As the dust settles from the 2024 Met Gala, the fashion fever takes one back to the most memorable moments from Met Gala history, one of which is Princess Diana’s appearance at the annual event in 1996.
Princess Diana’s striking appearance at the event was widely interpreted as her bold declaration of independence, marking a clear departure from the constraints of royal life.
“Diana was an icon because she was not afraid to experiment with fashion and her fashion choices, statement pieces, bold colours and sending messages through her clothing,” celebrity stylist and royal commentator Leroy Dawkins told Euronews Culture.
“A lot of her style was deliberate and done with purpose,” he added.
Princess Diana’s outfit during her one and only Met Gala appearance is seen as her bold declaration of independence after her divorce from Prince Charles
Image credits: Richard Corkery/NY Daily News via Getty Images
The Met Gala is known as fashion’s biggest night, and every year, the steps that lead up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art transform into a runway where celebrities showcase their fashion statements. In 1996, Princess Diana made one such statement shortly after divorcing Prince Charles, who became the UK’s monarch at the age of 73 last year.
The former royal couple, who are parents to Prince William and Prince Harry, had a famously contentious marriage that led to a messy separation. Months after their divorce was finalized in August 1996, Princess Diana donned the most un-royal outfit possible and showed the world that she was taking a stride into a new chapter in her life, free from the shackles of her royal life.
While she was married to Prince Charles, Lady Di’s outfit choices had to follow Kensington Palace’s typically buttoned-up fashion protocols. Although she deviated from these protocols while married to Prince Charles, her stark pivot from the fashion rules came when she wore the much-talked-about “revenge dress,” which she wore on June 29, 1994, for a gala at the Serpentine Gallery in London.
She dazzled and made a statement in the famous fitted, black, off-the-shoulder “revenge dress” on the same night Prince Charles confessed on national TV that he had an affair with now-wife Camilla Parker-Bowles during their marriage.
Following the “revenge dress,” Princess Diana managed to make a similar statement with her one and only Met Gala appearance in 1996.
The event’s theme that year honored Christian Dior, so Princess Diana picked an outfit designed by John Galliano, who had just accepted the role of head designer at the storied French fashion house at the time.
Lady Di wore a dress designed by John Galliano when she attended the Met Gala in 1996, just months before she died in the 1997 car crash in Paris
Image credits: Richard Corkery/NY Daily News via Getty Images
Diana went bra-free as her dress for the evening was a silk navy-blue slip dress, complemented with a matching silk robe and accessorized with sapphire earrings and a choker necklace.
Her look was “one hundred percent” a “revenge” look, according to Eloise Moran, author of The Lady Di Look Book: What Diana Was Trying to Tell Us Through Her Clothes.
“That was one of her most shocking dresses, and it got slated because they said it didn’t suit her figure because she obviously had quite broad shoulders,” Eloise told Yahoo! “But I thought she looked fabulous. She just looks so happy and confident.”
“I think she was embracing it and enjoying it,” the author went on to say. “She knew she could never get rid of the attention and the spotlight on her, but I think she was positioning it in a different way, as a kind of international megastar, Marilyn Monroe-type icon rather than a member of the royal family. And I think the dress really reflected that.”
Image credits: Julian Parker/UK Press via Getty Images
Royal biographer Katie Nicholl reportedly said she almost didn’t wear the dress for the event because she was afraid Prince William would be “embarrassed” by it.
“In fact, [she] very nearly didn’t wear the dress to New York’s Met Gala for fear Prince William, then 14, wouldn’t like it being so revealing,” a source was quoted by Express telling the Daily Mail.
On the day of the dazzling event, Princess Diana did indeed wear the dress and made her bold statement to the world just months before dying in the 1997 car crash in Paris.
Elizabeth Holmes, the author of HRH: So Many Thoughts on Royal Style, called Princess Diana a “master dresser” who would match her outfit choices “not just to what she was doing or who she was meeting, but how she was feeling.”
“I think Diana’s choices were screaming sometimes,” Holmes told Insider. “Diana delighted in clothes. Her story is filled with such highs and lows, but understanding her fashion, how she used it, found power in it, and reclaimed her voice is my favorite part of this book.”
