in a Liberty print shirt and yellow dungarees to a princess whose taffeta wedding dress by the Emanuels set the trend for brides everywhere in the ’80s.
“Her looks provide us with such a colorful insight into her life because they shifted each time she tried to find a new direction. They’re autobiographical in a way; they show us a determined quest for self-discovery and I think that is what makes her a true style icon,” said Eloise Moran, author of “The Lady Di Look Book: What Diana Was Trying to Tell Us Through Her Clothes.”
Her clothes became tokens of diplomacy on foreign tours, in which along with her charm restored hope in what the monarchy could stand for.
At a gala dinner at the White House in November 1985, Diana wore a velvet midnight blue off-the-shoulder evening gown by London designer Victor Edelstein that had the whole world talking as she danced with John Travolta. She rewore the dress in Germany in 1987 to the premiere of “Wall Street” and then for her last official royal portrait taken by Princess Margaret’s ex-husband, the Earl of Snowdon, in 1997. She kicked off a trend that would later be emulated by her daughter-in-law Kate Middleton.
“That moment was kind of the end of her as this frilly ’80s fairy-tale princess,” said Holt.
“She looked sleek and empowered. This was a moment when she was perhaps stepping beyond her status as a royal wife and becoming this global celebrity in her own right. I think that dress really foreshadows the ‘revenge dress’ which is often cited as her most important outfit, but I think she perhaps wouldn’t have worn that revenge dress without having had that Travolta dress before and the the kind of incredible power that came with her wearing a dress rather than a dress wearing her.”
By 1987, Diana’s fashion reinvention had begun. She was wearing more minimal designs that shed off the heavy fabrications of the ’80s and looks that veered from majorette to at times frumpy. Her Catherine Walker numbers became more bare and showed off her décolletage; she appeared on the cover of American Vogue’s December 1991 issue, and by 1992 the royal couple publicly announced they were separating, but still carrying out royal duties.
Her most famous ensemble in their separation was the night she attended the Serpentine Gallery in London in a black dress dress by Christina Stambolian as Prince Charles was addressing the nation in a TV documentary where he confessed to infidelity.
“It stood for so much then, and now, and in many ways was the antithesis of her wedding dress. The black chiffon mini train stood in great contrast to the 25-foot-long train of her wedding gown, signifying the end of her marriage and her liberation. I like to think of it as her divorce dress,” said Moran.
The revenge dress launched another Diana — one that was now completely in control of her own story. She kept a tight-knit social circle while attending charity galas and premieres in Versace and Dior, fashion houses that had never forged a relationship with British royalty, who before Diana in the post-Charles years tended to wave the Union Jack and wear U.K. designers.
The hunger for Diana has launched countless documentaries, biopics, theater productions, musicals, fashion collections and exhibitions.
The appetite for Diana-isms started circulating once again in 2016 when Netflix premiered British screenwriter Peter Morgan’s “The Crown” who also wrote the 2006 film “The Queen” starring Helen Mirren chronicling the aftermath of Diana’s death in 1997. Diana doesn’t make an appearance in the series until season four in 2020.
A year after Morgan’s critically acclaimed show, the late American designer Virgil Abloh presented his spring 2018 collection in Paris inspired by the princess. The birth of Diana Mania 2.0 began, one for the age of the internet that overshadows any resurgence the princess has endured in the past. She has remained one of the most famous women in the world.
“Her shadow is still cast across the royal family. Her sons are still very much part of the narrative and they’re referencing her and keeping the memory of her alive as well as all these kinds of TV shows and films,” explained Holt.