Elizabeth Emmanuel and her former husband, David Emmanuel, are the duo who designed Princess Diana's wedding dress. In an exclusive interview, Elizabeth is opening up about the secret backup dress that they had tucked away for the late royal in case any unforeseen circumstance occurred.
"I was a bit neurotic, and I thought, 'What happens if somebody breaks in and steals the dress or something spills or there’s a fire or it gets stolen?'" Elizabeth explained. "So I thought, 'I'm gonna make a backup dress.'"
Her inspiration for the design of the backup dress came from a pink gown that the former couple designed for Princess Diana's private ball a few days before the 1981 wedding. The spare dress had a lot of notable differences.
For one, it didn't include the 25-foot train that Princess Diana's original wedding dress had. It also differed in color, being a white instead of "the deep ivory that the royal wedding dress was made of." The details on the original dress were hand-embroidered by Elizabeth, while the fabric for the backup was ready-made.
More from LittleThings: A Photo Of Princess Diana's Backup Wedding Dress Is Released And It's Very Different
Elizabeth never ended up completing the spare dress. "I just thought, 'If anything happens, we’ll finish it off and have it ready,'" she shared. "It likely ended up on some sample rail. It probably got reused, torn up, thrown out, who knows?"
Taking a step back into history, Elizabeth had the opportunity to recreate the backup dress to exhibit at the virtual Princess Diana Museum. She relied on old sketches and thumbnail images from an old documentary to help her bring the design back to life.
"We never got to see that dress on Diana and thought it would be lovely to envision it," Renae Plant, the museum’s director and curator, said. "You cannot put a price tag on history." However, she did acquire the dress for an undisclosed amount.
People across social media chimed in with their opinions about the spare dress.
"The other dress was really pretty," one person said, referencing the backup gown as opposed to the one Diana wore.
"I loved Diana’s personality but I didn’t like the puffy dress," another user commented. "In fact seeing this I preferred the spare dress. Sarah Ferguson’s dress was much nicer than Diana’s."
Other people commented on their dislike for the original dress.
One person wrote: "That was the most hideous dress. You could have done better."
"The Emmanuels are not great designers and are only known for Diana's dress which was a mess," another person commented. "Not a great legacy unfortunately."
According to Elizabeth, Princess Diana was very involved in the process of her dress creation. "She would go upstairs and chat with all the seamstresses. She loved browsing through the rails because this was a new world for her," the 70-year-old designer said. "I don’t think she’d been particularly into fashion before she met us."
