The glitterati descend on the Metropolitan Museum in New York tonight, the first Monday in May, for the world’s most spectacular fashion fundraiser.
Photographers will line the red carpet to photograph Hollywood stars, fashion icons and renowned designers as they attend the Met Gala, or Met Ball, as it is colloquially known, in extravagant outfits inspired by JG’s dystopian short story Ballard, The Garden of Time. .
The Gala is the highlight of New York’s social calendar and is often described as ‘fashion’s biggest night’.
Yet there will be no royal seal of approval this year – unlike the remarkable event almost thirty years ago, when a newly divorced Diana caused an absolute sensation.
John Galliano, Dior’s new designer, said Diana had deliberately removed the bustier from the inside of the dress. “It was a reflection of how she already felt,” he said. ‘Freed.’
Diana’s £10,000 midnight blue dress, trimmed with black lace and worn under a matching velvet opera gown, was the sensation of the evening. She is pictured here with magazine editor Liz Tilberis
Fashion commentator Hilary Alexander described it as “the most important dress since Liz Hurley wore her Versace with a safety pin.” The Daily Mail said it was more ‘Oh, Couture’ than ‘Haute Couture’
It was on December 9, 1996, four months after the divorce papers were signed and just eight months before her death, that Diana attended the gala, which launched a Christian Dior exhibition at the museum. It marked the 50th anniversary of the designer’s 1947 New Look.
She was invited to the event by Bernard Arnault, head of Dior, and flew in on Concorde to attend the event.
Diana arrived with good friend Liz Tilberis, the British editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar and chairwoman of the ball.
Diana’s £10,000 midnight blue dress, trimmed with black lace and worn under a matching velvet opera gown, evoked an old-world glamour.
It was also a fashion coup, as Diana was the first person to wear a dress by Dior’s new designer, the enfant terrible John Galliano, from his highly anticipated first haute couture show.
She paired it with her sapphire choker in a triple pearl necklace and her Lady Dior bag, originally called the ‘Chouchou’, and renamed in her honor.
She had received her first ‘Chouchou’ bag during a visit to Paris in 1995 from the then first lady, Madame Bernadette Chirac, and it became a firm favourite. The following year she ordered it in blue, ‘to match her eyes’.
Galliano and his team traveled from Paris to London three times for fittings. Their last visit was on November 28, the designer’s 35th birthday. He arrived at Kensington Palace to find that the princess had arranged for a cake and champagne.
But the dress evoked mixed feelings. Fashion editor Hilary Alexander described it as ‘the most important dress since Liz Hurley wore her Versace with a safety pin’.
“The whole idea of wearing a petticoat in public is new,” she wrote in the Daily Telegraph.
‘We’ve seen actresses and starlets wear underwear as outerwear, but when a princess does that at a formal occasion, that’s something different.
‘It’s a very sensual rather than overly sexy dress, and it’s a far cry from the more formal outfits she usually wears.
‘It represents a new kind of royal clothing. By wearing the dress on such an important occasion, she also pays a long-awaited tribute to Galliano.”
Fashion critic Brenda Polan, however, was not a fan: ‘It wasn’t so much haute couture as Oh! Couture,” she wrote in the Daily Mail.
‘The problem, and there’s no delicate way to put this, is that it looked like she had accidentally stepped out in her nightgown, which obviously meant she wasn’t wearing a bra.’
However, in a 2018 interview, Galliano revealed that it was Diana who had chosen to be provocative by removing the inner bustier. “It was a reflection of how she already felt,” he told Wall Street Journal Magazine.
‘Freed.’
Guests at the party of the year in New York included Anna Wintour, the British editor of American Vogue, designers Calvin Klein and Christian Lacroix, models Linda Evangelists, Christy Turlington and Iman and photographer Patrick Demarchelier.
Three thousand guests paid £150 for a ticket to the gala, while another 900 paid £650 for the gala dinner, hoping to catch a glimpse of the princess.
After drinking champagne and chatting with designers Vera Wang, Oscar de la Renta, Calvin Klein and Bill Blass, Diana sat between Tilberis and Galliano, dining on sea bass, veal and tarte tatin.
But she snuck out before midnight and flew back to the luxurious Carlyle Hotel in a stretch limousine as the dancing was due to start, missing the furore on the dance floor as guests smashed glasses and split champagne.
Diana was invited to the event by Bernard Arnault, right, head of Dior. From left: John Galliano, Liz Tilberis, Diana and Helene Mercier, wife of Arnault
The event turned out to be a swan song for both Diana and Liz: the princess died in a car accident on August 31, 1997 at the age of 36. Tilberis died two years later at the age of 51 from ovarian cancer.
“It was a zoo and I think maybe they didn’t want to let her go through it,” said Mica Traynor, a fashion designer. But I didn’t feel like she was really here. I only wanted to see her dance once, but I couldn’t.’
“People just wanted to look at her,” added debutante Crickett Richards. “They paid to see her, and for all intents and purposes she didn’t show up. It is a shame. She is so beautiful. I think she could have tried a little harder.”
However, Bianca Jagger said: ‘I don’t think she ever planned to stay long, but I know she had a good time. She looked beautiful.’
Regardless, the event proved to be a swan song for both Diana and Liz: the princess died in a car accident on August 31, 1997 at the age of 36, while Tilberis died of ovarian cancer two years later at the age of 51.