3:39 p.m. - 2006-10-16
A dress for Diana
Monday, October 16, 2006
Currently Reading
A Dress for Diana
By David Emanuel, Elizabeth Emanuel
A ROYAL STORY...
HRH PRINCESS OF WALES.
I just finished reading a very interesting book entitled A DRESS FOR DIANA. It is written by the designers of her wedding dress and many other dresses she wore during her life
time. The designers are David and Elizabeth Emanuel.
They graduated from the Royal College of Art in London as the first married couple to be accepted into the school. This young designing team decided to go directly into business without first working for a well known designer label. They had an extremely small place above a florist. It was near a few well known designing studios. They planned to use the same collection they had created for graduation as the first items for sale.
They were occasionally asked by some of the trendy shops in the area to make gowns for famous customers. One of the first was Bianca Jagger, who was always in the spotlight as a jet setter and went to clubs every night. When she was spotted at the party for Princess Margaret, all the newspapers said she was in a gown by DIOR. (It was one Emanuel had designed and made.)
Several times, in London, when Vogue was in need of extra gowns for the magazine or for famous customers; they got them from Emanuel.
They were becoming known in the area as creating the "emanuel look" with lots of lace, ruffles and a very romantic feel to their clothing.
When Princess Diana was being photographed by Vogue, Emanuel was asked to send over some clothes. Princess Diana picked this blouse which was pale white with a crinkle effect and a pale pink bow. Lord Snowdon, Princess Margaret's husband, took a photograph.
After the official engagement was announced, Princess Diana wanted to have a special dress for the engagement party and wanted to be seen as more than a young girl. Emanuel designed the black silk taffeta ballgown. It was low cut with a ruffle at the neckline, full skirt.
By the time the engagement was announced, Diana and her mother wanted Emanuel to design the wedding dress, the bridesmaids, flower girls and her mother's outfits.
This was a huge commission not to mention a big security undertaking. Emanuel had 1 special seamtress and a few others trusted people who all worked together to create THE ROYAL WEDDING DRESS.
The designs, material, lace, and any other pieces of information were locked up in a safe every night. The Emanuel group would occasionally throw out bits and pieces of various colored silks, lace and even thread because the media was digging through the trash trying to find out what the final design would be. Once the media thought the dress was going to be pink!
The team showed Diana and her mother about 30 various designs and they finally settled on two designs which were nearly the same. They made up a toile which is the mock-up of the dress out of a muslin-like material. As the engagement went on, Diana was losing weight. The team made up several sizes of the toile until they finally had it perfect.
THEN, specially commissioned silk was ready to be cut. Emanuel wanted the dress to be made entirely of British materials. All the well known companies were contacting
Emanuel to be part of the work.
There is a Royal School of Needlework in London which has pieces of lace used by all the Royals. They provided a few small pieces of lace which Queen Mary had commissioned.
This was sent to a special lacemaker to be copied for all the lace on the wedding dress, attendants dresses and umbrella. Yes, they even made an umbrella out of the silk and lace in case of rain on the wedding day. THE ORIGINAL QUEEN MARY LACE WAS USED ON THE BODICE OF THE WEDDING DRESS. What a piece of history!
Princess Diana had an old painting of a little victorian girl dressed in a white lace dress with a pale yellow sash and a flower basket. (I have a copy of this painting - how odd!)
This was used as a design idea for the bridemaids, and flower girls. The final dresses were very much like the wedding dress in design but with pale yellow sashes and a little flower basket.
Emanuel not only made an umbrella and a tiny purse, the wedding slippers were designed to go with the dress. They were covered in silk to match, sequins to match and the same lace. They had a tiny heel because Diana was so tall. The shoemaker, Clive Shilton, also made a miniature pair as a gift to Princess Diana. Emanuel also made a second skirt for the wedding dress in case the original got soiled during the day.
Madame Tussauds contacted Emanuel during the process of completing the dress and requested a duplicate dress to be displayed the day after the wedding and Buckingham Palace also wanted it for the "tourism effect".
So they made another but did not make the same length of the train because there would not be enough room to display it.
Emanuel had researched and discovered the longest train at St Paul's Cathedral previous to this wedding was 23 feet. He made sure Princess Diana's train was 25 feet long!
Emanuel also measured the width of the aisle so the train would not touch anything as the Princess walked down the aisle.
When the wedding day finally arrived, Emanuel helped everyone dress and then put the Princess into the carriage. Her father was a rather large man and the seats were very small. They managed to fold and wrap the train, veil, and dress. However, when the carriage arrived and the princess was stepping out; the dress appears wrinkled.
After she was out, the dress was put in place and the wrinkles came out. The effect of seeing her step out and the dress and train just continuing to emerge from the carriage was a spectacular sight.
this was a British news article.
Diana's Wedding Dress Set a Trend for Meringue Styles
The Princess supported many British designers beginning with Elizabeth and David Emanuel who designed her much criticized puff ball meringue wedding dress in 1981. The beautiful dress was based on a romantic look of huge puffed sleeves with a full skirt of ivory silk pure taffeta, old lace and hand embroidery incorporating 10,000 pearls and sequins.
The dress had a twenty five foot train and when the princess emerged from the carriage at the cathedral the world saw how creased the dress appeared. The creases soon dropped out, but the fabric and construction method used was criticized worldwide. David Emanuel complained in a TV interview that the carriage was far too small for both Diana and her robustly built father along with her full skirted dress, hence the inevitable creases. I think he was probably right - no fabric deserves to be treated that way.
Another news article....
On July 29th 1981, Lady Diana Spencer married HRH Prince of Wales at St. Paul�s Cathedral. It was a beautiful summer day and the Cathedral was packed with family, friends and important dignitaries from all over the world.
It was a moment for national celebration and the event was simply referred to as the Royal Wedding. People lined the streets of the capital to witness the occasion and parties were held all over the country.
The Princess was then 20 years old and she later described the day as one of the happiest of her life. It is estimated that over 1 billion people worldwide watched the wedding on television.
From this moment the Princess became an international figure, photographed and documented wherever she went.
Traditionally, royal events are marked by members of the royal family waving to the crowds from the balcony of Buckingham Palace and the wedding was no exception as the wedding party made their way to greet the unprecedented crowd which had gathered below.
The wedding party eventually left the balcony, leaving just the bride and groom. There was an enormous roar of appreciation from the crowd below as Prince Charles kissed his new bride.
The fascination with Diana and her life as the Peoples' Princess had begun.
************************************
and another article....
A sketch by designer Elizabeth Emanuel of Diana, Princess of Wales�s wedding dress raised �10,000 (�14,700) at a charity auction, organisers said today.
Bhs entrepreneur Philip Green bought the sketch last night at the Designs of the Times auction in the newly-reopened Planet Hollywood restaurant in central London.
As well as the sketch, the lot included fabric samples and two photographs of the dress, which featured huge puffed sleeves with a full skirt of ivory silk pure taffeta, old lace and hand embroidery.
It incorporated 10,000 pearls and sequins and had a 25ft train.
The auction of sketches, designs and memorabilia raised a total of �310,000 (�457,000) for children�s charities Norwood and Delmelza House.
In this week's news.......
An exact copy of Princess Diana's 1981 wedding dress has sold for �100,000 at an auction.
The replica of the ivory silk dress - worn at fittings by the late British princess - was made by designers David and Elizabeth Emanuel, after being commissioned by waxwork museum Madame Tussauds.
****(EMANUEL SAID THIS DRESS WAS NEVER WORN BY THE PRINCESS AND WAS DESIGNED ON A WAX MANNIQUIN FOR MADAME TUSSANDS.)****
The dress went on sale in North London after being the property of the museum
for more than 20 years.
The beautiful creation sold for twice its reserve price of �50,000 to a mystery telephone bidder at the Proud Gallery.
Auction house boss John Collins said the dress, which has a 40m silk taffeta train, was "a real collector's item".
However, the decision to sell the gown has outraged its designer Elizabeth Emanuel.
Emanuel has accused Madame Tussauds of trying to profit from "a small piece
of history". She is quoted in Britain's Daily Mail newspaper as saying: "In the run-up to the wedding, we were asked by Diana's office if we could make a copy of the dress
for Madame Tussauds.
"We only charged Tussauds a nominal fee, just a few thousand pounds to cover the cost of the materials. To find out that they are now flogging our work is astounding.
"The princess hoped it would be a small piece of history that would be put on display for the world to enjoy. It's like they are selling off the family silver.
"Why can't they just donate it to a museum? I'm sure there are others that would appreciate it."
A spokesperson for Madame Tussauds, famous for its lifelike wax models of celebrities, has defended the decision to auction the dress.
The representative said: "The dress was displayed for a year after Diana's wedding and was one of our most popular attractions, but since then it has only been taken out of the archives twice. It is just gathering dust."
Diana's original dress is on display at her childhood home, Althorp.
Unfortunately, this fairy tale did not end happily.....
Sudden Death of Diana
The Princess of Wales, Diana died in a car crash in Paris on 31st August 1997, aged 36, one year after her final divorce settlement from Charles, Prince of Wales.
She would have been 40 in July 2001 and some say died young enough to only be recalled as a great beauty of her era rather than an ageing royal outsider.
