Pool RAT/REY/Gamma-Rapho via Getty;Netflix
Princess Diana’s iconic swimwear looks are making a comeback for a reason.
The casual attire she chose for her final summer while cruising through the Mediterranean on various sun-soaked vacations withPrince William,Prince Harryand new boyfriend Dodi Fayed was symbolic in more ways than one.
Gone were the fancy designer gowns (having literally just sold them in a high-profile auction at Christie’s in Manhattan earlier that year) and embracing a new phase in her life post-divorce fromPrince Charles, the summer of 1997 was a time of sartorial metamorphosis for the princess, as depicted in the opening episodes of season six ofThe Crown.
“If you look at the wedding dress, which is humongous and very over the top, and then you get to the revenge dress and then you strip it right back to the swimwear,” Sidonie Roberts, one of the show’s costume designers explains to PEOPLE. “There’s this sense of exposing and allowing yourself to unfold. There’s an actual unfolding. We said it [was] like the cocooned butterfly.”
Princess Diana in St Tropez on July 20, 2023.Lionel Cironneau/AP Photo
Lionel Cironneau/AP Photo
So iconic were the looks that Gottex recently launched alimited edition versionof Diana’s leopard print design, which the royal wore to try and steer the paparazzi gaze away from her children during her first trip to the South of France with the Al Fayed’s, in a scene recreated in the show. The “Diana” collection features two versions of the animal print design, with prices starting from $160.
Princess Diana in the Gottex leopard print swimsuit in the summer of 1997.Michel Dufour/WireImage
Michel Dufour/WireImage
In another scene from part one of the final season (part two premieres on Dec. 14), Diana is seen wearing a low-back Tiffany blue swimsuit, her back to the camera, re-creating one of the final and most poignant paparazzi images of Diana. Caught in a reflective moment, perched on the end of a diving board on Fayed’s yacht staring out into the endless ocean, it’s also the image Netflix chose for the cover.
“I really love the blue swimsuit that Diana wears when she walks out to the end of the diving board and sits down,” Debicki recently toldHarper’s Bazaar,adding; “There was just something about that swimsuit and recreating that moment that felt very sacred and important, and it was very important we got it right.”
According to Jacques Azagury, her go-to designer during the last decade of her life, the style transition we saw during those final months had been a long time coming.
“It was the time of the supermodel, and everyone was wearing more body-conscious dresses and she was super fit,” the Moroccan-born, London-based designer tells PEOPLE. “After the break-up of the marriage, she rediscovered herself and she turned into this unbelievably stunning woman, that’s when her personality really started to shine.”
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On whether he thinks the moments they shared nearly 40 years ago seem like a lifetime ago, he shakes his head: “No, it seems like it was yesterday because she is ever-present and still so prominent."
source: people.com
