How Princess Diana became a wardrobe mood

As far back as 2017 something was stirring on the internet. While she’d always been regarded as a fashion icon in the old-fashioned, glamorous sense (particularly celebrated for her post-divorce looks), in and around the 20th anniversary of her death, Princess Diana started to be reconsidered—most notably by outlets such as Man Repeller—as cool. The looks were re-evaluated, with a particular focus on her off-duty chic: oversized blazers worn with high waisted pale blue jeans, pink matchy-matchy suits, loafers, big earrings, a smattering of polka dots, a jumper nonchalantly tied around the shoulders, and perhaps the most iconic of all, the jogging looks—massive, bulky “Harvard” sweaters skimming cycle shorts paired with thick socks and white running shoes; sunglasses and a boxy leather handbag optional. 

Yesterday, the trend reached its apex when photos posted by Hailey Bieber of a Vogue Paris shoot inspired by the late Princess’s style went viral. On her Instagram, the model wrote, “all credit and inspo to the amazingly beautiful and iconically stylish Princess Diana who I’ve looked to for style inspiration for as long as I can remember.” And with that, the trend that had been bubbling on the fashion internet for sometime, sky rocketed into the mainstream.

In the images, Bieber is photographed in the sort of low-key leisurewear that the Princess is now most fondly remembered for. Her looks are near-carbon copies, barely updated for the millennial generation: the big campus sweaters, the form-fitting cycle shorts, the roomy handbags and practical footwear. In a way, the Vogue shoot feels somewhat late: on the streets of Berlin, for example, it’s a look that is worn by everyone—the big socks and the shorts. Equally, the cowboy boots and the baseball caps are stalwarts of metropolitan street style. Without us even noticing we were all channelling Diana to a degree. 

But while Bieber does her best to channel Diana in the clothing department, it will take more than a big jumper to capture the mood. As Josh Duboff wrote for Vanity Fair in 2017, “What we might take for granted to a certain extent, but is nevertheless quite striking, is just how cool Diana remains in her legacy. Perhaps a central reason for this is that she comes off with such an excess of charisma in photographs. It is difficult to find a shot of her in which she does not seem to leap out of the image and say something.”  Bieber could be any girl really, catching a bus, grabbing a coffee before yoga, but part of the reason why Diana is such an enduring icon, is because it’s a pure vibe: it’s on the run, escaping the paparazzi, head down; it’s being casual and practical, maybe trying to blend even though you never will, while at the same time being the sort of the wardrobe equivalent of that EE Cummings quote, “to be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else.” Bieber and the Vogue Paris team do their best to pay tribute to Diana, but it’s exactly that a tribute; the “Diana mood” isn’t quite so easy to emulate.