The last day the world’s most famous wedding dress was seen live was August 17, 2014 in Ohio, at the Cincinnati Museum Center. After years of speculation, there is finally a date to admire the bubbly creation signed by again Elizabeth and David Emanuel with which a young Diana made her entrance into history. The heirloom taffeta, lace, pearls and sequins will be the star of Royal Style in the Making, the exhibition set up in the Orangery of Kensington Palace in London from 3 June this year to 2 January 2022, created by Historic Royal Palaces in partnership with the court jewelers Garrard and with the contribution of Blavatnik Family Foundation.
Cincinnati was the last stop of a whirlwind World Tour that Charles Spencer, brother of the princess who died prematurely in 1997, had managed until 2014 alternating exhibitions (the exhibitions had the brand Diana: A Celebration) and visits to Althorp, the house where she was born and where she rests forever. Upon returning to the UK, the dress would definitely come into possession of William e Harry on September 15 of that year, on the day in which – according to the mother’s will – even the youngest of Diana’s children would have turned thirty.
It is precisely the two brothers who made the exhibition possible by lending the dress in a special year: not only does the event mark a sort of restart after the pandemic but on July 29 it will be forty years since the famous and unfortunate marriage between Carlo and Diana along with the fact that on July 1 the princess would have turned sixty. For the anniversary, in fact, the statue commissioned by William and Harry right in one of his favorite gardens within Kensington.
It is obvious that the organizers for the announcement have staked everything on their spearhead but the dress will be the icing on the cake of an exhibition that promises to be very greedy for fans of royal fashion. The theme around which it revolves Royal Style in the Making it is the relationship between tailors, couturiers and designers who have served three generations of women in the Windsor House over the course of the last century. In addition to the clothes, some pieces never seen before, coming from the archives of British fashion houses along with original sketches, fabric samples and unpublished photos collected by Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection which owns over 10 thousand articles of clothing and design history curated by the foundation Historic Royal Palaces.
“Our summer exhibition at Kensington Palace will highlight some of the greatest British design talents, whose work has been instrumental in shaping the visual identity of the royal family in the 20th century»Says the curator of the exhibition Matthew Storey “We will explore how the collaboration between each designer and client has worked, revealing the process behind the creation of a series of tailoring commissions that are among the most important in real history.”
Among these, a rare life-size prototype with hand-painted embroidery of the Queen Mother’s dress, Elizabeth, for the day of thecoronation of her husband George VI, made in 1937 by Queen Mary’s favorite seamstress, Madame Handley-Seymour. The silk dress with the golden national emblems was intended to embody continuity after the shock generated by the abdication of Edward VIII.
The number of dresses on display is still top secret but among the material that the organization has anticipated we can see a couple of sketches of Norman Hartnell, the designer who accompanied Elisabetta’s passage from princess to queen by taking care of the wedding dress with Filippo and the one for the coronation as well as the one that Princess Beatrice wore for the surprise wedding with Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi last July. The other design disclosed concerns a floral outfit with bright colors in shades of blue sported by Diana called caring dress, the dress dedicated to visits to hospitals or places of care, designed in 1988 by David Sassoon for Bellville Sassoon.
What perhaps the promoters still do not say is that along with these milestones of the royal style we could also admire the legendary Travolta dress. The midnight blue velvet dress Diana wore to dance in the White House with John Travolta in 1985 it was bought at auction by Historic Royal Palace in December 2019 for 220 thousand pounds and since last summer it is an undisputed attraction for visits to the palace where the princess lived until her death. Returning to the wedding dress, this is also a return to Kensington after almost 25 years: the dress was taken away in 1997 along with Diana’s personal items. Beyond what will be exposed, the appointment has the flavor of an exciting homecoming. For this alone, the exhibition will be worth the price of the ticket.
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