Until now, Princess Diana’s wedding dress is still one of the most famous fashion items in history, and even people born years after she walked down the aisle can recognise it.
When the 20-year-old bride stepped out of her carriage and walked up the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral, the world was in awe of her statement dress.
The stunning ivory silk taffeta and antique lace gown featured more than 10,000 pearls and a long train.
However, there was one person who wasn’t happy when she saw the dress on the wedding day – the woman who designed it.
Elizabeth Emanuel and her husband spent months creating the royal wedding dress, going to extreme lengths to ensure the design remained secret.
Speaking during ITV’s Invitation to the Royal Wedding, Elizabeth admitted being horrified when she saw how creased Diana’s dress had become.
She said: “We did know it would crease a bit but when I saw her arrive at St Paul’s and we saw the creasing I actually felt faint. I was horrified, really, because it was quite a lot of creasing. It was a lot more than we thought.”
They had done a dress rehearsal but using a different material, and it wasn’t anywhere near as bad.
But she now says that looking back, that moment was actually her favourite shot of the Princess in the dress, comparing it to a caterpillar coming out of a cocoon and becoming a butterfly.
As well as the famous dress, David and Elizabeth created a second, back up dress in case the main one was leaked.
David told People : “At the time we wanted to make absolutely sure that the dress was a surprise. We didn’t try it on Diana. We never even discussed it. We wanted to make sure that we had something there; it was for our own peace of mind, really.”
So Diana never even saw the second dress which was made from the same fabric as the first and also featured ruffles around the neck.
The secret dress was a lot less lavish than the original version, lacking the antique lace and 10,000 mother-of-pearl sequins as well as the 25-foot train.
It was also never completed as it wasn’t needed in the end.
As Diana was 5ft 10, exactly the same height as Charles, she decided to wear low-heeled shoes on her wedding day so she wasn’t taller than him.
