Short blonde hair, along with intense turquoise eyeliner, was a defining part of Diana's image. It is so difficult for us to imagine her with long (or at least semi-long) hair that it seems that this was hardly ever the case.
Indeed, according to photo archives, Miss Spencer sported curls of moderate length only as a child. The world recognized and loved her with a completely different hairstyle.
1980-1982
Sweet and touching - definitions with which many still associate the image of the Princess of Wales. In early photographs, her perspective was unchanged: Miss Spencer tilted her head slightly down, as if a cloud of short blonde hair could serve as a cover from the sudden flash of the camera of the idle paparazzi. This enveloped her in an aura of vulnerability and especially sweet childish indecision, thanks to which she immediately earned the nickname "shy Diana".
Innocent and defenseless are the epithets that primarily distinguish her from Charles's previous passions, decisive and self-confident "demons in a skirt" (such as Sabrina Guinness or Jane Wellesley). But, despite the fact that Diana looked like hundreds of other young British women - tweed skirts, thick cardigans, blouses with ruffles - her haircut was short, which in itself corresponded to the spirit of the "progressive" 80s, but it was very unusual for the future princess. Strictly speaking, Charles (and especially his mother) would not hurt to pay attention to this in time and discern an omen: under the tender appearance the protest heart of the “rebel” was beating.
One of the first hairdressers responsible for Diana's hairstyle, with which she appeared to the world as the bride of the Prince of Wales, was Richard Dalton. She met the Englishman in a salon on Bond Street, where her sister Sarah and Jane's hair was tidied up. “I met Diana when she was seventeen,” says Dalton. “In fact, when she first came, I was busy working with her sister, so I called out our other stylist, Kevin Shanley, from another room and asked him to do her haircut.” Shanley hardly invented a bicycle then - most likely, he cut Diana's hair simply in the image and likeness of his sister, taking into account the peculiarities of the color and structure of the first hair.
From under his arm came an elegant haircut in layers with a parting to the left. The result was just great: he emphasized Diana's sweet, childish smile, her slightly flirtatious look (long live Shy Di!), And the oval of her face.
Immediately after Lady Spencer got engaged to Charles, all women wanted to have their hair cut "like Diana." By the way, it is Shanley's hand that owns the Princess of Wales wedding hairstyle. The stylist responds simply to the fact that she collected almost as many ironic reviews as a wedding dress: the hair lay much better, and the volume was much more magnificent than at the moment of leaving the church immortalized by photographers - just the heat on that day made their business. (Read also: Princess Diana's Disaster Wedding Dress)
1982-1990
"Diana's Hairstyle" became incredibly popular among English women (and not only) - so much so that magazines even printed haircut schemes for women to go to the hairdresser with ready-made valuable instructions.
Shanley and Dalton later had a falling out, and the second officially took the place of the princess's "head" stylist. They stayed together flesh until 1991, when Richard changed his place of residence to overseas: he moved from the UK to the United States. Over the years, Diana's hairstyle has hardly undergone any fundamental changes: the Princess of Wales fully realized that the public not only watches, but also comments on her every step with pleasure. Therefore, when, for example, she wanted to update her haircut in favor of a shorter length before a trip to hot Africa, Dalton did it very carefully: gradually, step by step, he shortened the length by half a centimeter once a week, so that in the end no one noticed drastic changes and Diana got what she wanted (and looked adorable at the same time).
With curls, Diana looked pretty pretty, but, obviously, did not feel very comfortable, and soon changed them to a more familiar hairstyle. And from the mid-80s on Diana's head, as in her personal life, a picturesque but alarming chaos gradually reigned.
Dalton also claimed that the wonderful honey shade of light brown was given to Diana from birth. But this does not negate the fact that Miss Spencer's blond hair in her youth gradually darkened until it passed into the category of dark blond (or simply "mouse"). And since Lady Di, according to the testimony of her hairdressers, really wanted to "be a blonde or" so, "she, starting from the age of 23, almost every 1.5-2 months did highlighting or lighten individual strands.
Another distinctive feature of Diana's hairstyle of this period was her passion for styling: her styling was almost reinforced concrete - the princess did not want the weather or an accidental misunderstanding to catch her by surprise.
1990-1992
After breaking up with Dalton, Sam McKnight became Diana's personal stylist. The author of many glossy covers and famous photo shoots, it was he who radically changed the style of the princess: he cut her boldly short for the royal personage, becoming the author of Lady Dee's "signature" haircut.
With Richard Dalton, they made a kind of castling: he went to America, and McKnight, on the contrary, flew to London from New York to join the Voga fashion team (stylist Anna Harvey, makeup artist Mary Greenwell, photographer Patrick Demarchelier), which instructed to shoot the "stellar" - or as they would say now - IT girls - Victoria Lockwood, wife of Diana's brother Charles Spencer, and Lady Sarah Armstrong-Jones, daughter of Princess Margaret. “We were told there would be one more person to film in the process, but we had no idea who it would be,” McKnight recalls. - She (Diana - ed.) Just flew up to us with a greeting. I remember my first impression: long legs and the most beautiful smile in the world."
Her hair was long enough at the time, and she asked McKnight, "What would you do with it, give you free rein?" “I would cut it off,” he replied (“I wanted to reduce the degree of stiffness and stiffness and add an acceptable drop of sexuality: have mercy, she was only a little over thirty then!”). “Then do it,” Diana retorted. And Sam cut her to the "page" (slightly elongated version of the haircut "like a boy") right in the studio.
The Princess of Wales at one point changed the image of an ingenue to a portrait of an independent, confident woman, ready for change. This was ten years after the beginning of her marriage with Prince Charles and two years before her divorce.
1992-1997
Diana took a long time to get used to the new haircut: it seemed to her “a little too much” - too simple, too natural. As soon as McKnight, whose permanent place of residence remained the States, was not around, she tried to "lick" them back, intricately lay them down or generously varnish them. Then they laughed together at the failed experiments and photographs that the photographers managed to take. It was Sam who was one of those who tried to overcome Diana's complexes about her own appearance. “I worked with many supermodels: Linda Evangelista, Eva Herzigova - remember them on the catwalk? ─ says McKnight. - These are real Amazons: strong, sturdy, muscular. Diana was the same.
Another star stylist, with whom fate brought Diana, Daniel Galvin gave her a stylish "smooth" haircut, which she wore in various modifications for the last two years of her life.
Diana, of course, was a princess by "rank", but her short-cropped hair did not at all fit into the ideal image of a crowned person. In this respect, as in many others, she was a non-conformist: while other princesses and queens sported curls and intricate hairstyles, she "carried" a short haircut with her head held high. It seemed that the shorter Diana's hair was, the happier she was.
Photo: Getty Images
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