Like it or not, even a princess has to accept a "no" once in a while
This Is the One Thing Princess Diana’s Personal Designer Refused to Let Her Wear
Published on Jul. 15, 2025
There are many reasons Princess Diana is still a beloved fixture in people’s minds, even almost 30 years after her tragic death. She was a style icon, to be sure, but people also loved her for challenging the strict royal rule book on many occasions—something that applied to both her fashion choices and her general life choices. However, even rebels can’t be rebels all the time, and being a princess doesn’t mean you won’t ever get a “no.”
Who dared to say no to Diana? One of her go-to designers, Jacques Azagury, who refused one very specific fashion request that he deemed inappropriate for a princess. He revealed this juicy tidbit in a new interview he gave before an auction in Los Angeles, in which several replicas of Diana’s dresses were sold.
Read on to find out how Diana wanted to alter her style, why Azagury put the kibosh on it and how she reacted to this decision.
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How did Diana see fashion?
Before we get to the quashed style request, it’s important to look at how Diana saw fashion in general, and that was as a way to express herself. When Diana was still married to Charles, she had to follow some pretty strict royal dress codes, regulating everything from skirt length to color and cleavage. Designers such as Azagury, Catherine Walker, Anya Hindmarch and Murray Arbeid turned her into a global fashion icon while also making sure her choices were acceptable to the palace. But when Diana’s marriage publicly broke down, the princess had a bit more freedom … and a lot more to say through her wardrobe choices.
Remember the so-called revenge dress that Diana wore in 1994, on the very night Charles confessed on television that he’d cheated on her with Camilla? That daring little black dress she sported at a Vanity Fair gala said a lot without her having to say a word, not to mention, it turned into one of her all-time most memorable looks. Others would soon follow.
“It was her new life starting,” Azagury told Fox News Digital. “She was fit, she was training. She looked phenomenal, and these dresses were saying exactly what she wanted to say: that she was a free woman. She could wear what she wanted to wear. … It was kind of a rebellion. … It was her way of telling people that she’s her own woman.”
What was Diana advised against wearing?
A very, very short dress! You might still remember the ice-blue Swan Lake dress Diana wore to a performance of the ballet of the same name at London’s Royal Albert Hall on June 3, 1997. It was pretty daring for a princess, with its formfitting silhouette and cleavage-baring neckline, but according to Azagury, Diana had originally wanted to make it even more risqué.
On A Right Royal Podcast, Azagury said he personally stepped in “when she wanted to go super short on the skirts.” What happened, exactly? “Paul Burrell, her butler, and myself would say, ‘That’s as short as you can go.’ She even wanted to go shorter than that on the dress. And we said, ‘Well, look, there’s not much dress at the top, there’s not much dress at the bottom. You’ll end up with nothing in between.'”
According to Azagury, he reminded Diana that even though she was no longer married to Charles, she was still a princess. And that meant she had to be careful with how she was seen in the public eye. Diana acquiesced in the end, and the hemline stayed put, and her Swan Lake dress was still stunning, even if it wasn’t the super-short mini she’d originally imagined.
What else did she wear during her “rebel” phase?
During her final years, the princess continued to stun with head-turning looks that were not only top of the fashion game but also quite daring. While countless outfits were iconic, there are a few stand-outs (besides the much talked about revenge dress) that became known as the “Famous Five.” They include:
- The Swan Lake dress: Super mini or not, the aforementioned Swan Lake dress Diana wore on June 3, 1997, to a performance at the Royal Albert Hall certainly made headlines—even if the public didn’t know the backstory at the time. The ice-blue ensemble by Jacques Azagury boasted crystal bugle beads and Hepburn-style bows, and the color perfectly matched Diana’s eyes.
- The Venice dress: When attending a reception as part of the Biennale exhibition at the Peggy Guggenheim Museum in Venice on June 8, 1995, Diana stunned in a glittering red silk georgette two-piece by Azagury. The (relatively) short hemline was, again, quite a daring choice for a member of the royal household and potentially another of the dresses that Azagury had a discussion with her about.
- The Washington dress: On June 18 of the same year, Diana opted for another bright red Azagury dress for the Red Cross Ball Gala Dinner in Washington, D.C. This time, it was a double-silk georgette column dress with a long skirt and red bugle beads. But let’s face it, it wouldn’t have been Diana had she not managed to show off a bit of skin here too. The sexy deep V at the back was certainly an eye-catcher.
- The Bashir dress: Diana first wore this long black silk dress with a fishtail hem in September 1995 in London, and then again in New York for the star-studded Cancer Research Ball in December the same year. And while it didn’t show that much skin, it certainly was a very figure-hugging design.
- The birthday dress: The black Chantilly lace dress adorned with satin straps and hand-embroidered with tiny sequins and beads would have been an iconic look without any backstory. However, the true reason it became so famous was that it was the last dress Princess Diana ever wore in public. She donned it on her 36th birthday, on July 1, 1997, at a dinner at the Tate Gallery in London. (She died less than two months later.) Azagury said that among all the dresses he ever created for her, this one was his favorite.
Have any other royals been as risqué with their style choices since Diana?
Yes and no. While the current royal ladies generally seem to be a bit more conservative than Diana in her final years, as well as adhering more to the royal dress code, times have also changed, which means they can get away with a bit more. Both Kate and Meghan have sported off-the-shoulder dresses, a no-go for members of the royal family just a few decades ago. Meghan, still part of The Firm at the time, even wore one for Queen Elizabeth II’s official birthday celebration in 2018. And yes, the pale pink design by Caroline Herrera raised a few eyebrows. Even more daring was the blue skirt Meghan wore on a state visit to New Zealand in 2018 that, in back-lit photographs, appeared sheer.
Kate, in general, tries to avoid risky looks, but she got her share of criticism when she sported a floral Jenny Packham summer dress on her first royal visit to Australia in 2014. At Brisbane Airport, a gust of wind almost blew up the dress, threatening to expose her undies. The designer was later criticized for not having weighed down the dress. Apart from “wind-gate,” Kate’s only “faux pas” was wearing cork-heeled wedges pretty frequently while Queen Elizabeth II was still alive; the footwear was reportedly unacceptable to the late queen.
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Sources:
- Vogue: “Princess Diana’s fashion evolution epitomized royal glamour”
- Vogue: “The untold story behind the final Jacques Azagury dress Princess Diana never got to wear”
- Vogue Australia: “25 Kate Middleton fashion moments that made headlines”
- Elle: “Princess Diana’s Style: 100 of the most iconic Princess Diana fashion moments”
- Fox News Digital: “Princess Diana’s bold request was the one thing her designer refused: ‘You are a princess'”
- A Right Royal Podcast by Hello!
- The Telegraph: “Remembering Princess Diana’s most iconic fashion moments”
- InStyle: “Princess Diana had to be stopped from wearing more and more risqué looks in her final years”
- The Princess Diana Museum: “Jacques Azagury”
