‘Supersloane’ title for Lady Diana

Press, 27 October 1982, Page 20

‘Supersloane’ title for Lady Diana

NZPA London Before her marriage. Lady Diana, Princess of Wales, was the epitome of British upper-middle class life, and was responsible for popularising its affectations, according to a book launched in London. The “Official Sloane Ranger Handbook,” written by the “Harpers and Queen" magazine editors. Anne Barr and Peter York, is a description of the upper-middle class on parade. Everything conservative, reassuring, Tory and made-to-last is the province of the Sloanes, right down to their black Gucci shoes with gold snaffles, according to the authors.

The “Supersloane” is the Princess of Wales.

"When Diana Spencer began to appear in newspapers in the summer of 1980, the Sloane Ranger style started its gallop down the high streets,” says the book.

“BC — Before Charles — she wore the young Sloane wardrobe: ruffled shirts, with ribbons at the neck; baggy jumpers with straight skirts

or jeans; a touch of ethnic. When she wore it, it turned overnight into the major rag trade look of 1981-82.

"Clothes apart, she showed that a 1980 s Sloane was allowed to be more in touch with her emotions. "She cried, she blushed, she swore when her starter jammed on her new Metro. She kissed people. Suddenly it was no longer cool to be cool,” the book says. “But underneath it all were the old guard instincts: the tenets of noblesse oblige — virginity, marriage, and the wedding list, love of the country, animals, lack of formal education — in short, everything that really matters.

“She did all the right jobs — part-time cooking, nannying, teaching kindergarten (at a nice Sloaneshire school, the Young England in Pimlico), and like a properly brought-up girl, she knew better than to ever mention the Queen or Prince Charles. They were both ‘the palace’.” The Sloane look is "simple, practical” effortless freshness. The world according to Sloane centres on family,

aristocracy, Oxbridge, and anything with pomp and historic circumstance. "Sloanes have amnesia about their own money . . . they talk income. It implies, to outsiders, that money isn't what it’s all about.

“The Sloane Ranger’s problems frequently is that while brought up with enough they are later expected to live on what they earn."

Sacred to Sloanes are Royalty and the horse, according to • the authors. “Debrett’s Peerage” and the hatched, matched, and dispatched columns of “The Times" are essential reading. Harrods and Liberty’s are the places to shop and Laura Ashley and Habitat furnishers top the comprehensive list of where to buy complete Sloanedom.

The Sloane dog is the labrador and the car is a cheap, colourful foreign car — a Renault 4 or 55 or a Fiat 126, or an old faithful such as a Morris Minor.

B.M.W.s pre fine, but even better are “slightly bashed sports convertibles," says the book.