Princess Diana's never-before-seen backup wedding gown
The designer of Princess Diana's iconic wedding gown has revealed the details of a secret second dress that has never seen the light of day.
In an exclusive interview with Hello! magazine, British designer Elizabeth Emmanuel revealed that she had planned for the worst in the lead up to the royal nuptials in 1981 by creating a backup dress.
When Princess Diana married King Charles at St Paul’s Cathedral, she wore the now iconic voluptuous custom gown with a 25-foot train and 10,000 mother-of-pearl sequin and pearl embellishments.
However, this gown may not have been the one debuted on the red-carpet aisle if news of it leaked before the big day.
“The spare wedding gown was made just in case the secret of the real dress ever got out,” Emmanuel proclaimed. “Fortunately, it was never used.”
Emmanuel drew inspiration from the 20-year-old’s initial design for the “spare,” pointing to a similar V-cut neckline adorned with a ruffle trim, puffy sleeves, and massive skirt in the never-before-seen sketch.
The substitute was “pale ivory silk taffeta with embroidered scalloped details on the hem and sleeves” and detailed with delicate pearls along a tight-fitting bodice.
To see the stunning draft design of the spare gown, click here.
In the lead up to the wedding, strict security measures were put in place to prevent anyone from seeing the dresses before Diana walked down the aisle.
“We had the dress stored every night in a metal cabinet guarded by two guards, Jim and Bert,” Elizabeth noted. “So there was somebody there 24 hours a day and we put shutters on all our windows, and we put false color threads in the rubbish bins because people were going through our bins.”
Elizabeth, now 70-years-old, lost track of the alternate gown, which the Princess of Wales never actually tried on.
Just before what would have been the royal pair’s 42nd wedding anniversary, Elizabeth told Hello!, “I don’t know where it went. It just disappeared.”
However, when Princess Diana tragically died, her original gown was left to both Prince William and Prince Harry, as the historic garment now rests in Kensington Palace.
Image credits: Getty Images