By Pilar Tomás
London, Jun 3 (EFE).- The iconic dress and its seven- meter long sequin train has been loaned by Diana’s sons Prince William and Prince Harry for the exhibition that opens the doors to the royal family’s wardrobe.
The exhibition displays the creative process behind the gown and personal stories of those who contributed to the special day.
“We are trying to tell stories about all those different people that made the dress, including the women in the workshop and the security guards that guarded the dress over nights and sort of kept it all locked away because it was an absolutely secret,” curator of the exhibition Caterina Berni told Efe.
Designers Elizabeth and David Emanuel had struggled to keep the dress a secret until the wedding day, with journalists waiting outside the designers’ workshop at night to try and get a sneak peak of the dress.
But the designers managed to keep the dress a secret until July 29, 1981 when Diana and Prince Charles said ‘I do’ in London’s St. Paul Cathedral.
“They even had a spare dress ready to go, not yet finished but they could finish it within the day, just in case anyone let anything slip about the dress so they could finish that,” Berni said.
With the help of her mother, the Princess of Wales had chosen the final design of her wedding dress amid dozens of sketches, which are also being exhibited for the first time at the palace.
The sketches had been kept secret for decades after the wedding to prevent anyone from copying the techniques. The Royal Style in the Making exhibition, open from June 3 to January 2, 2022, displays the style of three generations of royal women and their relationship with their designers.
It will also display other garments designed for Diana like her famous pink dress and jacket ensemble designed by David Sassoon. The letters they exchanged with each other throughout the making are also exhibited. Some of the other iconic pieces rescued from the royal family’s wardrobe are a toile de Jouy of Queen Elizabeth II mother’s coronation dress in 1937 and a Georgian-style dress designed by Oliver Messel for Princess Margarita, Elizabeth II’s sister. EFE
Text and images courtesy of EFE
