Princess Diana’s outfits in The Crown are branded ‘cheap’ and ‘just wrong’ by fashion icons who dressed the late royal

• Some of Princess Diana’s favourite fashion designers have hit out at The Crown 
• Replica dresses described as ‘just wrong’ and ‘cheap’ by designers and critics
• Netflix spent 600 hours recreating her £9,000 David Emanuel wedding gown

It’s already courted controversy for its radical retelling of royal history.

And now some of Princess Diana’s favourite fashion designers have hit out at The Crown for failing to consult them on her iconic outfits.

Many of the replica dresses were ‘just wrong’, according to the couturier who created her wedding trousseau, while others drew criticism for looking ‘cheap’.

Netflix did manage to employ designer David Emanuel as a consultant, and spent 600 hours recreating the £9,000 gown he designed for Diana’s wedding. But programme makers did not contact Christina Stambolian, who made the infamous ‘Revenge Dress’ the princess wore publicly as her husband Charles admitted to adultery on TV in 1994.

According to the show’s costume designer Amy Roberts, the team wanted to ‘catch the spirit of Diana’ rather than replicate her outfits

Neither did they get in touch with David Sassoon, who designed Diana’s wedding trousseau, nor Jacques Azagury, who created the dress that the late Princess wore to a Cancer Research gala on the night in 1995 that her notorious Panorama interview was screened.

According to the show’s costume designer Amy Roberts, the team wanted to ‘catch the spirit of Diana’ rather than replicate her outfits. But the designers argue she should have contacted them about the 1990s wardrobe worn by actress Elizabeth Debicki in the latest series.

Sassoon, who created the ‘Caring Dress’ that Diana wore in Italy in 1991 and Seville in 1992, said: ‘A lot of the dresses are just wrong such as the long red and gold chiffon strapless dress that Emma Corrin wore in the last series.

‘They’ve tried to copy the dress but it looks cheap. Their copy of my Caring Dress is better than the long one – they’re not going to get the same print. But it’s a shame as she wore it at least eight times and they have missed the point.

Many of the replica dresses were ‘just wrong’, according to the couturier who created her wedding trousseau, while others drew criticism for looking ‘cheap’

‘It was supposed to be multi-coloured as primary colours appeal to children. ‘

And Miss Stambolian was not impressed with the replica of the Revenge Dress that Diana wore to the Serpentine Gallery in 1994, on the night her husband’s tell-all interview with Jonathan Dimbleby was screened. ‘They didn’t consult me on it. The Crown’s version is extremely simplified,’ she said.

•  Former BBC director-general Greg Dyke has said it is a ‘mistake’ for the corporation to say Martin Bashir’s interview with Diana should never be shown again. At a Royal Television Society event on Thursday, he called Mr Bashir’s tactics ‘devious’, but said the interview was ‘part of history’.

Claudia Joseph is the author of ‘Diana: A Life in Dresses’.

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