Not Every Fashion Designer Wanted Princess Diana in Their Clothes

• Long before she was the fashion icon that she is today, Lady Diana Spencer was a teenager that epitomized the “Sloane Ranger” aesthetic of the early 1980s.

• Designer Vivienne Westwood had long been critical of the monarchy in general, and her brand thought the future queen in their clothes would ruin its credibility, according to a new book about Diana.

• Eventually, Westwood was named a Dame by Queen Elizabeth in 2006, and she accepted the prestigious award in person.

Princess Diana is remembered now as a generational style icon whose style still resonates nearly 30 years after her untimely death. But when the late Princess of Wales was still Lady Diana Spencer—before she married Prince Charles on July 29, 1981—she was looked at skeptically by some fashion houses.

As Edward White wrote about in his new book Dianaworld: An Obsession (which came out April 29), a representative of one well-known fashion brand said the young Diana “ruined” its “credibility” by shopping there (via Marie Claire). Long before Diana was a fashion icon, she was dubbed “a dreary fashion victim,” according to the pages of Dianaworld.

“Despite her twenty-first century reputation as a style icon, during Diana’s lifetime it was far from universally acknowledged that she had a flair for dressing,” White wrote in the book. It’s hard to believe today, but there were times Diana appeared “on the worst-dressed lists compiled by the fashion critic Richard Blackwell,” White continued.

Before her marriage, Diana was known for being a representative of the “ultimate Sloane Ranger look,” which White called “a backward-looking aesthetic” worn by upper-middle or upper-class Londoners of a certain set, according to Marie Claire.

At the time, fashion designer Vivienne Westwood co-owned a London boutique called World’s End with Malcolm McLaren, who was a former manager of the band the Sex Pistols. In 1981—the same year Diana became engaged to and married Charles, and the same year she turned 20 years old—Westwood’s “Pirate” collection went on sale, and a then 19-year-old Diana Spencer came calling.

“A terrible thing happened,” McLaren said (per White’s book). “We opened the store and Diana Spencer came in; she was the first customer.” McLaren said he thought “Oh my God, we’re ruined!” and recalled thinking, “I’ve lost all credibility.”

For someone who once managed the Sex Pistols—the epitome of 1970s punk—the epitome of the Sloane Rangers wearing the collection caused McLaren to think Diana helped the clothes get “into the wrong hands,” the opposite of the demographic they were trying to attract.

White’s book detailed that “every would-be, wannabe Diana Spencer on the Fulham Road” now purchased Westwood’s new collection because the future queen did. “Neither McLaren nor Westwood thought Diana in the least bit stylish,” White wrote. “Just a dreary fashion victim.”

Westwood later told Woman and Home that the former Princess of Wales was “someone ruled by the trends,” and White wrote that Westwood really detested “those horrible little pumps” Diana wore “that are neither one thing nor the other.”

“It’s as though her clothes are supposed to tell you that she’s both a feminist and sexy at the same time,” Westwood continued—but, in White’s summation, “this was precisely what [Diana] was dressing to say.”

Beyond just Diana—who Westwood met face-to-face in 1991—the designer had a complex relationship with the larger royal family over the years—after all, they were all about tradition, and Westwood pushed boundaries. Before her death in 2022—the same year as Queen Elizabeth—Westwood was given the prestigious Order of the British Empire (OBE) award by the Queen in 1992 to honor Westwood’s contributions to British fashion, and Westwood turned up to accept the award at Buckingham Palace. In 2006, 14 years later, Westwood was further recognized by becoming a Dame, and in 2011, Princess Eugenie wore Vivienne Westwood to the royal wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton that April 29.

Read the original article on InStyle