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Princess Diana knew how to make a statement with her fashion choices, and after her divorce from Prince Charles, she was in a rebellious mood when it came to her statement wear. The 1996 Met Gala was no exception, Diana’s dress designer John Galliano revealed, noting that after having extensive meetings about what her lingerie-inspired slip dress was going to look like, she still made a drastic change to the dress just before the event.
“I remember one day we all jumped into this old van, and we went to London, where we met Princess Diana,” Galliano recalled in the new Hulu documentary, In Vogue: The ’90s. “It was like a blessing. I mean, wow.” The partnership was a fitting one, as Galliano had just taken over as the head of Christian Dior at the time, and because the theme of the 1996 Met Gala was to celebrate the work of Dior.
Galliano said that “went to Kensington Palace and discussed drawings” with Diana, but she was very opinionated about what she wanted out of the gown. “I was trying to push for pink, but she was not having it. ‘No, not pink!’ That was real, real fun,” he added, noting that the dress originally featured a corset detail.
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Getty
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By the time Diana graced the gala, the corset was gone from the dress entirely. “Fast-forward to the event, and I just remember her getting out of the car,” the designer explained, noting that he was shocked by the major change. “I couldn’t believe it. She’d ripped the corset out.”
“She didn’t want to wear the corset,” Galliano continued, saying that he thinks Diana must have “felt so liberated” months after her divorce from Charles that “she’d torn the corset out.” The change was for the better, too—”The dress was much more sensuous. The cameras went mental. The paparazzi was blinding, which made the dress really bling and the jewels and everything.”
Galliano wasn’t the only person in the docuseries who spoke fondly of Diana—Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour sweetly added, “I think all of us were so captivated and fascinated by Princess Diana. At that time, she was the most famous woman in the world. She was enjoying fashion and the spotlight that she put on particularly British designers.”
