Princess Diana's wedding gown to be displayed for the first time in decades
Princess Diana fans will get the chance to see her iconic wedding dress in real life 40 years after she wore it down the aisle thanks to a new fashion exhibition opening at Kensington Palace this summer.
Historic Royal Palaces curators made an announcement on Monday that Prince William and Prince Harry have given their permission to their late mother's gown included as the centrepiece of a new temporary exhibition called Royal Style in the Making opening on June 3 in the Orangery of Kensington Palace.
This is the first time the gown will be on display since the Princess was in residence.
The show will shed light on the relationship between designers and their royal clientele throughout the years.
Other items included in the exhibition will be never-before-seen historical pieces such as a rare surviving toile for the 1937 coronation gown of the Queen Mother.
“Our summer exhibition at Kensington Palace will shine a spotlight on some of the greatest talents of British design, whose work has been instrumental in shaping the visual identity of the royal family across the twentieth century,” Matthew Storey, the exhibition curator at Historic Royal Palaces, said in a statement. “We'll be exploring how the partnership between each designer and client worked, and revealing the process behind the creation of a number of the most important couture commissions in royal history. While one of the highlights will undoubtedly be Diana, Princess of Wales's show-stopping Emanuel designed wedding dress, which goes on show at the palace for the first time in 25 years – we've got some real surprises up our sleeve for fashion fans!”
One of the designers behind Princess Diana's gown, Elizabeth Emanuel, told People that getting to visit her creation at the exhibition, “will be like seeing an old friend after all these years. I was looking at the images again today and I can't believe how many sequins we sewed onto the dress. This is going to be a wonderful exhibition.”
The wedding dress came complete with the longest train in royal history measuring at 25 feet and covered in sequins.
The exhibition will also kick off a number of commemorative events in honour of what would have been Diana’s 60th birthday.