Elizabeth Emanuel poses with her recreated spare wedding dress for Princess Diana in London on March 7, 2024. LAUREN FLEISHMAN; HAIR & MAKEUP: GRAZIELLA CAWTHORNE VELLA.Photo:Lauren Fleishman
Lauren Fleishman
TheremakingofPrincess Diana’s backup wedding dress is part of a desire to “preserve history” that might have been lost if Elizabeth Emanuel hadn’t recreated it — that’s the view of the woman who commissioned the designer to make the gown and now has it for her museum.
Renae Plant, director and curator of thevirtual Princess Diana Museum, won’t say how much she paid for the recreated bridal gown, which Emanuel recently shipped to its new home in California.
“You cannot put a price tag on history,” Plant tells PEOPLE. “Preserving history is really important. It’s like pieces of art.”
Elizabeth Emanuel’s recreated Princess Diana backup wedding dress photographed in March 2024.Lauren Fleishman
Plant says “secrecy” was the underlying guiding principle at the time — and Emanuel wanted the alternative as a precautionary measure.
“It was there in case word got out about the first dress,” Plant explains. “Part of what is special too is that it hasn’t been seen in public, and now we get to preserve it and show it to the world.”
Plant, whose museum “weaves through Diana’s life from her childhood to her tragic passing,” is in a good position to assess where Emanuel — as well as the designer’s former partner and fellow Princess Diana wedding dress creator David — fit into the royal story.
She adds, “To be part of that special day is a huge honor, and they should both be so proud. And you can never take that away from them.”
Princess Diana and Prince Charles on their wedding day in July 1981; Elizabeth Emanuel.Jayne Fincher/Princess Diana Archive/Getty Images; Hoda Davaine-Dave Benett/Getty Images
Jayne Fincher/Princess Diana Archive/Getty Images; Hoda Davaine-Dave Benett/Getty Images
“It was very dramatic for that time,” Plant says of the pink gown. “It would be lost in history unless Elizabeth told that through her dressmaking.”
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Elizabeth Emanuel’s scrapbook of sketches and images of the making of Princess Diana’s dress in London on March 7, 2024.Lauren Fleishman
The virtual museum “weaves through Diana’s life from her childhood to her tragic passing” through clothing as well as capturing the “intricate parts, the letter writing and gift giving Diana used to do,” Plant adds.
For Emanuel, 70, her newly made dress brings back memories of her special client, Diana. She recalls the excitement — and intense pressure — that mounted in the run-up to the big day on July 29, 1981.
Diana, Emanuel says, found the designers' studio to be an “oasis of peace” away from the hubbub and excitement. “[Diana] would go upstairs and chat with all the seamstresses. She loved browsing through the rails because this was a new world for her.”
“I don’t think she’d been particularly into fashion before she met us,” the designer adds.
source: people.com
