The Crown’s Elizabeth Debicki Revisits Princess Diana’s Most Memorable Looks

Hi British Vogue.

I'm Elizabeth Debicki and I play Princess Diana

in The Crown season five.

And this is going to be Princess Diana's Life in Looks.

Famously this is the engagement photo,

announcing their engagement,

which is obviously the official protocol.

Emma did this in season four,

but of course I have this memory of learning

about all of these outfits from the eighties.

She talks about being extremely nervous

and not knowing what to wear because how would you know.

I think she went to Harrods with her mum

and they picked this off the rack?

I don't think it could be any more blue, but obviously

it's matching this enormous engagement ring.

I guess she took it off before she did the dishes.

If she ever did the dishes.

This is the famous black sheep jumper.

I just love her for that.

It was brave and kind of great.

It's interesting, isn't it, 'cause you could almost

think back and think from the very beginning

she was trying to tell us something,

which is not hugely subtle in this jumper,

but we love her for that.

It's fantastic that she had that self-awareness so early on.

Her first ever Vogue cover,

so incredibly eighties and wonderful.

It was the beginning of what became this frenzy,

this desire to know this person and consume

all this information about her.

I guess it's presenting the princess fantasy.

There's always been something about her

that it just draws you in and you just want to know.

I think they might be in Balmoral.

I watched this video of Princess Diana

and Prince Charles being quizzed and drilled

by all the journalists around them,

and one of the journalists shoots her this question about

are you blissfully happy?

Are you cooking him breakfast?

And she's so quick and she says, I don't eat breakfast.

Yeah, it's brilliant.

She's so smart.

She's already so savvy and she's now in the firm

so she's doing this tweed suit.

She's made it her own.

She's following the rules but she's slightly skewing them

so that they look better on her

so that she looks fantastic all the time.

Skiing.

I don't think I've ever seen anyone look

as fabulous on a slope as Princess Diana.

She just looked herself so much when she was skiing,

I guess 'cause she looked so fresh and beautiful.

Ah yes, Sandhurst, this is so good.

It's incredibly thematic

that she's going to a military parade.

She knows that it's on the nose

but she kind of is enjoying it at the same time.

I mean it's kind of outrageous and wonderful.

I can't really think of anyone else who could ever

pull off this look.

When you are photographed as much as she was

and you have an inherent sense of play and fun,

which she did, eventually you're going to stop

people pleasing and you're gonna start doing things

for yourself.

I just feel like she's laughing very much on the inside.

This is a photograph of Diana and Charles

at the Cannnes Film Festival.

There's such a contrast between the energy

that comes out of this photo,

just beautiful and radiant she looks in comparison

to what I found out was actually happening

in her personal life.

Something that had happened to a bodyguard

that I think Diana admitted that she was quite close to.

This is a person who has had to learn

that most people would not be capable

of that degree of being able to perform happiness, really.

This is my favorite.

This is what I think we think of when we think of Diana

in the nineties.

The cowboy boots are incredible.

We had these remade, I was obsessed with them.

She was probably the first royal to ever wear

a baseball cap in public.

Just to see a royal off duty and make it so cool.

I think it's so much the sense

that she made all the choices herself.

That she sort of wakes up in the morning and she says,

this is what I'm gonna wear today

and I don't really care if it's not allowed.

The British Lung Foundation

and actually a few of those organizations

which made them for us, which I found very moving actually.

This look was all of them going to a wedding.

When you look at the boys and you think

having to rig them into suits

I don't think that would've been an easy task

but they're incredibly well behaved.

She was obviously good at hats and the leather gloves too.

I mean, it's just so chic.

This is an incredible leopard print bathing suit

and sarong.

It's a tricky thing with Diana because when was she ever

in a private moment?

When you look at this picture of her

she's obviously a person who's accepted that that's a part

of their life and they're going to show up

and they're going to look beautiful.

I was very grateful for this sarong.

Also the leopard print is just so iconic.

Goodbye leopard print.

This is an outfit that we have play in season five

obviously taken in Cairo because we have pyramids

as is sometimes happens on the crown.

We sort of love the look of something.

We love the silhouette of something and then

we'll have to figure out how to use it for our story.

It's not an outfit for the great outdoors

but it does look amazing.

Double denim, the hoops, the belt.

There's always going to be an element when she knows

she's being photographed where there's a construction

to the outfit.

The thing that Sid and I were often talking about

our costume designer, who is the extraordinary,

what does this character wear when she is just at home

when there's nobody around?

Maybe when she's not having a great day

maybe when things are really tough.

I know what my sloppy thing that I put on

when I need to cry and you know,

eat french fries or whatever.

But it was sort of like we have to find that for her.

In these moments, she gives us a silhouette really

for what that is.

This was her going to visit her nephew

which had been born.

The elephant cuffs, the elephant tie.

By the time we sort of go into the nineties

there's a lot of color blocking

very subtle shoulder pads and very long jackets and blazers

and it takes you while to become used to the shape.

Although I was a child in the nineties

and I was wearing mainly overalls.

Sid and I just love this look so much.

The baseball cap, the sunglasses, the puffer.

It's just so non-royal.

It's not at all what you used to seeing them in

and it allows you to access her I guess.

It's also very cool.

Aha! The revenge dress.

The story of this dress is that she wore it

to the Serpentine Gallery.

Prince Charles did an interview

and during that interview that went on the television

this night, he admitted to adultery.

That was a big story in terms of media land.

This was what was on the front page of the newspapers

the next day.

When people in my life found out that I was going to play

this part, this was a dress that everyone texted me about

and that's when I started to realize how

symbolic this dress is to people.

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This is a dress that we recreated in the show.

When Sid said, we're doing this dress,

I've never worn that kind of halter look before

so I was a little like, oh God!

It's worlds apart from where we start.

There's so much more skin.

She looks so fit and well.

I think there's such a strength to her here.

Aha, my favorite salmon shorts

obviously part of Diana's ensemble.

I really didn't wanna wear the pink salmon shorts

because they're unforgiving.

The shoes are incredible.

They're like moon boots

and then these very, very thick socks.

There's a lot of footage of her going to the gym

and there's this incredible moment where she gets

out of the car and she goes like this,

and then she walks backwards

and she walks sideways and then she walks into the gym

but she never turns around for the paparazzi

and I just thought she was brilliant for that.

I just loved her even more.

Next, this is from 1997 trip to Angola.

All around her are active mines and she's being photographed

by the world's media knowing that by doing this

this picture appears in all the newspapers

all over the world the next day.

It quite literally just sparks awareness

and it's an incredible exchange she gave.

There's a story that she may have done it twice.

She did the walk and then someone made a joke about,

oh, we didn't get it, the camera wasn't rolling

or something, and she went back and did it again.

This is Dior and this is designed by Galliano.

Pretty incredible suit.

I love the tassel and also you can see

the hair style has changed.

At this point and earlier Diana was wearing a lot of Dior.

It just suited where her style had evolved to.

I think it was just very sleek and strong

and obviously then there was also the Lady Dior bag.

I believe she just started using it so much

but they named it after her.

This is the posthumous cover British Vogue.

I just love this photo.

She's so free and she's so here.

This is something that Princess Diane I think

could do is really speak to people through the photographs

that were taken of her.

She could really convey a lot.

She went through a tremendous amount in her life

and then I think when these photographs were taken

she was really coming into being her own person.

You can see that in her face and then boldness of the dress.

Very little jewelry.

There's no engagement ring there.

I think that Princess Diana gave us a lot

of fashion moments that now recur.

Yeah, there's not many people who have have done that

in the history of fashion and she's one of them.

Thank you so much for watching.

I'm Elizabeth Debicki

and this was Princess Diana's Life and Looks.

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