00:00Welcome to this very special live recording of a Right Royal podcast here in the new ballroom of the Taj
00:0551 Hotel.
00:07We're in the heart of London, a stone's throw from Buckingham Palace and the King's official residence,
00:12and we're here to celebrate the life of the late Diana, Princess of Wales.
00:16We have three expert guests for you today to help us decode the real Diana,
00:21from her style and charitable work to the panorama documentary that changed the course of royal history.
00:26Our guests are royal author Ingrid Seward, fashion designer Jacques Azaguri,
00:32and investigative journalist and author Andy Webb.
00:35His thrilling book, Diana Rama, exposes the truth behind that infamous 1995 documentary.
00:42This is a special preview of the episode. You can get the full version by becoming a VIP member.
00:48Go to hellomagazine.com forward slash subscribe or click the link in our podcast description.
00:57Do you know she had a favourite of the many, many dresses that you created for her?
01:03I think the ones, particularly the famous five there, I think she considered them all her favourites.
01:13You know, that's why none of those went into the auction.
01:16She said, I love them too much, I can't part with them.
01:18And the only one that went into the auction was the very first one that, as I said, sold for
01:241.3.
01:25Let's talk about the famous five dresses.
01:27Yeah.
01:28Talk us through them.
01:30Okay.
01:31Well, the first one of the famous five would be the short red dress there that she wore for Venice.
01:37It was for the Tate, not the centenary, it was one of the Tate fundraisers in Venice.
01:48And of course, it was Venice, so it had to be red.
01:52And again, with that, she was being very naughty.
01:55We had, it had a zip right the way through the front there.
01:58So with the hemline already, you can see it had, it shot up.
02:04And also, she wanted to leave the zip undone to above them.
02:09So that we could see a little bit of the neighbour.
02:12And it was not happening.
02:14Do it in your own time, but that's not happening.
02:18And yeah, so that was, that was one of the first ones.
02:22And following on from that, there's a dress she wore the night of the famous Martin Bashir interview,
02:32which you'll be hearing about a bit later on this afternoon.
02:37She made the interview and she called me to the palace and she said,
02:44I've done this interview.
02:46She explained about it.
02:47She said, look, I haven't said anything bad.
02:48I'm just, I just want to tell things as they're happening and the way they are.
02:54And, but I'm going to be at a fundraiser, a cancer fundraiser that evening.
03:00And I need something great as my coming out.
03:06Because that's going to be going out, the interview is going to go out at the same time as she
03:11was stepping out.
03:12So I took three dresses, three black dresses, because I loved her in black.
03:16And of course, at that time, she was able to wear black because, as you know, the royals aren't supposed
03:21to wear black apart from mourning.
03:23So the minute she was able to, she wore as much black, if you notice, as possible.
03:28And so I took three dresses and straight away she knew which one it was.
03:32And it was a very, very simple dress.
03:35It was empire cut and from the empire downwards, it was just one layer of Georgette and one layer of
03:41Cretichine.
03:42So it was super light and it just skimmed her body.
03:45And the top was just embroidered lace.
03:50And again, the neckline was getting lower.
03:56And actually, she wore it again with Henry Kissinger in New York.
04:02And of course, all the pictures the following morning was Henry Kissinger like this, looking down at her cleavage.
04:10And yes, we had quite a laugh about that one.
04:14And so from there, we go towards, it's now 97, we go towards the last month, really.
04:26She was going to Washington and she went to the Red Cross Ball.
04:32And again, we chose red because she looked great in red as well.
04:37And she knew it was going to be a serious affair, but she also knew that there was going to
04:45be a party afterwards.
04:47So it was a question of how do we party it up a little bit.
04:51So what we did from, you can't tell from that picture, but from the back, the dress was cut right
04:55to the waist.
04:56And yeah, from the back, it was pretty naked.
05:00It was kind of business at the front, party at the back kind of dress.
05:03And so she, you know, she always played with things like that.
05:08I feel like she made you sweat a lot.
05:12It was enjoyable, actually.
05:14It was enjoyable.
05:15And then we had the little blue dress that she wore for Swan Lake, which again was sensational for her.
05:22At the time, she was, in my thoughts, peak condition.
05:26She was just very slightly bronze.
05:29I mean, look at her legs.
05:30Her legs were sensational.
05:32Everything about her, her posture, you know, all through that time, her posture was gradually straightening and straightening until she
05:40was really tall.
05:43And yeah, she absolutely loved that one.
05:46If I think there was going to be a favourite, that would be the one.
05:49Because, and of course, she knew that when she was going to come out of the car, the press was
05:55going to be there.
05:55So when she came out, because it was so short, so low, she came out and she had her handbag
06:00in front of her pleavage.
06:02And she came out sideways.
06:04So, you know, she knew very well what she was doing by that stage.
06:10So, yeah, she called me to tell me how much she enjoyed wearing it.
06:15And I knew her birthday was coming up a few weeks later.
06:19So, and I've never really gifted her anything proper, really, you know, flowers, chocolates, things like that.
06:26But no.
06:26So I thought I'm going to make her a long version of that because she loves that so much.
06:31So we had a beautiful chantilly lace, which was thousands and thousands of hand-embroidered sequins, beads, black.
06:40And I thought I'd make her a long version of that, which I did.
06:45And she ended up wearing it to the Tate centenary.
06:51And she was supposed to wear a dress, another dress that's even, but I think it's a thank you to
06:56me.
06:56She wore that.
06:57And she sent me a lovely letter saying how excited she was when she opened the parcel and saw the
07:02dress.
07:02And she was always writing, always writing, always sending cards and things.
07:09And that was the last sign that she was seen in one of my dresses.
07:14And literally a few days before she traveled, we did a last fitting for her on the dress she was
07:20supposed to wear when she was coming back from Paris.
07:23And that was for a big, I think it was a big Disney fundraiser premiere.
07:27So it was kind of really Hollywood.
07:29And it would have kind of knocked all those dresses out for six.
07:32You know, it was really sort of low, high slip, again, black beads with a big train.
07:37As I say, it was really super Hollywood red carpet.
07:41And yeah, sadly, she never got to wear it.
07:45Where is that dress now?
07:47It's in America.
07:48There's a woman called Renee Plant, who's a big, big collector of Diana Anything, basically.
08:01And that's who I ended up, because I was going to put all of those into auction.
08:06And I thought, oh, my God, they're going to go in different directions.
08:08Some is going to have one somewhere.
08:10And even though I would have got much, much more money putting them into auction, I sold them to her
08:16as a package because I wanted them to stay together, keep the legacy going.
08:21And she's got a few of the letters.
08:23She's got some of the patterns and the twirls that we actually fitted on Diana.
08:27So at the moment, it's not quite a museum yet.
08:31But I think on the 30th birthday, she's going to open up a physical museum to all the dresses.
08:36And she has hundreds of dresses, hundreds of pieces.
08:38Where does she live, this lady?
08:40We're in America.
08:41In Los Angeles.
08:42That's where the, yeah.
08:43And the dress, because it wasn't quite, because the straps would be the last things I would do on the
08:48dress.
08:49So we're waiting for the princess to come back to it.
08:52So they were just pinned.
08:55And when she bought it, I said, well, do you want me to finish?
08:58She said, no, no, no, just leave it pinned because that's part of the story.
09:02Wow.
09:03I feel the trip to LA coming on.
09:05I think we're all going to LA.
09:06Yeah, yeah, yeah.
09:10I think the other question I wanted to ask you was, did you ever speak to William and Harry about
09:16this collection when you were looking to?
09:19No, no.
09:20The only time I ever met them were when they were screaming kids running around the palace.
09:26And, you know, they'd come and say hello, be naughty, and then get kicked out.
09:30And then I would get on with the fitting.
09:32That was the only contact I had with them.
09:35To enjoy the rest of the episode, head to hellomagazine.com, forward slash subscribe, or click the link in our
09:42podcast description to become a VIP member and access this episode, along with a whole world of bonus royal content.
09:49We've had such a lovely time at the Taj 51.
09:52Thank you again to everyone who joined us in person, and we hope you'll join us for our next live
09:57event.
09:58We'll be back with another episode of Right Wall Podcast next week.
10:05Right Wall Podcast next week.
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