She calls him “the dress that never existed”. Elizabeth Emanuel, the British designer who created, together with her ex-husband David, the wedding dress for Lady Diana Spencer, had also designed a second, “spare” dress for the wedding of the century. The Princess of Wales, who married the future King Charles on 29 July 1981 in St. Paul's Cathedral in London, knew nothing about it, and today, finally, the designer revealed, in an interview with Peoplefor what reason Diana had been kept in the dark about this dress “spare”.
«None of us wanted to worry her. She was an absolute secret», explains Elizabeth Emanuel, who, now seventy years old, lives in London and continues to create high fashion. The royal family is and was very exposed, and the fear of some unexpected event did not seem so unfounded. «I was a bit neurotic and I thought: “What would happen if someone came in here and stole the dress, or if something spilled on it, or if there was a fire? So I thought, 'I'll make a spare dress.'”
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The design of the replacement dress was very different from that of Diana's iconic wedding dress, in particular the long train over seven and a half meters long was missing. The silk was white: nothing like “the rich ivory of which the royal wedding dress was made.” And her sleeves were closer to her arms, unlike the puffy ones on the dress the princess wore. The design was inspired by a pink dress that Emanuel had created for Diana, for a private ball he had attended a few days before the wedding.
But the replacement dress was never finished. «I thought: “If something happens, we will finish it and have it available”». Only recently, Elizabeth Emanuel decided to repackage it, analyzing old sketches and notes, for the Princess Diana Virtual Museum, California. “We never had a chance to see that dress on her, so we thought it would be cool to imagine.”
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Elizabeth Emanuel still remembers as if it were yesterday when, over 40 years ago, her atelier was an “oasis of peace” for the future princess in the hectic days preceding the day of the royal wedding. «She would go upstairs and chat with all the seamstresses. She loved browsing through the hanging items, because this was a whole new world for her.” And she remembers well her wedding day, when she and her ex-husband David helped Diana get dressed before she got into the carriage that was waiting for her. «We felt that the people outside were cheering. Everyone was happy and smiling. It truly was a fairytale wedding.”
Elizabeth's next goal is to achieve a modern reinterpretation of the original wedding dress of Princess Diana, which was recently exhibited at Kensington Palace. «I will try to capture the spirit of the original – but through my eyes now».
Source: Vanity Fair
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