Princess Diana’s Wedding Dress Designer Knew the Moment Diana Asked Her to Design Her Gown That Her Life Was \201cNever Going to Be the Same Again\201d

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published 30 May 2024

When Princess Diana—then Lady Diana Spencer—called the woman who would become her wedding dress designer, Elizabeth Emanuel, to ask her to do the honors for her July 29, 1981 wedding day to Prince Charles, the call came at an inconvenient time, Emanuel said.

Emanuel opened up to People about the fib she had to tell another client when Diana rang, asking if Emanuel and her then-husband, David, would design her now-iconic wedding gown. Speaking at People’s Styling Princess Diana panel, Emanuel said that she knew in that moment that her “life was going to change”—but first, she had to find an excuse to leave her client, who she was doing a fitting with when the call from Diana came.

Princess Diana on her 1981 wedding day — Diana's wedding dress remains one of the most iconic gowns of all time.

“The phone started to ring, and it rang and rang, and nobody was picking it up,” Emanuel said. “I said, ‘I’m so sorry, I’m just going to have to take this call.’ And it was Diana. And she said, ‘It’s me,’ you know? ‘Would you do me the honor of making my wedding dress? You can’t tell anybody about this, there’s not going to be an announcement, so you’ve got to keep it very secret.’”

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Of that moment, Emanuel recalled “It was such a special moment because I thought, ‘My life was going to change, David’s life—it’s never going to be the same again.’”

Naturally, Emanuel wanted to tell her team immediately, but she still had that other client there, waiting on her. She fumbled for the perfect excuse and finally came up with one: “My brother had a baby,” she fibbed.

Emanuel added during the panel that Diana didn’t “have any idea” about what she wanted when it came to a wedding dress. Emanuel said she did “lots and lots of sketches” and had Diana try on some ready-to-wear dresses, including one that became the template for the final product.

“A lot of it was trust, and she liked our style,” Emanuel said.

Elizabeth Emanuel — The Emanuels were personally selected by Lady Diana Spencer to design one of the most important dresses of her life.

Bringing the dress from 1981 to 2024, Emanuel revealed that she has plans to make a modern version of the iconic gown from 43 years ago. “I’m going to try and capture the spirit of the original but through my eyes now,” she told People. “I want to preserve all the sparkles and pearls, but with a completely different vision.”

Emanuel added of the sequel to the original gown that “It’s a really exciting thing because I often get asked, ‘Would you do the same dress again?’ Well, I wouldn’t change a thing on the dress in 1981, but if I was looking at it through my eyes now, there’s so many possibilities.”

Rachel Burchfield is a writer, editor, and podcaster whose primary interests are fashion and beauty, society and culture, and, most especially, the British Royal Family and other royal families around the world. She serves as Marie Claire’s Senior Celebrity and Royals Editor and has also contributed to publications like Allure, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle, People, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and W, among others. Before taking on her current role with Marie Claire, Rachel served as its Weekend Editor and later Royals Editor. She is the cohost of Podcast Royal, a show that was named a top five royal podcast by The New York Times. A voracious reader and lover of books, Rachel also hosts I’d Rather Be Reading, which spotlights the best current nonfiction books hitting the market and interviews the authors of them. Rachel frequently appears as a media commentator, and she or her work has appeared on outlets like NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s Good Morning America, CNN, and more.