Princess Diana Almost Didn’t Wear Her Iconic Dress Because of Prince William
Princess Diana was one of the biggest style icons in the ’80s and ’90s. Even now, more than two decades after her death, people still try to duplicate some of her most iconic looks. The princess wore a few dresses that are forever etched in our minds. One was the black velvet gown (dubbed the Travolta dress) that she wore when she danced with the actor at a White House dinner in 1985. Another was her off-the-shoulder black “revenge dress” she donned the same night Prince Charles admitted to cheating on her in a tell-all documentary.
There’s also another dress she showed off at a big event that people certainly remember but that dress almost didn’t made it off the hanger because of Prince William. Here’s why Diana almost didn’t wear her blue slip dress.
When Diana wore the sexy slip dress
In 1994, the Princess of Wales sent tongues wagging when she showed up to a party hosted by Vanity Fair in what we have come to know as the “revenge dress.”
“We called that ‘The Revenge Dress’ [because] she wore that the same evening Prince Charles confessed to his adultery with Camilla,” Kerry Taylor, whose company auctioned off 10 of Diana’s dresses, told Womanmagazine.co.uk (per Readers Digest). “While some would have been like, ‘I can’t face it this evening,’ Diana went out in that dress looking drop-dead gorgeous. She made a big statement right there.”
Two years later, the princess made another huge statement when she appeared at the Met Gala in a sexy, lace-trimmed midnight blue slip dress by Christian Dior from John Galliano’s very first couture collection.
The event was held just a few months before Diana and Prince Charles’ divorce was finalized. But Diana almost didn’t wear the gown for a relatable reason.
The reason the princess almost didn’t wear it
As lovely as the dress was and as beautiful as Diana looked in it, she wasn’t sure she should wear it that evening because she didn’t want to embarrass her oldest son. Diana was worried about what a teenage Prince William would think of his mother wearing the lingerie-inspired number.
According to the Daily Mail noted, she thought it was “so racy, in fact, [she] very nearly didn’t wear the dress to New York’s Met Gala for fear Prince William, then 14, wouldn’t like it being so revealing.”
Prince William was upset about the media attention paid to his mother
Diana had been concerned about what her son thought because he had been upset at that time about the media circus that surrounded his mother prior to her divorce from his father.
The Sun noted that in the biography William and Harry, author Katie Nicholl spoke to William’s childhood friend Kitty Dimbleby who revealed, “I do remember William being distracted by what was going on at home… there was a lot in the newspapers about Charles and Diana’s marriage being in trouble. William told me, ‘Papa never embarrasses me but Mummy sometimes does.'”
It was reported that William was also pretty angry with his mother following her bombshell Panorama interview. Years later, the prince said that while he didn’t agree with her decision he had come to understand why she did it.
“I can understand having sometimes been in those situations, you feel incredibly desperate and it is very unfair that things are being said that are untrue,” the future king explained. “The easiest thing to do is just to say or go to the media yourself. Open that door. [But] once you’ve opened it you can never close it again.”
