Princess Diana’s royal wedding dress made style history in 1981 when she married Prince Charles, raising the bar for bridal fashion in the decades to come.
The sight of the 20 year old walking down the aisle in the ivory Emanuels original remains one of the most notable royal moments of all time. The gown was painstakingly recreated for The Crown, with the designers giving the show’s costume team its original patterns.
Emma Corrin, who will be playing Princess Diana in the Netflix series, revealed to British Vogue, “The Emanuels, who designed the original, gave us the patterns, and then it was made for me.”
Fans of the show were given a glimpse of the dress in a new trailer, which drummed up excitement for The Crown’s upcoming fourth season on social media.
Set to premiere on November 15, the trailer featured a dramatic shot of the dress filmed from the back - featuring its dramatic 25 foot train as Corrin walked through Lancaster House.
The original puff sleeve dress was designed by former husband and wife team David and Elizabeth Emmanuel for Princess Diana’s 1981 wedding and is estimated to have cost £90,000.
Featuring 10,000 pearls, mother of pearl sequins, embroidery and frilled lace, the silk taffeta gown was paired with the Spencer tiara and a 153 yard veil - with hidden details including an 18 carat gold horseshoe charm for good luck.
The importance of the dress was not lost on Corrin or the rest of the show’s team. When she first walked out wearing the recreated dress while filming at Lancaster House, she recalled, “I walked out and everyone went completely silent. More than anything else I wear in the series, it’s so… It’s her.”
Corrin added that ten people were needed to help her put on the recreated gown, as it was “massive.”
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The fate of Princess Diana’s original wedding dress was previously revealed by Eleri Lynn, the former curator of Diana: Her Fashion Story.
The dress is not a part of the Royal Collection Trust and Lynn revealed that Princess Diana's sons Prince Harry and Prince William currently own it, as it is “part of the private collection of the Dukes of Sussex and Cambridge."