Anyone who looks at Diana today might think her clothes ordinary, and lacking a fashion edge. The truth is that at the time they were quite forward looking and trend setting. Diana's wedding dress set a trend for Meringue styles.

More than 20 years later and after Diana's rise as one of the 20th century's greatest fashion icons, there are those who condemn Diana and her fashion taste.  Recently, in a Sunday Times condensed book article there was a spiteful attack on Diana.  Greer wrote, 'Diana was never a fashion icon; she dressed to the same demotic standard of elegance as TV anchorwomen do, plus the inevitable hat.'

Pauline Weston Thomas for Fashion Era strongly disagrees. Diana did more for the fashion and flagging hat industry than either industry could ever thank her.

The Princess supported many British designers beginning with Elizabeth and David Emanuel who designed her much criticized puff ball meringue wedding dress in 1981.  The beautiful dress was based on a romantic look of huge puffed sleeves with a full skirt of ivory silk pure taffeta, old lace and hand embroidery incorporating 10,000 pearls and sequins.

The dress had a twenty five foot train and when the princess emerged from the carriage at the cathedral the world saw how creased the dress appeared. The creases soon dropped out, but the fabric and construction method used was criticized worldwide.

David Emanuel complained in a TV interview that the carriage was far too small for both Diana and her robustly built father along with her full skirted dress, hence the inevitable creases. 

Pauline Weston Thomas thinks he was probably right - no fabric deserves to be treated that way.

But was this an early sign and symbol of future problems with Diana's creasing environment? Probably yes...