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Buy - Cycling Be strong when you are weak Be brave when you are scared poster, canvas

Buy - Cycling Be strong when you are weak Be brave when you are scared poster, canvas

Why Princess Diana’s Fashion Will Never Go Out of Style

Before the wedding that would make her the most celebrated princess on the planet, 19-year-old Lady Diana Spencer turned up to her fiancé’s polo match in a kitschy knit. It was the summer of 1981, and the world was enchanted by the soon-to-be wife of the future king of England. Over a ruffled blouse, Diana wore a bright red sweater covered in white sheep. She has a skeptical look about her in the pictures from that day, stuffing her hands in her pockets in one shot and hunched over in the passenger seat of a car in another. She was no doubt aware of the cameras, as the paparazzi had been hounding her for months. But on this day, or perhaps at that moment, she seemed unwilling to perform for them.

I had to look quite closely to spot the sweater’s prescient detail, which, in hindsight, is simultaneously subtle and screaming: that single black sheep tucked inside the white flock. It’s impossible to know what Diana meant when she wore it the first time. Was it a sign of hesitation about her upcoming nuptials? Or was it simply a young woman who thought a wool sweater covered in sheep was kinda funny? She looked so childlike and unsure of herself, with her long bangs nearly covering her eyes. Nothing about her suggests the sophistication or savvy one might expect from a woman who would become one of the most fashionable figures of the 20th century.

Fast-forward two years, when Diana turned up in the jumper at another of Charles’s polo matches, and it’s an entirely different story. Now a wife, mother, and international icon, Diana had evolved from naïve ingénue into savvy cover star. With the help of editors at British Vogue, she underwent a dramatic makeover and discovered the power and possibilities of fashion. She knew full well what life was like in the rigid royal fold, and all about her husband’s affair with Camilla Parker Bowles. The “black sheep” jumper, as it will forever be known, meant something much more. Just to punctuate the point, Diana wore it over a blouse with a black bow at the neck. The ribbon tails lead the eye directly down to the black sheep. You can’t miss it.


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