The Prince of Wales and his new fiancée, Lady Diana Spencer, arrive at Goldsmith Hall in London for a charity recital, March 9, 1981.
Lady Diana Spencer, 19, arrived at her first official event since the announcement of her engagement to Charles, the Prince of Wales, wearing a black Emanuel evening gown and her mother’s diamond necklace. Charles, 33, had scolded Diana for wearing black, a color the Royal Family reserved for somber occasions.
Lady Diana Spencer wowed the world with this black taffeta strapless dress worn to accompany Prince Charles to Goldsmiths’ Hall in London on March 9, 1981. She stepped out of their car and into a sea of flashbulbs as photographers jockeyed for position to photograph the alluring princess-to-be.
Diana was noticeably uncomfortable in her little black dress and told Princess Grace of Monaco, also in attendance, that the dress she was wearing was two sizes too small.
Lady Diana, Princess Grace of Monaco, and Prince Charles mingle at a music event, London, 1981. photo credit: Tim Graham, HBO.
Princess Grace, who had been the Oscar-winning American actress Grace Kelly before her 1956 marriage to Rainier III, Prince of Monaco, knew just how Diana was feeling.
Grace Kelly from the 1954 Hitchcock thriller, “Dial M for Murder.”
Grace had also been an outsider when she married into the House of Grimaldi, the reigning house of Monaco since 1297. Princess Grace pulled Lady Diana aside and they excused themselves into the ladies’ room for private chat. Diana expressed her fears for the future and her feeling of awkwardness in her new role. Grace, who had been royal now for 25 years, patted Diana’s cheeks tenderly and replied:
Don’t worry, it’ll only get worse.
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The images of the future royal bride stepping out of a limousine in a black gown with a plunging neckline made newspaper headlines round the world and established Diana as the most glamorous member of the royal family. Dress designer Elizabeth Emanuel said of Diana’s appearance that night: “The transformation was incredible. She arrived looking like the nursery school teacher she was, but now she looked like a movie star. We gave her the dress, made a little shawl to go with it so she could cover up on the night and away she went….We hadn’t considered the fact that when Diana bent over – as she would have to do when getting out of the car – she would show quite a lot of cleavage. We just thought she looked fabulous.” (1)
Her low-cut outfit apparently raised eyebrows among the royal inner circle too, as she recollected: “I was quite big-chested then and they all got frightfully excited.” Diana continued: “It was a horrendous occasion… I didn’t know whether to go out of the door first. I didn’t know whether your handbag should be in your left or right hand. I was terrified, really ‒ at the time everything was all over the place. I remember that evening so well. I was terrified ‒ nearly sick.” (2)
∞
Eighteen months later, Princess Grace suffered a stroke behind the wheel of her car, and died in a horrific car crash in Monaco. Prince Charles did not understand why Princess Diana was so hellbent on attending Grace’s funeral; he did not understand that she felt a connection to the late Princess, that their lives were parallel. He was against it so Diana appealed to Queen Elizabeth, her mother-in-law, who granted her request. Diana attended the funeral, which was held at the Cathedral of Our Lady Immaculate in Monaco-Ville on September 18, 1982.
Princess Diana represented Queen Elizabeth II at the funeral of Princess Grace of Monaco, 1982.
(1) MSPMint, “Lady Diana Spencer Accompanies Prince Charles to Goldsmiths’ Hall in that ‘LBD’…Little Black Dress,” The Princess Diana News Blog.
(2) Morton, Andrew. Diana: Her True Story ‒ In Her Own Words, excerpted in Harpers’ Bazaar.
Readers, for more on this blog on Grace Kelly, click here.
Readers, for more on this blog on Princess Diana, click here.
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