- Royal wedding dressmaker Chloe Savage told Insider that Princess Diana’s dress had a big problem.
- Savage, who worked on Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle’s dresses, said Diana’s dress “looked like it needed to be ironed”.
- Diana’s dress, designed by Elizabeth and David Emanuel, was destroyed when she took the carriage to the church on her wedding day.
- Visit the Insider home page for more stories.
When it comes to real wedding dresses, you could say that Chloe Savage is a bit of an expert. After all, she worked on Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle’s dresses for her big days.
The only wedding dress more famous than her show stop dresses was the one worn by her late mother-in-law, Princess Diana, when she married Prince Charles in 1981. But Savage told Insider that there was a big problem with the iconic set.
“It was a beautiful dress, but someone should have told you that it was going to be stuffed into the carriage!” Savage said to Insider with a laugh. “It felt like it needed to be pressed.”
Princess Diana’s wedding dress was designed by the couple Elizabeth and David Emanuel. It featured a 25-foot-long train, which had to be placed in a carriage while Diana headed for St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.
Princess Diana and Prince Charles were married on July 29, 1981.
David Levenson / Getty Images
Savage, who now runs Chloe Savage Embroidery, told Insider that she was shocked that they didn’t have a ship on hand.
“You could have brushed it before she walked down the hall. It would take 10 minutes and all the creases would have fallen off,” said Savage.
“It was a beautiful dress, very ’80s, a lot of it,” she added. “But if you look at it, you’re going, ‘Oh my God, is that a creased one?’ It would never have occurred to anyone who would have screwed up so much. ”
Princess Diana’s ride to the cathedral was rehearsed before the big day, but there was a crucial mistake
Princess Diana drove to St. Paul’s on her wedding day.
Princess Diana Archive / Getty Images
In Elizabeth Holmes’ book, “HRH: so many thoughts about royal style,” Elizabeth Emanuel revealed that they expected Diana to travel alone in the carriage.
But Earl Spencer, Diana’s father, joined her in the carriage that day – which meant there was less space for her dress.
Emanuel said that they tried to carefully fold Princess Diana’s dress and tail “as if you folded a sheet”, but it was not enough to prevent the ivory silk dress from becoming too rumpled.
Princess Diana enters St. Paul’s Cathedral at the hands of her father, Earl Spencer, on her wedding day.
Anwar Hussein / Getty Images
Elizabeth Emanuel was “horrified” when she saw Princess Diana stepping out of the wedding carriage
“We knew it would wrinkle a little, but when I saw her arrive at St. Paul’s and saw the crease, I actually felt dizzy,” she said during an appearance at ITV’s “Invitation to a Royal Wedding” in 2018.
“I was horrified, really, because there were many creases,” she added. “It was much more than we thought.”
Diana also poured perfume on her wedding dress just before entering the altar.
David Levenson / Getty Images
Creasing wasn’t the only problem on Diana’s wedding day
The Princess of Wales also poured perfume on her dress just before entering the altar, according to InStyle.
Barbara Daly, Diana’s makeup artist, tried to clean up the mess, but the Houbigant Paris Quelques Fleurs perfume still left a big stain on her dress. Daly said he told Diana to hold her dress close to the stained area to try to cover it.
Although everything about her wedding dress did not go according to plan, Diana still had time to personally thank her designers.
David Emanuel recently told Hello magazine that Diana called him before leaving for her honeymoon to say how much she loved the dress.
Princess Diana personally called the designers to say how much she and Prince Charles loved her dress.
Keystone / Hulton Archive / Getty Images
“After all the photos, they came in to have their wedding breakfast and I went back to my studio in Mayfair. All my working ladies were there, so we had a glass of champagne,” he recalled.
“We had a little party and when I’m almost closing the phone, the phone rings … I thought who’s calling? It was Diana! She said ‘I just wanted to thank you so much for the dress. I loved Prince Charles loved it. The whole family loved it “, continued Emanuel.
“It couldn’t have been more special for me to listen to the customer,” he added. “When you design for a bride, you want her to be happy. As long as the bride is happy, that’s all that matters. The fact that she took a long time before she went on her honeymoon … that’s genuine kindness.”
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