The Crown's fashion: the legacy of Princess Diana

hello my beautiful dubs if you can't tell from the way that i'm dressed in today's episode we're going to be talking about princess diana and her costume design in the fourth season of the netflix tv show the crown hopefully you all had enough time to binge it before this review but uh if you didn't there will be some spoilers in this analysis technically i don't even know if they can be called spoilers because the show is based on real life events but i know some people will be mad at me if i don't have a spoiler warning so here is your spoiler warning the crown spans the reign of queen elizabeth ii this fourth season takes place from 1977 to 1990. if you're into royal drama and british modern history then this series was made for you i was born in the 90s i didn't actually know that much about princess diana i kind of just knew her by name so being able to do research for this video and look into what she was actually all about was very fun the crown is actually very interesting in terms of fashion because it's based on real life events as i said before um whenever that happens there are challenges when it comes to costume design because of course the costume designer wants to take some creative liberties but they also have to make the show realistic and betray what the characters or people actually wore in real life and it's even more difficult because in an interview with helena bonham carter who plays princess margaret she revealed that uh the people in the royal family do not actually get to pick their outfits a lot of the times the buckingham palace staff actually picks outfits for them to reflect the mood of a given occasion so often times for royalty clothes are not necessarily a form of self-expression which is like the whole point of costume design the costume designer amy roberts did a very good job though despite these kinds of restrictions and luckily unlike most other royals princess diana has always taken liberties with her own clothing choices in this season she's dressed very vibrantly which expresses her character as well as accurately depicts how she expressed herself in real life throughout the 80s we see diana move from a very preppy toned-down youthful look when she's dating charles to quintessential 80s dress silhouettes and matching hats and blazers during her early motherhood years and by the end of the season she's donning chic late 80s slim fitted evening dresses and more streamlined styles roberts also said that they chose a color palette that the real diana would wear but put an emphasis on color that the royal family did not wear in the show such as reds blacks bright greens and bright purples to create a stronger visual distinction between her and them they custom designed and recreated her clothing using vintage fabrics and dyeing contemporary fabrics to resemble vintage fabrics but let's take a closer look when we first see diana she is dressed as a tree for a midsummer night's dream play this is allegedly the first time she meets charles but in reality she met charles at her family home when she was 16 and he was 29. because he was dating her older sister at the time the scene also reminded me a lot of baz luhrmann's romeo and juliet so maybe the scene is thematically alluding to the pair's naivety that ultimately led to a failing relationship when we see diana next she's wearing pastel yellow overalls a floral print blouse with a peter pan collar underneath and a yellow floral print cardigan on top this outfit is very youthful and is actually based on an outfit diana wore at a polo match in windsor great park in july 1981. i can understand why they chose this particular outfit for her at this point in the series because this is the second time that charles sees diana and at this point in the story he's pretty down because his mentor just passed away diana comes over to wish him well and even though charles was always devoted to camilla we get a glimpse of why he would ask diana to marry him she's very sweet looking conservatively dressed and has a sunny disposition emphasized by her yellow florals all these traits seem like they would be attractive to charles at this sad point in his life the violently mismatched patterns also emphasized the start of her fashion journey and when compared to the last episode's clothing we can definitely see how diana has transformed her style throughout the decade what diana wears in the first couple episodes can be described as following a sloan ranger aesthetic for those of you who've never heard of this term before it was first coined in 1975 by the editors of the british publication harpers and queen the term sloane ranger refers to a brand of upper middle class upper class people who embodied a particular preppy look the word sloan comes from sloane square which is an area of chelsea in london hallmarks of the look include luxury items such as pearl necklaces air maze scarves gucci loafers rings with family crests on them etc in 1982 ann barr and peter york published a book called the official sloan ranger handbook on the cover is a picture of princess diana inside there's an illustration of sloane ranger categories and one is called pearly princess the illustration looks very similar to what we see lady dye appear as on the season's first episodes so yes these first looks were a good representation of what diana actually wore in the late 70s early 80s but they also served to set up the story quite well they visually tell us exactly why the royal family would approve of her she looks well bred english conservative young and easily controllable she wears a lot of sweaters vests floral prints and ruffle collared blouses yeah and that sort of set that she moved in was very much into sort of neck things you know frilly here and little kind of cravat things and rather sort of they we hadn't hit the suits yet because the rest of the very high fashion world was in amongst the japanese at this point the dresses that she wears are either peasant style dresses a trend that was still spilling over from the 70s or princess gowns roberts chose a puff sleeve party dress for this scene when diana embarrasses herself not knowing the proper etiquette when it comes to greeting the woman of the royal family the dress is very out of place as well as being childish in comparison to other women's dresses to emphasize princess diana's awkwardness and naivety this dress she wears looks to be based on the dress she wears in auckland new zealand in 1983. i believe they had her wearing it when charles meets her for the first date because grain is the color of new beginnings she also wears green again on the second date we see her on with charles and green again when she's about to go to balmoral for the weekend to be tested by the family some of the looks they obviously recreated are diana's pink peruvian sweater that she wears at balmoral and the royal blue suit and white blouse that diana wore to announce her engagement her blue floral print dress that she wore to her last wedding rehearsal was also recreated along with of course the famous wedding dress the meringue wedding dress has a 25 foot train huge puffy sleeves and a voluminous skirt the dress actually came under criticism at the time especially because when diana first emerged from the carriage the dress was incredibly creased to be fair it is kind of hard to imagine how they could have stopped a 25-foot train into a carriage without it having some kind of creasing but nevertheless this dress sparked a huge fashion trend of big poofy sleeved wedding dresses exhibit a let's look at what ariel is wearing in disney's 1989 the little mermaid roberts actually got permission from david and elizabeth emanuel the original designers for the wedding gown she consulted with david emanuel on fabric choices which was silk taffeta and he also shared with her copies of the original designs with all that being said um despite these moves towards accuracy he encouraged her to really run with it have fun with it and not get too carried away over the small details the lace used in the gown was also recreated by the son of the lace maker of the original gown after diana and charles married in 1981 they went on an official royal tour through australia and new zealand in 1983. this is captured in the show roberts made 17 dresses for the tour even though diana actually brought 200 ensembles with her there's a lot of turmoil that occurred on this trip including a very heated argument between diana and charles and on the same honeymoon a photograph of her falls out of your diary and then later in the year i find your love letters page after page with a passion i'm not getting from you because you show no interest in me eventually charles says he loves diana because i love you liar i noticed that the dresses diana wears immediately after are these vibrant reds and pinks to indicate how she's in love with charles again too she wears this bright blue dress while they go dancing which was a bruce oldfield gown recreation frankie valli is singing and they look like they're really in love robert said that the shade of blue was recalling disney's 1950 cinderella to indicate this kind of fairy tale romance and youthfulness cinderella's dress as we know is not actually blue but i appreciate the sentiment the joy unfortunately did not last the show implies that charles became very resentful towards diana because she was getting a lot more public attention than he was whilst it's been a great personal victory for prince charles no one can deny it's the princess of wales who's truly captured the heart of a nation it's hard to prove he ever felt this way but uh he ended up neglecting her again and returning into the arms of camilla diana subsequently goes through another style transformation it corresponds nicely with her growth process in the show as she becomes more independent from charles but in real life ellery lin the curator of diana her fashion story and exhibit at kensington palace said that diana abandoned her romantic ruffles when she realized that they didn't look too good in press photographs the frills made her look cluttered and less respectable so she started going for slimmer sleek silhouettes it's also not a coincidence that as the 80s progressed these silhouettes were more on trend in general in episode 9 diana is shown wearing a purple and gold strapless chiffon gown and matching scarf for charles's birthday gala at the royal opera house it's a 180 from our princess c overflowing gowns this design looks to be clearly based on the katherine walker ensemble she wore the canned film festival in may 1987. it's definitely one of her most memorable looks so i don't blame the crew one bit for wanting to squeeze in an homage to this number because it doesn't really make any narrative sense to show her going to can in the actual show roberts said that director jessica hobbs so that she loved how the slightly strangled feeling of the scarf of the neck evokes diana's inner turmoil in the last episode at a dinner in manhattan she wears a gold embroidered and pearl embellished oyster satin evening dress with a matching bolero jacket this is another recreation of a victor edelstein ensemble that she wore to the brooklyn academy of music in 1989 though she also wore it before the elysee palace in paris in 1988. diana had a habit of repeating dresses for multiple occasions which i personally love similar to how the bold colors and patterns in her other dresses disguise her unhappiness the white dress distracts from what she's actually feeling he tells everyone i'm mad they treat me like i'm mad and i'm starting to feel mad why did i agree to this trip i'm going to fall flat on my face she's lonely and thinks she's going crazy but obviously with this dress on she appears confident and composed to the public her final look is a black dress with these dramatic tuxedo-like lapels this follows a pretty assertive conversation where prince philip threatens her to stay in the marriage i wouldn't do that why not let's just say i can't see it ending well for you i hope that isn't a threat sir i think she realizes in this moment that no one in this family is sticking out for her and her final look sets up a new rebellious diana for the 90s the choice for a black dress is actually very interesting of course black dresses have traditionally been associated with sophistication and maturity both of which represent diana pretty well at this point in the story but also arguably princess diana's most memorable look of all time is the revenge dress that she wore in 1994 following charles's public confession about his affair with camilla it's called the revenge dress because everyone expected her to be very upset and not want to make any public appearances following the confession however on the same evening the confession was released she showed up at a vanity fair party wearing a gorgeous shoulder bearing figure-hugging statement black dress she was planning to go to the party initially in a different dress because she thought the revenge dress was too daring but she made a last-minute switch after the confession the revenge dress is about not giving a damn about charles and the royal family it's about her knowing her worth it's about her showing to the world that she knows her worth it's about radiating confidence and independence similarly i think choosing to end the season with diana in a black dress is to set the precedent that from this point forward having lost the confidence in her family-in-law diana will give no [ __ ] and focus on herself of course it's a costuming decision to pick these specific dresses to go with these specific plot points in the story and my black dress interpretation could be an over dramatization of what actually happened in real life but what is real for sure is that diana wore all these show-stopping gowns in vibrant shades that would indicate a level of happiness to someone who only saw a pressed photo of her when in actuality she was suffering quite a lot one thing that i didn't really think about until i came across this vanity fair article that i'll link in the description um is that lynn the curator that i mentioned earlier said it is very surprising how little footage there exists of the princess actually speaking we all have a sense of what we think she was like and yet so much of it comes from still photographs and a large part of that idea is communicated through the different clothes that she wore lynn said that princess diana wore colorful clothes to look approachable and warm she didn't wear gloves because she liked to hold people's hands she would sometimes wear chunky jewelry so that children could play with it and she didn't wear hats to children's hospitals because she said you couldn't cuddle a child in a hat if she was visiting hospitals for the blind she would often wear velvet so she would feel warm and tactile diana was also very thoughtful when visiting other countries and she displayed this diplomacy through her fashion choices on a trip to saudi arabia she wore a dress adorned with gold falcons as a nod to the importance of falconry in the country's traditions it's unfortunate that the only tours they showed us for the australia tours and then the u.s tour very briefly because some of the outfits diana actually wore on her tours could have really told the audience more about her and her character and her passion for humanitarian work which is arguably what she's actually most known for she's immortalized as a 20th century style icon but what makes her different is that she actually used her wardrobe primarily as a communicating device by the 90s she didn't need the clothing to bring attention to her work anymore just before her death in 1997 she actually auctioned off 79 of her evening gowns to raise money for the royal marsden hospital cancer fund and the aids crisis trust forty two thousand forty five thousand at sixty thousand dollars are you all done then she ended up raising a three point two five million dollars which equates to about five point three million dollars in 2020 so this is the end of this video i hope you enjoyed it thank you all so much for watching as i said before i was born in the 90s i didn't really know anything about diana until i did some research for this video my mom of course was very excited about it when i told her i was gonna do this and hopefully if you're my age your mom is very excited about it too thank you all again i hope you all have a lovely rest of your day unless you're prince charles

Channel: Mina Le

Views: 315,141

Rating: 4.9835596 out of 5

Keywords: princess diana, the crown season 4, the crown, the crown netflix, lady diana, royal family, style analysis, fashion analysis, costume design, fashion review, style review, film review, netflix, emma corrin, lady di, fashion history, the crown fashion, josh o'connor

Id: 8SIk6uctfro

Length: 16min 23sec (983 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 18 2020