The night that bra-free Diana stormed New York's Met Gala in a Dior 'nightie' - ... trends now
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 be lining the red carpet to snap Hollywood stars, fashion icons and renowned designers, as they attend the Met Gala, or Met Ball, as it is known colloquially, in extravagant outfits inspired by JG Ballard's dystopian short story, The Garden of Time.
The Gala is the highlight of New York’s social calendar, frequently described as ‘fashion’s biggest night’.
Yet there will be no Royal seal of approval this year - unlike the remarkable occasion almost three decades ago, when a newly divorced Diana caused an absolute sensation.
John Galliano, Dior's new designer, said that Diana had deliberately removed the interior bustier from the dress ‘It was a reflection of how she was already feeling,’ he said. 'Liberated.'
Diana’s £10,000 midnight blue dress, trimmed with black lace and worn underneath a matching velvet opera coat was the sensation of the night. 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 safety-pinned Versace.’ The Daily Mail said it was more 'Oh, Couture' than 'Haute Couture'
It was on December 9, 1996, four months after the divorce papers had been 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 had been invited to the event by Bernard Arnault, head of Dior, and flew in on Concorde, to attend the event.
Diana was pictured arriving with close 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 underneath a matching velvet opera coat evoked a louche turn-of-the-century glamour.
It was also a fashion coup, as Diana she was the first person to wear a gown by Dior’s new designer, the enfant terrible John Galliano, from his highly anticipated first haute couture show.
She teamed it with her sapphire choker set in a triple strand of pearls and her Lady Dior bag, originally called the ‘Chouchou’, and renamed in her honour.
She had been given her first ‘Chouchou’ bag on a 1995 visit to Paris by the then-first lady, Madame Bernadette Chirac, and it became a firm favourite. She ordered it in blue the following year to ‘match her eyes’.
Galliano and his team travelled from Paris to London three times for fittings, making their last visit on November 28, the designer's 35th birthday. He arrived at
