In 1981, as Britain was in the midst of a biting recession, Lady Diana Spencer married Prince Charles, while the world watched.
Elizabeth Emanuel, designer
"Until Diana's dress, wedding gowns had been uniformly the same: white, ankle-length, A-line, long-sleeved. We brought the wedding dress into high fashion. Diana was introduced to us by Vogue; she didn't yet have her own sense of style, but she loved the very theatrical, fairy-tale dresses we made. When she asked us to make her wedding dress, it was life-changing. She told us to be secretive, but there were no instructions from Buckingham Palace, no protocol.
There was so much speculation in the press after she wore a gown of ours to an official dinner, the Palace was forced to make an announcement through Reuters. The whole world went mad. There were photographers at the studio constantly and we had to take on security. We left false trails for the tabloids in the rubbish bins and we locked the dress in a trunk every night. We even made a spare dress in case our real design was leaked.
On the day itself we realised this wasn't just a wedding dress, it was a moment in history. We dressed her at Clarence House, with the bridesmaids and the Queen Mother. Diana was excited but very calm. There was a moment, waiting for the coach, when we all stood in total silence for what seemed like an age. Then she stepped into the carriage and the crowds went mad."
Nicky Haslam, interior designer and writer
"Princess Diana's wedding was extraordinary because it was a royal wedding. One thinks of watching the coronation on newsreels, there's this incredible formality to it, which doesn't exist now. It was certainly very traditional. There was a ball afterwards, given by the Queen, but Prince Charles and Princess Diana weren't there. In those days, the bride and groom left after their reception and went on honeymoon. To give a dance the night of your wedding was seen as incredibly bad form. The last thing you wanted was the bride getting reeling drunk so she couldn't consummate her marriage."
Bruce Oldfield, designer
"The Eighties was a showy decade. I made a dress for an Australian bride in 1984. We had three appointments and each time she said the sketches weren't quite right, until she finally said, 'You've missed the point. We want our guests to know we've spent an absolute bloody fortune and that this is Australia's royal wedding!'.
Even three or four years after Diana's fairy-princess dress, wedding gowns were changing to suit the times. This Australian bride wanted the full skirt, but also to be able to detach parts of the dress to reveal her very good figure; there were moves afoot to sex up wedding dresses."
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