The Diana Legacy

As a new exhibition showcases the late Princess of Wales’s wardrobe at Kensington Palace, Justine Picardie pays tribute to a royal style icon

 

I never knew Diana, but like millions of others who lived through her era, I saw the arc of her rise to fame, and witnessed the wild convulsion of grief that gripped the nation after her sudden death two decades ago. She and I were the same age, born within days of each other, and though our paths never crossed, I do know a few of those who were close to her; yet to me, she remains an elusive and enigmatic spirit. What is clear, however, as is evident in Patrick Demarchelier’s portraits of Diana that were published in Harper’s Bazaar both before and after her death, is that she was a great beauty. And she was also a beloved friend of the then editor of Bazaar Liz Tilberis, who had first met the young Princess in the mid 1980s.

At the time of their early encounters, Diana was deeply unhappy, suffering from the bulimia that had plagued her since her engagement to Prince Charles when she was just 19, and from the grief associated with a failing marriage. In her memorial tribute to the Princess, Tilberis wrote in Bazaar: “As Diana was going through some of the worst moments of her life, I was also hitting mine. When I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1993, Diana became the most loyal and cheering of friends. In spite of her own troubles over her separation and divorce, and all of her thousands of commitments to others, she’d call me constantly.” This kindness and compassion was also manifest in Diana’s warm and open-hearted approach to the homeless, people with AIDS, and those afflicted with diseases such as leprosy, which had pushed them beyond the margins of society. “How many of us even begin to show such generosity?” asked Tilberis. “Only now can we truly see how much she was on the side of the angels. A bright light has gone out of my life, and I feel the world has become a darker place without her.”