Princess Diana’s death was a loss to the global luxury business

Most people went to the Jaipur Literary Festival in pursuit of literature.

Being an utter philistine I went for Princess Diana and Tina Brown instead. Neither was especially literary but they were much more

fun.

 

   Tina Brown is, of course, the most iconic magazine editor of our times. She re-invented the feature magazine genre with Vanity Fair, marrying long investigative articles of over 12,000 words with light pieces on movie stars with such skill that nobody regarded the pairing as at all odd. Tina also re-invented the New Yorker, giving it the form it now has. Currently, she is trying to do to the Internet what she did to magazines in her new role as editor of the Daily Beast.

 

   I would have loved to talk to Tina about magazines but because this was a literary festival we had to discuss books. So we talked about her best-selling biography of Princess Diana, The Diana Chronicles, which came out around two years ago.

 

   Our session was originally intended to be a niche affair but such was the interest in Diana and Tina that it was shifted to the festival’s largest venue and even then, it was standing room only.

 

   There are many reasons why Princess Diana continues to fascinate us and Tina has dealt with most of them in her enjoyable book. But the one that especially intrigues me is Diana’s impact on the luxury market.

 

   Before Princess Diana came along, the British royal family had nothing to do with luxury. The Queen’s clothes were made by such royal couturiers as Norman Hartnell and Hardy Amis. If she ever got her hair done, we were never told who the hairdresser was. Even today, it is whispered that the Queen’s dresses are made by a little German dressmaker who has a small workshop in London but the subject is rarely discussed.

 

   So it was with the men. We know that Prince Phillip and Prince Charles had their suits made for them at Saville Row. We know this for two reasons. One: many of the older establishments have royal warrants which they display prominently (‘by appointment to His Royal Highness…’). And two: because Prince Charles has joked about it. Asked why he had adopted his father’s habit of walking with his hands behind his back, Charles responded “It’s because we have the same tailor. His jackets are so uncomfortable that you can’t put your hands upfront.” I hope he was being facetious.

 

   European royalty on the other hand loves fashion and luxury. Princess Grace of Monaco even had a handbag named after her by Hermes. Her daughters became regulars at the Paris shows and a horde of more obscure European royals and aristos frequent the luxury salons on a regular basis.

 

   But because the British royal family seemed to be above commercially available luxury, it had an iconic status. The Duke of Windsor, for instance, gave his name to two fashion items. The first is the Prince of Wales check and the second is the Windsor knot, a complicated way of knotting ties.

 

   If you look at what the so-called preppy American designers have tried to do, it amounts, in essence, to mimicking the look of the British royal family. When Ralph Lauren makes preppy clothes, he is hoping to mimic the look Prince Charles so effortlessly achieves when he plays polo. When Calvin Klein goes to Saville Row to have his suits made (sensibly, he prefers them to those made under his own label) he is aiming for a Prince of Wales look.

 

   I have always believed that the true significance of Princess Diana is that she was the first British royal who broke the barrier and began to behave like a European aristo, frequenting designer shops and engaging with the luxury market.

 

   If you look at Princess Anne who was the leading young member of the British royal family before Diana got married, you will find that very little is known about her dresses or her handbags. Similarly, Princess Margaret, who in the Fifties and Sixties, was as glamorous as Diana was later to become, kept her style (and those who created it) entirely private. About all she let the world know was that she vacationed on the Caribbean island of Mustique but even there, she stayed with her friend Colin Tennant, not at a hotel.

 

"Diana had created a situation for herself (by rejecting the British government security) where she could only be safe (or so she thought) by hanging out with rich people who had private yachts, helicopters and bodyguards."

   All this breaks down the moment Diana arrives. Her wedding becomes an excuse for two designers (the Emmanuels) to brag about having designed her dress. Within a few years, she starts claiming to be an advertisement for the British fashion industry openly patronizing such designers as Bruce Oldfield, Caroline Charles and Jasper Conran.

 

   Within a decade, the pretence of doing it all for the Union Jack is dropped. When it is time to kit out the young Princess, she buys their clothes from Ralph Lauren. With that action, she destroys forever the barrier between designers and the royals. For years, Lauren has been trying to copy the royals. Now the royals wear his designs.

 

   Next, she starts hanging out with the trashier kind of Euro designer. She becomes a great pal of Gianni Versace never realizing how inappropriate the relationship is. When Versace features photographs of her in a book of his designs, she is shocked to discover that she shares space with naked models. She throws a fit.

 

   By the end, there is no difference between Princess Diana and Euro trash. She hangs out on the Riviera in a yacht belonging to Mohammad Al Fayed. She is photographed by the paparazzi and encourages them. She dates an Arab junkie playboy. In nearly every respect, she is no more than the average jet-setter. The mystique of royalty is dead.

 

   Or is it?

 

   I asked Tina what Princess Diana would have become if she had lived. Tina’s view was that while it was impossible to be certain about that, Diana had created a situation for herself (by rejecting the British government security) where she could only be safe (or so she thought) by hanging out with rich people who had private yachts, helicopters and bodyguards.

 

   So, to some extent, the Euro trash aspect was an inevitable consequence of her lifestyle. Of course, argued Tina, there was more to the Princess than just this one aspect. She had a deep commitment to social causes as her landmine campaign demonstrated. But yes, hanging out with rich people seemed like one way of ensuring a degree of privacy.

 

   I’m inclined to go along with Tina. If Princess Diana had lived, she would probably have dropped stupid but well-meaning Dodi Fayed but she would have hung out with other millionaires and billionaires. She would have been photographed again and again by Mario Testino and Herb Ritts for glossy magazine after glossy magazine. She would have hugged Donatella Versace after her fashion show. She would have blushed prettily when Hermes dedicated a handbag to her. And she would have become a brand ambassador for the global luxury business.

 

   It is instructive that, now that Diana is gone, it is back to business as usual for the royal family. We no longer hear about celebrity hairdressers going to the palace (as Sam McKnight would for Diana) to do the royal hair; there are no designers longing for royal patronage and we have no idea who does the clothes for any significant royal.

 

   So, while the world mourns Diana, I think the global luxury business should shed a special tear. Her death was their loss.