What Spencer gets wrong about Princess Diana

In the constant rewriting of history the life of Diana, Princess of Wales is undergoing more revisions than the Religious Freedom Bill. Following Emma Corrin in television staple The Crown and Jeanna de Wall in the ill-fated Diana, The Musical on Broadway, comes Kristen Stewart in the film-turned-fashion-festival Spencer.

For the majority of the movie, including a moody montage to rival Andy’s makeover in The Devil Wears Prada or Carrie’s closet farewell in the original Sex and the City movie, Stewart stumbles through a castle wearing an assortment of pieces created by Chanel.

With their perfect Parisienne cuts, restrained palette and fitted skirts, the costumes in Spencer present Diana as a fully formed fashion icon, but her status as a style leader was only beginning to take shape. For many it wasn’t until after the off-the-shoulder, black Christina Stambolian revenge dress in 1994, referred to in Diana, The Musical as “a f–kity, f–kity, f–kity, f–kity ‘f–k you’ dress!,” that the princess became a high fashion favourite.

“She had pretty clothes,” said former Vogue Australia editor Nancy Pilcher, who ran the magazine from 1989-2007. “We looked to her as a beautiful woman, but we weren’t trying to follow her fashion tracks.”

“What she wore was so British. We were looking to the French and the Italians. The labels she wore weren’t readily available here. Perhaps you could get your hands on some Bruce Oldfield, somewhere.”

Since her tragic death in 1997 we have had decades to edit Diana’s wardrobe, transforming her into a fashion princess on a pedestal, alongside Jackie Onassis and Audrey Hepburn. But during the punk-infused eighties Diana’s style rarely registered in Australia among a generation looking to Vivienne Westwood and Issey Miyake for inspiration.

“She was well known for being a fashion calamity at the start,” says Melbourne artist and renowned jeweller Kate Durham. “We were laughing. She was never a fashion leader. She was fashion led, eventually.”

In 1983 Durham formed the Melbourne-based Fashion Design Council alongside administrator Robert Buckingham and graphic artist Robert Pearce. “Diana was always wearing these dreadful little Dolly Varden hats,” Durham said, referring to a decorative style popular from 1869 to 1875. “Whoever was making those hats for her was particularly unkind.”