Princess Diana’s Wedding Dress Designer Finally Addresses This Long-Standing Rumor From Her Big Day

Rachel BurchfieldThu, July 30, 2026 at 12:20 PM UTC

6

Princess Diana on her July 29, 1981 royal wedding day.Credit: GettyThe Gist -

Princess Diana’s iconic wedding dress was designed by David and Elizabeth Emanuel, who were married at the time.

Diana married Prince Charles in a ceremony viewed by 750 million people worldwide on July 29, 1981.

Elizabeth finally addressed long-standing rumors that Diana spilled perfume all over the front of her wedding dress before she walked down the aisle.

One bit of lore from Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s royal wedding? That the soon-to-be Princess of Wales spilled perfume all over her wedding dress right before the ceremony began at St. Paul’s Cathedral.

The myth began after Diana’s makeup artist Barbara Daly told Rosalind Coward for her 2004 book Diana: The Portrait that “One thing that happened that Liz and David Emanuel [Diana’s wedding dress designers] never found out about was Diana saying, ‘I’ve just put my perfume on, and I’ve just spilled some on the front of the dress. They’ll kill me,’” (per People).

Princess Diana in her wedding dress.Credit: Getty

To hide the stain, Daly told Diana to tuck the front of her gown, and Diana can be seen holding and covering that part of her dress with her hands in various photos from the big day on July 29, 1981—exactly 45 years ago.

Now, in a new interview, Elizabeth Emanuel spoke to Us about the long-held myth, telling the outlet, “They say that, [but] I don’t know how true that is, because I didn’t see it.”

“But that is a story that’s been around,” she added. “I think Barbara Daly, the makeup artist, she may have seen that happen, but I don’t know. Thank God I wasn’t aware of that, because I would have panicked.”

Prince Charles and Princess Diana on their wedding day.Credit: Getty

Diana’s show-stopping wedding dress was an ivory silk taffeta and lace gown designed by Elizabeth and her then-husband, David. It featured over 10,000 pearls and sequins, a 25-foot train, voluminous puff sleeves, and even a hidden 18-karat gold horseshoe sewn into the fabric. It turns out that the Emanuels were ready for a potential stain on the dress, telling Us that they’d made “a spare top skirt” to go over the dress if need be.

“We made an overskirt that, if there had been a problem—like if she’d [spilt] anything down the front of her wedding dress, we would have slipped it over her head and nobody would have known any different,” Elizabeth said. “But we didn’t have to use that.”

Advertisement

Princess Diana on July 29, 1981.Credit: Getty

The Emanuels even had a “very secret” second wedding dress on hand in case her actual gown leaked before July 29. “We were aware that a lot of journalists were trying to find out what the design was like, and I found out much later on, many years later, that our seamstresses had been approached by the media who were happy to pay for information, but they were very loyal and wonderful,” Elizabeth said. “We were all like family together, so nobody told the secret.”

Diana’s iconic dress remains one of the most recognizable wedding gowns of all time, and early 1980s brides immediately wanted to copy Diana’s look for their own big day. “It always happens with royal brides,” Elizabeth told Us. “You get copies of their wedding dresses coming out. So that happened straight away with Diana’s dress.”

“She was just such a beautiful person with a beautiful soul, and very unique, and she met such a tragic end,” Elizabeth added of Diana’s death at just 36 years old in 1997. “The whole story, you know, is kind of quite poignant, really. We hold her very dear in our memories, really, because she was just so kind to all of us.”

Prince Charles and Princess Diana on their royal wedding day.Credit: Getty

Describing Diana as “always fun to be around,” Elizabeth said, “She put a lot of trust in us. She was very friendly and very natural, and she had a lot of patience because she had to stand very still for fittings, and she would always chat with all the ladies who were sewing her dress. She was lovely.”

“We obviously knew it was going to be very well covered by the media, but the reason it’s still of interest is because Diana wore it, and it’s inextricably linked to her story,” she added.

Elizabeth told British Vogue in 2020 that she and David wanted to make the dress “all about drama and making Diana a fairytale princess. “The gown was typical of early ‘80s style—overblown, romantic, flouncy—but we had to get it right because we knew it would go down in history.”

Princess Diana and Prince Charles on the Buckingham Palace balcony.Credit: Getty

After her death, Diana’s wedding dress was inherited by her sons, Prince William and Prince Harry. According to the Los Angeles Times, it remained in the care of Diana’s brother Charles Spencer until Harry turned 30 in 2014. It’s currently unknown where the dress is located.

on InStyle

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Entertainment”