Princess Diana Started the Butter Yellow Trend at Wimbledon 30 Years Ago

The Gist

• Long before Kate Middleton took the mantle, Princess Diana was a Wimbledon style icon.

• The former Princess of Wales first attended the iconic tennis tournament in 1981, just weeks before her royal wedding to Prince Charles, and last attended in 1995, just two years before her death.

• For that final Wimbledon appearance 30 years ago, Diana wore butter yellow before butter yellow became the it shade, and paired it with standout Chanel jewelry that guaranteed she’d be noticed in the Royal Box.

On July 9, 1995—30 years ago today—Princess Diana had just turned 34 years old. That is far too young to have any “lasts.” But, on that Sunday, the Princess of Wales would attend what would ultimately become her last Wimbledon after being a stylish spectator at the iconic tennis tournament since 1981, the year she married into the royal family. Sitting in the royal box in butter yellow, she would have no idea that her summers were limited—only two left to go before her life was snuffed out in a Paris car crash on August 31, 1997.

But rather than focus on her death, Diana was living her best life at Wimbledon on that day. For 14 years, Diana’s fashion had defined Wimbledon chic, and this was no exception. While there is no official dress code for guests—save for the men being asked to wear a jacket and tie if they’re in the Royal Box, and the women being asked to avoid wearing hats so the people behind them could clearly see the tennis happening on the court below—the unspoken dress code is dress well, especially if you’re at Centre Court like Diana was that day. “The fashion stakes are high,” Vogue succinctly put it.

That day, Diana left behind the polka dots and the oversized power shoulders of the 1980s for a pastel yellow skirt suit, fashion-forward sunglasses, and statement gold and pearl earrings from Chanel. That day, she took in the men’s final between Boris Becker and Pete Sampras in a look representative of her fashion evolution, not just at Wimbledon, but as a woman.

At previous Wimbledon appearances, she was often joined in the Royal Box by loved ones: Her son, Prince William, the year before; her mother, Frances Shand Kydd; her sister-in-law and friend Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York; and friends like Catherine Soames. However, in 1995, she chatted with Queen Elizabeth’s first cousin, the Prince of Kent. Sometimes Diana’s Wimbledon appearances fell on her birthday, July 1, and the crowd would sing to her, but this time, she presented the men’s singles trophy to Pete Sampras. Following his victory over Boris Becker, the tennis star—though he was the champion of the day—bowed in the direction of the Princess of Wales, according to The New York Times.

Diana loved Wimbledon, by all appearances, and exuberantly took in matches each year she attended, animatedly applauding and giving the signature Wimbledon facial expressions that her daughter-in-law, Kate Middleton, now displays at the yearly event (she’s attended every Wimbledon of her royal career save for 2013, when she was heavily pregnant with Prince George).

In July 1995, Diana had been separated from Prince Charles for over two years; they’d finally finalized their divorce the next summer, in 1996. Their separation in 1992 was a demarcation point for her style: as Rosie Hart, author of The Royal Wardrobe, put it (via The Independent), “Going into the ‘90s, the Princess of Wales was under no illusion that her marriage was the fairytale it had initially been framed as. Consequently, the frothy, fairytale elements of her wardrobe, inspired by the traditional looks of the more senior royals, began to disappear.”

More structured and tailored looks—like her 1995 Wimbledon suit—became the new norm. Diana, always a fan of butter yellow long before it became the It color of 2025, brought the look out 30 years earlier in keeping with royal tradition (bright colors were Queen Elizabeth’s go-to at public events). Kate, too, has adopted yellow at Wimbledon, and, like her mother-in-law before her, can tell a fashion story through her clothes.

“It is very surprising how little footage there exists of the princess [Diana] actually speaking,” Eleri Lynn, curator of the Kensington Palace exhibit “Diana: Her Fashion Story,” told Vanity Fair, comparing Diana’s style to “an Audrey Hepburn or Jackie Kennedy, a fashion icon whose style is so emulated and so loved, really.”

“We all have a sense of what we think she was like, and yet so much of it comes from still photographs, and a large part of that [idea] is communicated through the different clothes that she wore,” Lynn continued, pointing to Diana’s affinity for “Cheerful, colorful clothes because she wanted to convey approachability and warmth.”

Lynn added that Diana “did clearly have fun with fashion, and she took risks…and experimented with her style.” By this point in her fashion journey, Diana “had really sort of transcended fashion and achieved an incredible chic and elegance,” Lynn said, to the point that “all you saw was her, and the clothes became secondary to her own presence and her work.”

In the more modern era, Diana’s style still resonates. Designers like Tory Burch and Virgil Abloh have created looks inspired by her; Hailey Bieber—one of the most fashion-forward of today’s It Girls—once said Diana is someone “I’ve looked to for style inspiration for as long as I can remember.”

Especially at events like Wimbledon, Diana “spoke to the world so much through what she decided to wear,” Jessica Hobbs, who directed two of the Diana-focused episodes of Netflix’s The Crown’s fourth season, told The Los Angeles Times. “In my generation, she was such a fundamental leader in the way that you could present yourself as a woman, and I loved her for that.”

The current Princess of Wales is expected to attend the end of the tournament in mid-July. In Diana’s absence, though, Kate carries forward many style tips and tricks from the mother-in-law she never knew, who no doubt would be cheering along with Kate just as enthusiastically if time had afforded her more chances to be at the tournament that doubles as a royal fashion show.

Only Kate knows if this is on purpose, but when she attended Wimbledon on July 9, 2022—exactly 27 years to the day after Diana’s final appearance in 1995—she, too, wore yellow, in a continuation of Wimbledon style that Diana was the first to popularize.

Read the original article on InStyle