Wales Dressers
“THE TRUTH ABOUT DIANA’S AMAZING WEDDING DRESS.”
After so many lies and rumours about the dress, it is high time we heard the truth. It is the Express’s front-page news.
And who better to reveal all than the dress’s confidants Elizabeth and David Emmanuel?
It’s been 25 years and two divorces since the day Diana wore that gown (like the Waleses, Elizabeth and David have divorced) but the memories are fresh in the mind.
We join the action at the Emmanuels’ workshop in central London. It’s 1981. A phone is ringing.
Elizabeth: “Hello.”
Caller: “Hello Elizabeth, it’s Diana Spencer here. Would you and David do me the honour of making my wedding dress?”
Sadly no tape of this call is known to exist and we imagine Elizabeth adding life to this exchange with an impression of her famous client. Perhaps ex-husband David plays the part of Diana, delivering her lines with a tilt of the head and a long fringe?
Elizabeth: “Oh my God, of course we would love to.”
There then followed weeks of hard work as the dressmakers avoided the press. “We even had a code name for Diana, which we thought was hilarious,” says Elizabeth. Oh yes? What was it? “We used to refer to her as Debra.”
But it wasn’t all high comedy. David recalls how having got Diana into the dress on the morning of the wedding no-one could remember if the petticoats had been fastened. David says he had to get under the skirts to sort things out.
“Then the worst thing happened,” says David. Nerves got the better of Diana? No. “As I was coming out from underneath her dress, I heard the door open and Diana saying, ‘David, have you met the Queen Mother?’”
Once again we are left wondering if David gets into character for his line. And if, indeed, he re-enacts this life-affirming moment by pushing his head up his ex-wife’s skirt, or if she, older and wiser, plays the role of the Queen Mother.
Whatever the scene, the Emmanuels are keen to relive it. And you can buy their story A Dress for Diana” from “The Express Bookshop”.
And learn the “truth”.
Posted: 3rd, August 2006 | In: Royal Family Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
