The Diana Dresses
Diana’s Dresses come to Bath
May 2010
A special exhibition of ten dresses that
belonged to Diana, Princess of Wales will be on display at the Bath
& North East Somerset Council run Fashion Museum at the
Assembly Rooms from 17 July.
The dresses, which have been generously lent
to the Fashion Museum by their owner, Mrs Suzanne King, span the
brief 16 years that Diana was in the spotlight, as one of the most
famous women in the world and a style icon.
The exhibits include dresses worn during the
Royal tours of Canada and New Zealand in the early 1980s, evening
dresses by couturier Catherine Walker from almost ten years later
around 1990, and little black cocktail dresses by designers such as
Versace from the mid 1990s.
Manager of the Bath & North East Somerset
run Fashion Museum, Rosemary Harden said:
“The Council is thrilled to be able to offer
visitors to the Fashion Museum this summer a rare opportunity to
see dresses that belonged to Diana, Princess of Wales. She was one
of the most photographed women in the world, and it's great now
that visitors will be able to see the actual dresses which are
familiar to us from some of those hundreds and hundreds of images
of Diana published around the world during the 1980s and
1990s.”
One of the dresses on display in the
exhibition will be an entirely appropriate choice for the Fashion
Museum. This is the copy of an 1880s dress which Diana wore for a
turn-the-clock-back formal Klondike Party at Ford Edmonton, Alberta
during the State visit to Canada in 1983. The princess-line dress
in the palest pink silk has a swathed skirt detail and was designed
for Diana by historic costumier John Bright of Cosprop.
In the same year, there was a Royal tour of
Australia and New Zealand. During this visit Diana wore a
periwinkle blue long silk evening dress designed by Donald Campbell
to go to the ballet ‘Coppelia’.
The exhibition will also include a group of
dresses designed by Catherine Walker, the French born British
couturier who supplied many of Diana’s formal evening dresses in
the late 1980s and early 1990s, including an ice-blue pleated
chiffon dress with exquisite sequin embroidery.
The exhibition opens at the Fashion Museum on
Saturday 17 July 2010 and continues until 09 January 2011. The
Museum is open daily 10.30-5pm, exit 6pm. For more information
visit the website http://www.fashionmsueum.co.uk/
-Ends-
For more images contact:
Maggie Bone, Museums Publicity Officer, maggie_bone@bathnes.gov.uk
Tel: 01225 477736.