Living well is the best punishment, or so the saying goes.
For, punishment took the form of an off-the-shoulder, form-fitting, silk clothing that made history when she wore it 30 years ago today.
Diana slipped on the tiny black range designed by Christina Stambolian to take her own message on the day he admitted to having an affair with Camilla.
Diana wore the Punishment Dress for her presence at a glitzy funding dining at the Serpentine Gallery after Charles revealed his evil to the reporter during a TV meeting.
Charles’s discussion was greatly significant. Having been asked if he had been’faithful and honourable’, the future King said ‘yes’, before adding: ‘ Until ( the marriage ) became irretrievably broken down, us both having tried. ‘
However, Diana’s “response” was made even more powerful by her decision of outfit, which the princes had reserved for mourning.
In her 2007 publication The Diana Chronicles, royalist Tina Brown also described it as her” f***-you dress,” and media at the time were allayed.
The Mail reported: ‘ Charles blusters as Diana impresses’.
Valentino had leaked that the Princess may be wearing one of his designs, so Dancing just wore Stambolian’s outfit that day.
A dress that had been sitting in her attire gathering dust for three years was made in the final-minute swap, which resulted in one of the most popular in history.
She had bought the gown for £900 from Stambolian’s store after lunching with her brother Charles Spencer at her favorite restaurant, the now-closed San Lorenzo, before wandering down Beauchamp Place in Knightsbridge and walking into Stambolian’s purchase.
Christina Stambolian remembered Princess Diana asking for a ‘special clothing for a special occasion’ in her business up in 1991, according to Claudia Joseph’s text, Diana: A Career in Dresses.
Previous patron saint Samolian recalled how Diana immediately wished for the bold design and preferred it in product rather than black.
She said: ‘We sat down, and I drew a several pictures on a piece of paper.’
‘The gown was revealing, very little and showed quite a bit of leg and body. Diana was unsure of it. She thought it was a little risqué. She desired a longer, longer throat, and more of a protected front.’
‘I told her she had great arms, and she should present them. “Why not be brave?” I said. She asked her brother [Charles] and he said: “Do what you think is right.” Lastly, she said “yes” to the design then we moved on to the color.
‘I had dark in my mind, but she wanted milk. Diana seemed to me to be a person of color. In the pale pinks and blues with a lot of beading, I didn’t like her.’
It took two tailors more than 60 hours to create the dress.
The Stambolian claimed she was “thrilled to see Diana wear it that day of all night.”
Referencing Swan Lake- one of Princess Diana’s favorite plays- Mr Stambolian added: ‘She chose not to play the field like Odette, stupid in light. She was evidently upset.’
She played Odile in dark, like Odile. She wore shiny red nail teeth, which we had not seen her do before. She was saying: “This be wicked evening.”
The dress had an irregular hem and a flattering, large tail that dangled from the wrapped waist.
Diana paired the dress with absolute tights, stilettos, and her precious pearl and crystal choker, which made a playful sweetheart neckline.
The Queen Mother had previously given her a brooch, which she kept.
Diana’s little black dress was brave in many ways.
The Princess was breaking the traditional script of dress by choosing to have a shorter night look in dark, a color the Royal Family normally reserved for mourning.
The attire represented her relationship ending, as she transitioned from her previous role as a royal and became a woman.
Three years prior, the lady had been too anxious to use it because it was “to daring,” but that day it was the perfect fit.
Any other aristocratic lady would not have worn it to a public occasion.
In Search of Happiness writer Mark Saunders, a photographer and writer of Dicing with Di, recalled the scene from the 1997 film Diana: In Search of Happiness: “Everyone remembers the night of the Dimbleby interview when Prince Charles admitted an affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles and seem how Diana turned up at the Serpentine Gallery.”
‘I mean, my God, that was beautiful, and I applauded her for it because I thought it was brilliant. But that’s what Diana does, she manipulates and she’s really good at it.’
Diana’s later past designer Anna Harvey told the 2013 film Princess Diana’s Dresses: The Auction, that she wanted to hold her head high in what she chose to wear that night.
Ms Harvey said: ‘She wanted to look a million dollars. And she did.’ The artist even wrote in Vogue that it’thrilled’ the Princess to make an impact.
But the decision did not come easy to Diana, according to Paul Burrell, her past smith.
He told the Channel 5 documentary, Secrets of the Royal Dressmakers: ‘She said, “I can’t go, I can’t face the world knowing what Charles has just said.”
“And anyway I haven’t got anything to wear. I showed her the Christina Stambolian costume in the closet area, and I went there.”
She worried that the sinuous dress, which she had purchased three years earlier, wouldn’t fit her again, he added.
He said: ‘I zipped her up and she looked a million dollars.’
And for a couple of hours, at least, her father’s television confession was forgotten as all eyes were on Diana.