Not many jobs involve five-hour deep dives for buttons in tiny vintage treasure troves nestled by the Sacré Coeur. But then working in The Crown’s costume department is not just any day job. Foraging all over the world for minute outfit details, such as the specific colour of thread used for those buttons to the lining of the garment they sit on, is par for the course for costume director, Amy Roberts, and head buyer and associate costume designer, Sidonie Roberts, who spend three months sourcing the cast’s wardrobe for each season.
Cut to season five, which has a particular focus on Diana and all the drama wrapped up in her increasing estrangement from the royal family. After two weeks of intensive research, whereby the team flooded their brains with photographs, they landed on what they call the “Diana algorithm”: a neat formula that helped them decide what the late Princess would have worn today. “Diana’s story is very private,” explains Amy. “There are very intimate moments that we’ll never know. We have to use creative licence – for example, what ads would Diana be served on her computer nowadays? – because we’re not making a documentary.”
Clearance issues, which make replicating certain royal looks legally difficult, also allowed the costumers to think outside the box in terms of dressing – particularly when it came to jewellery. Their secret weapon? Susan Caplan. “If anyone can get it, Susan can get it,” is very much the attitude in The Crown’s fashion department, where the luxury vintage jewellery curator’s showroom is regarded as a kind of Aladdin’s cave. The pièce de résistance Caplan supplied for season five? The pearl and sapphire choker Elizabeth Debicki as Diana wears with her “revenge dress” at the Serpentine summer party in 1994.
“It was a wonderful opportunity to challenge myself,” shares Caplan, who enlisted an expert “stringer” from antique specialist Bentley & Skinner to help her lace the tens of archive pearls onto the stacked choker, before searching high and low in her stash of ’20s and ’30s Swarovski gems for a dramatic oval sapphire to insert in the middle. The four-string adaptation of the original ornate piece reflects the history of the necklace itself. Initially a brooch gifted by the Queen Mother to Diana on her 1981 wedding day, the princess repurposed the duck egg of a sapphire nestled in two rows of diamonds into a seven-strand necklace that showed she was taking control of her own narrative.
“That outfit was almost like a vehicle for us to push Diana forward,” asserts Amy. “She becomes less and less Palacised, from wearing twin sets of pearls to single strings, and finding her fashion identity through costume jewellery.” Among Di’s favourite pieces? Chanel earrings minus the double-C logo – which called to mind Prince Charles and his then-mistress Camilla – and statement Butler & Wilson studs, which paved the way for others to experiment with costume jewellery in the ’80s and ’90s.
As the latter decade panned out, the simplicity of the trend cycle filtered into Diana’s wardrobe. Her minimalist hoop earrings, for example, become the new pearl clip-ons. “I feel like she got up, brushed her teeth and put her hoops in, so even in those down moments [her looks were] still embellished,” says Amy, who loves that those tiny classic tokens said so much about the person. “I think Diana was probably a bit of a magpie – there’s a real core identity that comes through her jewellery, because she did a lot of it herself. She enjoyed it.”
The duality of Diana is part of the late royal’s enduring appeal, argue the pair who found the process of imagining her wardrobe endlessly fascinating. “She’s completely enigmatic and alluring, but at the same time she’s accessible [in a sense anyone can buy into her style],” notes Amy, with Susan adding: “Once you’re a magpie, you’re always a magpie.” Season six, they promise, proffers even more gems.
This article first appeared on Vogue.co.uk
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