When talking about world’s most expensive dresses, the gown of Princess Diana designed by Victor Edelstein is found within the top ten list. What makes that dress more interesting is the story that backs its creation. Let’s have a look at the story behind Princess Diana’s “the famous dress” below –
It was in the early November 1985, when Prince of Wales, Charles along with his wife Princess Diana travelled to the United States for a 4 days visit. During this tour the princess carried her dark blue evening gown packed carefully in her luggage. And this dress ended up making her appearance special during the journey.
The dark blue gown was an off-the-shoulder velvet dress tailored by Victor Edelstein, a London based designer who was one of the favorite designers of Princess Diana at that time. Originally, the dress was in burgundy red color but Diana wanted Victor Edelstein to tailor a copy for her in her favorite colour i.e. midnight blue. As Edelstein recalls – Prince Charles was extremely pleased with the result at the final fitting in Kensington Palace and said that the dress could be “wonderfully combined with jewels.”
On the first evening of their state visit, Prince Charles and Princess Diana were invited to a White House Gala Dinner hosted by the then-President, Ronald Reagan and his wife Nancy. And the other invited guests in the dinner were icons from the business world, politics and Hollywood such as Clint Eastwood and John Travolta.
However, John Travolta later in an interview confesses that he was completely surprised for being invited to the event. But the reason behind his invitation was something extremely special! The First Lady, Nancy took him aside and asked him to fulfill the big wish of the Princess of Wales i.e. to dance with her as the princess was a huge fan of Travolta and his dance skills he displayed in his movies like Saturday Night Fever (1977) and Grease (1978).
Keeping the request as a honour John Travolta danced with the Princess in the East Room of the White House to the beats of the Bee Gee’s song ‘You Should Be Dancing’ from Saturday Night Fever. After which the dancing photos of the Princess and Travolta became most famous from the entire trip. The 10 minutes dance immensely boosted the fame of Diana in the United States and John Travolta was also got benefited professionally as it took off his stalled career to new heights.
Later, Princess Diana wore this gorgeous blue dress on several official occasions that included the state visits to Bonn and Vienna. Also, she wore the dress in her last official portrait taken in 1997 by the court photographer and brother-in-law of the Queen, the Earl of Snowdon. Later she sold the dress in a charity auction at Christie’s and after two months i.e. on August 31, 1997 she died in a car crash in Paris.
Want to know more about Princess Diana and her life? Then you must visit The Princess Diana Museum once.
Source: https://www.barnebys.com/blog/princess-dianas-legendary-dress-to-be-auctioned
Conclusion:
Discover the several personal belongings of Princess Diana preserved in one place i.e. The Princess Diana Museum. You can also find many of her iconic dresses designed by Victor Edelstein here. Know more at https://www.theprincessandtheplatypus.org/
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