Princess Diana had a burka designed for her 1986 Gulf tour
Friday 31 August 2018 18:38, UK
Designer sketches of outfits for Princess Diana's 1986 Gulf tour reveal she had a burka with a bow designed for the royal trip.
She turned to David and Elizabeth Emmanuel to design the outfits - and a collection of the sketches they came up with, plus fabrics, are due to be auctioned and expected to fetch thousands of pounds.
The husband and wife duo famously designed Diana's wedding dress in 1981.
With its puffed sleeves and bows, the voluminous gown perfectly reflected the style of the time and was then valued at £9,000, which is around £35,500 in today's money.
Alongside the sketch of the burka which is described by the designers as a "reserve outfit", that would have covered the princess from head to toe with only a gap for her eyes, are a handful of other drawings.
These include a sketch of a navy and white stripe coat over white dress, plus a red floral design with suggested fabrics attached - which resemble an outfit Diana chose to wear in Qatar during the tour of the Gulf states.
There is also a sketch of a dramatic evening dress in black and white silk duchess satin, which the princess was pictured wearing while being shown around the Al Yamamah Palace by Saudi Arabia's King Fahd.
The collection also includes a photograph of the Emanuels looking through the sketches with Diana, and a letter sent to the couple from Diana's lady-in-waiting, Anne Beckwith-Smith, dated 2 June, 1986, discussing the restrictions of the designs for the November six-day tour of Oman, Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
"In all cases modesty is the order of the day," she wrote.
The items are due to go under the hammer on 25 September.
RR Auction said: '"Princess Diana tried to conform to local customs by wearing concealing clothes, but still exposed her neck and left her head uncovered.
"At evening banquets, she appeared in the long sleeved demure dresses made especially for the tour. She did not have to wear the reserve outfit burka depicted in this archive.
"It's a remarkable, comprehensive archive from the famously stylish royal."