leave it alone Princess Diana turning a beauty emergency into a major fashion statement.

Diana was on tour in Australia at the time…Prince Charles It made headlines in 1985, 31-39 years ago! – after wearing a memorable emerald choker necklace as a headband. And it turns out the iconic style moment was the result of an accidental sunburn.

As hairdresser to the late Princess of Wales, Richard Dalton explained in his new book It’s All About the Hair: My Ten Years with Diana, Princess of WalesHe was in Melbourne with the princess when she “got some sunburn on her neck from being out in the hot Australian sun all day”.

Diana had planned to wear the emerald and diamond necklace that had once belonged to her. Queen Mary and it was a wedding gift from my mother-in-law Queen Elizabeth – to a gala that night. After hearing about the painful sunburn (which could irritate the collar around her delicate neck) the hairdresser had another idea on how to wear the sparkly accessory.

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“It’s like, ‘What should we do for fun?'” Dalton said. “It was a completely spontaneous moment where I thought ‘” he wrote. He added: “I said to Diana, ‘Let’s try something different.’ Why don’t we stick some emeralds in your hair?”

Dalton used the elastic from her underwear to turn the choker into a headband. After tying elastic at each end of the necklace and wrapping it around the princess’s forehead, the necklace “fit snugly without falling out,” and she styled her hair around it, according to her now-released book. “Diana absolutely loved it,” he continued. “And I never traveled without a pantyhose again.”

By 1985, although Dalton had been working with Diana for years, she called the haunting “headband necklace” in her book her “first major statement.” “As they say, the rest is history.”

The necklace was not seen again until 25 years after Diana’s death. Kate Middleton She surprised royal fashion watchers everywhere by wearing it (as a necklace) to the Earthshot Awards ceremony in 2022. And just like her late mother-in-law, she paired it with a bright green dress.

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“I love this necklace,” Dalton wrote of the statement piece he spontaneously redesigned for Princess Diana almost four decades ago in 1985. “We created quite a sensation that night.”