Princess needs new designers

Press, 15 May 1985, Page 17

Princess needs new designers

COLIN McDOWELL, fashion historian, writes in the “Observer” on why “Lady Di” wowed Italy more than her clothes.

When a fashion-image princess tours a fashionconscious country each side must make an effort.

The princess must spend time and thought on creating a memorable, tactful and varied wardrobe. The country must react by praising and blaming where it sees fit.

When the princess is the Princess of Wales, and the country is Italy, sparks, if not fireworks, can be expected. Curiously, this has not happened on the Royal tour, which kept the British press grasping at straws for 17 days. It was a fashion nonevent because the princess’s

clothes were so totally uneventful.

One tiny storm in a teaspoon was provoked when the “Star” and the “Express” quoted the Marchese Francesca Patrizi as having summed up the Princess as looking “like a salesgirl from Rinascente” — a chain store.

The marchese has fired off letters to Italian newspapers, and telexes to the editors of the newspapers concerned, claiming the

words were put into her mouth by British photographers who borrowed her box at La Scala. (Hard to say whether this happened — or whether the marchese was overcome by subsequent embarrassment.) It seems quite certain that the Italians were delighted that their country should be chosen for the first long visit to Europe of the Prince and Princess of Wales. The Princess, whose tall

figure, blonde hair and long feet are the quintessence of the “molto Inglese” look which is synonymous with class for the Italians, had them star-struck from the moment she stepped on to Italian soil.

The press reflected the views of the people in this most confused country, largely Catholic, powerfully Communist, fiercely republican and yet supporting a bewildering range of titles, from the humble dottore to the grand if unconstitutional marchese.

They all wanted to love the Princess.

The British press gleefully pounced on clothes already worn in Britain, the Italian press did not much care.

They warily admitted that some dresses were banal; one or two “a little vulgar,” but their hearts were clearly not in it.

The British press desperately turned to the Italian fashion designers. Surely they could say something nasty? But no, the only comment they could pick up was Gianni Versace’s musing that it was a pity that the Princess could not wear foreign clothes in public. For foreign, we can safely read “Italian.”

Italian designers would love to design for the Princess of Wales: she has the perfect figure, straight and tall, for which they could create beautiful clothes.

How perfectly the Princess would wear the tailored suits of Giorgio Armani, the fun knits of Mariuccia Mandelli of Krizia and the glamorous evening dresses of Valentino. But this cannot be. She must wear clothes designed in London but not, of course, those which have made London famous: the iconoclastic, anti-fashion style which the young London designers

create with such devastating wit and panache. They are banned. No Body Map holes for the Princess. Hyper Hyper’s witty paiodies of every known fashion cliche cannot be worn by her. This is the problem. We have a fashion-conscious Princess who cannot wear fashionable clothes. Good fashion design is either foreign or too strongly cocking a snook at accepted fashion taste. What we have seen in Italy is the result of too much respect, and too much hard work. The Princess of Wales has worked for many weeks with her designers, because she and they saw the trip to such a country as a perfect opportunity to show how good British fashion is. The results were staid. For this her designers must take the blame. The question “Are they good enough for the Princess of Wales?” only too often receives the answer “No.” Some of them, of course, are not really designers but dressmakers. They cannot compete with the high-volt-

age creativity which the Milanese designers generate so effortlessly. Nor can they produce the sort of clothes which have made London fashion synonymous with outrageous style, and must fall back on sadly unstylish clothes. The pity is that a worldcalibre designer like Jean Muir creates clothes which are just a little too old for the Princess.

However, in a few years she could prove to be an ideal Royal dressmaker. Also, it would be nice if Zandra Rhodes’s fantasy evening dresses were chosen by the Princess — then at least we would have a world figure dressed by a world figure, instead of seeing our most important visual export frumpily dressed by parish-pump dressmakers. If she continues to patronise people like Victor Edelstein and Jan Vanvelden she should be very much more demanding.

The Princess of Wales achieved a satisfactory appearance for day with her designers Jasper Conran and Bruce Oldfield, but she must keep a check on the latter’s tendency to be flighty: one or two of his designs seemed dangerously near to vulgarity in the clear Mediterranean sun.

For evening, the Princess could do a lot worse than encourage Jacques Azagury, whose short blue evening dress looked so good in Florence.

For the rest, little can be said.

Also, a lesson which should be learned from Italy is that the Princess nearly always looks better without a hat — the quaint designs paraded in the past 10 days should make the Palace think again about the wisdom of dressing a young princess too formally. If it is any consolation her mother-in-law had precisely the same problem when she was young: “lamb dressed as mutton” seems a recurring Royal problem.