Even today, Princess Diana's haircut often tops the ratings of the best hairstyles of the last fifty years. This is not surprising, because in addition to her services to the fatherland, people have always appreciated Lady Di’s impeccable style.
The princess's hairstyle remained virtually unchanged during her short life. The shape of the haircut always remained the same, and only the top layers of luxurious thick brown hair were slightly lightened by the hairdressers.
To say that Princess Diana set the tone in fashion during her lifetime is an understatement! From then to this day, her style has been considered a standard in politics and business. Many stylists call this haircut “Diana” in honor of her. Another name for it is an elongated version of the garcon haircut, a ladies’ haircut “like a boy.”
A haircut.
This haircut is ideal for owners of curly or wavy hair with a rigid structure. It is not difficult to do.
All hair, excluding a one-centimeter wide strip around the ears, which is milled until the hair becomes so-called “feathers,” is laid up. The side parts are cut along the same line at the level of the middle of the ear. The back of the head is cut starting from the bottom strand, the length of which should be no more than two centimeters. Each subsequent strand should overlap the previous one by about a centimeter. After the back of the head is trimmed, the direction of the haircut needs to be changed and the hair should be cut from the face to the back of the head. Gradually, along the way to the crown, the length of the strand should be increased from four to seven centimeters.
Laying.
Lady Di's hairstyle, of course, is impossible without such a correct, skillfully done haircut with perfect thinning, emphasizing the character of an intelligent and independent woman. It still looks ideal on light brown hair.
The most important thing in this style is volume!
So, wash your hair and apply thermal protection to damp hair (this can be a spray or foam). After that, take a round brush and a hair dryer. Twist each strand onto a comb so that it curls upward, not inward, and dry. Move from roots to ends. Curl the bangs the same way, but moving them slightly to the side, this will give it the effect of movement and lightness. Strands near the neck, on the contrary, should be laid with the ends inward.
Wait until your hair has cooled down from the hot blow-dry, then fix the entire style with hairspray and style individual strands using your fingers. This way the hairstyle will retain its volume throughout the day.
Evening hairstyle.
Among evening hairstyles, Princess Diana's sleek hairstyle in a masculine style was especially popular. It is done using strong hold hair gel. The product is applied to all hair. While the gel has not dried, use a wide-tooth comb to style the hair as desired. We wait until everything dries and for greater fixation we lightly spray the hairstyle with hairspray. Ready!
Diana almost always combined this evening hairstyle with pearl jewelry, despite the fact that in those years it was considered old-fashioned. With her light hand, pearls became a trend again in those years and remain popular to this day.
Accessories.
Sam McKnight, Princess Diana
Sam McKnight is a legend in the fashion world. The celebrity hairdresser's portfolio includes hundreds of Vogue covers, thousands of shows and work with fashion photography stars of several generations - from Irving Penn and Steven Meisel to Mario Testino and Nick Knight. Before his eyes, supermodels came to “fashion power”; before his eyes, they were overthrown by grunge icons like Kate Moss, with whom Sam discussed social parties a couple of decades ago, and now talks about gardening.
Among other things, the official hairdresser of Chanel and Fendi is the author of the famous short haircut, which secured the title of style icon. He met the Princess of Wales on the set in 1990.
Usually public figures are wary of any changes in their hairstyle - especially haircuts and coloring. But with Diana everything was different.
She asked: “What would you do with my hair if I gave you complete freedom?” I answered without hesitation: “I would shorten it.” To which she said: “Then do it right now.”
Princess Diana on the cover of Vogue, December 1991
Thus began their seven-year friendship, which lasted until Diana’s death. During all these seven years, she trusted only Sam with her hair. Despite the fact that from 1982 to 2000 his permanent place of residence was New York, Sam McKnight became a direct participant in the changes in Diana's appearance that secured her the title of a style icon ahead of her time.
Together with Sam, they were looking for an image that would best suit both her status and age - after all, Diana was barely over thirty, so Sam wanted to add sexuality to the image and reduce the degree of stiffness. It could be called the princess's personal Hair editor.
She was worried that her new haircut gave the impression of being too natural, of some carelessness, as if her hair had not been styled at all, and she tried to comb her hair back, and when I was not around, curl it and varnish it. We laughed together later at these pictures of her. But she looked best when she didn't do anything to her hair at all - that's the beauty of her haircut.
I once told her: “It would be nice if you didn’t call me to do your hair at all, because just without any styling, your haircut looks great. The moment you leave the gym, your hair is just perfect.”
And she understood this. The only problem was that public appearances forced her to conform to the public's expectations and look the way the public imagined a princess.
Together with Sam, Diana broke stereotypes: Diana's haircut on his arms became the most famous and copied hairstyle of the decade. He cut her hair like a pageboy, and the princess with a short haircut instead of fairy-tale curls won the hearts of women all over the world.
Source Telegraph.co.uk
Photo GettyImages.ru
Portrait of Diana 1983Short blonde hair and intense turquoise eyeliner were a defining part of Diana's image. It is so difficult for us to imagine her with long (or at least semi-long) hair that it seems that this was hardly ever the case.
Indeed, according to photo archives, Miss Spencer sported moderately long curls only in childhood. The world recognized and loved her with a completely different hairstyle.
1980-1982
Sweet and touching are definitions with which many still associate the image of the Princess of Wales. In early photographs, her angle was constant: Miss Spencer tilted her head slightly downward, as if a cloud of short blond hair could serve as a cover from the sudden flash of an idle paparazzi’s camera. This enveloped her in an aura of vulnerability and a particularly sweet, childlike indecision, thanks to which she immediately earned the nickname “shy Diana.”
Innocent and defenseless are epithets that primarily distinguish her from Charles’s previous passions, determined and self-confident “demons in a skirt” (such as Sabrina Guinness or Jane Wellesley). But, despite the fact that Diana looked like hundreds of other young British women - tweed skirts, thick cardigans, ruffled blouses - she had a short haircut, which in itself corresponded to the spirit of the “progressive” 80s, but was very unusual for the future princesses. Strictly speaking, it would do well for Charles (and especially his mother) to pay attention to this in time and discern the omen: under the gentle appearance the protest heart of the “rebel” was beating.
One of the first hairdressers responsible for Diana's hairstyle, with which she appeared to the world as the bride of the Prince of Wales, was Richard Dalton. She met the Englishman in a salon on Bond Street, where her sisters Sarah and Jane were getting their hair done. “I met Diana when she was seventeen,” Dalton reveals. “In fact, when she first came in, I was busy working with her sister, so I shouted from another room to our other stylist, Kevin Shanley, and asked him to do her hair.” Shanley hardly invented the wheel then - most likely, he cut Diana’s hair simply in the image and likeness of his sister, taking into account the color and structure of the former’s hair.
From under his hand came an elegant layered haircut, parted to the left. The result turned out to be simply excellent: it emphasized Diana’s sweet childish smile, her slightly flirtatious look (long live Shy Di!), and the oval shape of her face.
1982-1990
“Diana’s hairstyle” became incredibly popular among Englishwomen (and not only) - so much so that magazines even printed haircut diagrams so that women would go to the hairdresser with valuable instructions ready.
Shanley and Dalton later had a falling out, with the latter officially taking over as the princess's "chief" stylist. They stayed together until 1991, when Richard changed his place of residence overseas: he moved from the UK to the USA. Over the years, Diana's hairstyle has undergone almost no fundamental changes: the Princess of Wales is fully aware that the public is not only watching, but also happily commenting on her every step. Therefore, when she, for example, wanted to update her haircut in favor of a shorter length before traveling to hot Africa, Dalton did it very carefully: gradually, step by step, he shortened the length by half a centimeter once a week, so in the end no one noticed any drastic changes , and Diana got what she wanted (and looked lovely while doing it).
Diana looked quite pretty with her curls, but obviously did not feel entirely comfortable, and soon changed them to a more familiar hairstyle. And from the mid-80s, picturesque but alarming chaos gradually reigned over Diana’s head, as well as in her personal life.
Dalton also claimed that Diana was given the wonderful honey shade of blonde from birth. But this does not negate the fact that Miss Spencer’s hair, which was light in her youth, gradually darkened until it became dark brown (or simply “mousy”). And since Lady Di, according to the testimony of her hairdressers, really wanted to “be blonde or something like that,” she, starting at the age of 23, had highlights or lightened individual strands almost every 1.5-2 months.
Another distinctive feature of Diana's hairstyle of this period was her passion for styling: her styling was practically reinforced concrete - the princess did not want the weather or an accidental misunderstanding to take her by surprise.
1990-1992
After breaking up with Dalton, Sam McKnight became Diana's personal stylist. The author of many glossy covers and famous photo shoots, it was he who radically changed the princess’s style: he cut her hair daringly short for a royal person, becoming the author of Lady Di’s “signature” haircut.
They made a kind of castling with Richard Dalton: he went to America, and McKnight, on the contrary, flew to London from New York to join the Vogue fashion team (stylist Anna Harvey, makeup artist Mary Greenwell, photographer Patrick Demarchelier), which were assigned to shoot the “stars” - or as they would say now - IT girls - Victoria Lockwood, the wife of Diana’s brother Charles Spencer, and Lady Sarah Armstrong-Jones, the daughter of Princess Margaret. “We were told there would be one more person to shoot in the process, but we had no idea who it would be,” McKnight recalls. – She (Diana – editor’s note) just flew up to us with a greeting. I remember my first impression: long legs and the most beautiful smile in the world.”
Her hair was quite long at the time, and she asked McKnight, “What would you do with it if you gave it free rein?” “I would cut it off,” he replied (“I wanted to reduce the degree of stiffness and stiffness and add an acceptable drop of sexuality: for mercy, she was only a little over thirty at that time!”). “Then do it,” Diana retorted. And Sam cut her into a “pageboy” haircut (a slightly longer version of the boy’s haircut) right in the filming studio.
For decades, the British royal family has influenced modern fashion. The clothes worn by the Duchess of Cambridge sold out within minutes of her wearing them in public. The same can be said for Meghan Markle, who will soon join the ranks of the royal family. Her dress, which she wore to a Christmas lunch at Buckingham Palace, became a real "mathew" during the festive period.
Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge at a dinner to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II's 90th birthdayWhile Meghan and Kate inspire elegance, sophistication and class, there was another royal whose sense of style fell more closely into the so-called "street style" category than most.
The dress sold out within minutes after Meghan Markle wore it to Queen Elizabeth II's reception. Princess Diana became a fashion icon and is still considered one of the most stylish women of all time. The late princess transformed from "shy Di" into an intelligent and graceful influencer.
Diana's style has changed over the years Many in the world remember her for what she wore: a black off-the-shoulder dress that was considered too daring, or a beautiful white blouse with pearls from designer Catherine Walker, which she wore over her dress, later called by the press "the Elvis of dresses."
In the 90s, Diana's style became more daring “She definitely had fun interacting with fashion, taking risks and experimenting with style. She was the first member of the royal family to be photographed wearing trousers at an evening event,” Eleri Lynn, curator of the exhibition Diana: Her Fashion Story, tells Vanity Fair.
This dress was made three years before she wore it. 
Princess Diana with her son Just like Diana's style of dressing, her hairstyle also earned a lot of fans. In the 80s, Diana used a haircut that complied with the rules approved by the royal family. She had ash-colored hair and a bouffant bob cut, which The Stylist magazine considered to be influential in the fashion world.
She became the first princess to wear trousers However, the way Diana is remembered by most, she became in the 90s. Her hairstyle and clothing style became more daring. For a long time, Diana wore a short, boyish haircut.
Princess Diana at the horse races, April 3, 1982 However, hairdresser Sam McKnight revealed in his new memoir that the haircut was actually an improvisation. According to Us Weekly, McKnight worked on Princess Diana's hair in preparation for her 1990 British Vogue cover shoot. His team decided to show off her tiara and style her hair, which was then shoulder-length, back, creating the effect of an undercut.
Princess Diana's famous boy haircut In his book Hair, McKnight wrote that Diana really liked her appearance. He noted: “As she was leaving, Diana asked what I would do with her hair if I had some sort of carte blanche. I replied that I would remove the length, and to my surprise she agreed, so we immediately put the plan into action.”
The popular short haircut McKnight continued to work with Diana until the end. He often saw her once or twice a day and helped create some of the most iconic stylistic moments of her life, from the cropped bob to the wet look she showed off at the 1995 CFDA Awards, where she was a featured celebrity.
Celebrities
In the 1990s, when I was little, Princess Diana was often shown on TV. In those years, I knew little about royal intrigue, but I clearly remember what struck me: short haircut lady di.
I just couldn’t wrap my head around how a princess (who at that time was associated only with long-haired girls from Disney cartoons) could walk around with a boy’s haircut. Even then I thought: what a brave woman, not like others!
Today we want to tell you how Lady Di's hairstyle changed throughout life.
As a child, Diana Spencer was a very cute girl with medium-length blonde hair. Perhaps after that her curls never fell below her shoulders.
In old photos we see how “girly” Diana’s hairstyle was when she was still a teenager. Fortunately or unfortunately, the whole world remembered her completely differently.
Already in the early 1980s, Diana began to wear short hair. It was then that her signature style was formed.
The hairdresser responsible for Charles's signature hairstyle at that time was Kevin Shanley. One day, Diana went to the salon where the stylist of her two sisters, Sarah and Jane, worked.
Richard Dalton himself did not have time, and he called his assistant from another office. Since then, it was Kevin Shanley who set the trend for a long time, so that all English women dreamed of a hairstyle like Diana’s.
Spencer's short, cascading hair seemed to reflect her rebellious nature and the turbulent 1980s. The result of Kevin Shanley's work emphasized the oval shape of Diana's face and her sweet, shy smile.
It's funny, but on the wedding day, Diana's signature hairstyle always fell a little. The reason for this was the incredible heat, as well as the weight of the tiara and heavy veil.
In the 1980s, newspapers periodically published detailed plans for a short, cascading haircut like Diana's. Back then, all the fashionistas in Great Britain ran to their hairdressers with torn out pages with instructions for action printed on them.
By the way, after the birth of Prince Harry in 1984, Diana grew her hair and wore a shoulder-length bob. So the princess looked very feminine and elegant, but apparently, this image was not to the liking of the main rebel of the Windsor family.
It was believed that a short haircut, like that of the Princess of Wales, was most suitable for business style and could be combined with any dress code.
Blue eyeliner and a short haircut with slightly tousled hair laid in different directions became the highlight of Princess Diana.
By the way, Shanley and Dalton quarreled, and the latter had to become Lady Di’s main stylist for many years. He often experimented with the princess's hair color: from cold ash blonde to copper-brown shades.
In 1990, Dalton moved to the United States and was replaced by Sam McKnight.
It was Sam who was not afraid to give Diana a pageboy haircut - an elongated version of a boy's haircut.
The new hairstyle marked a new period in the princess's life. She was no longer afraid to share what was happening in the seemingly ideal royal family, and then to divorce Charles altogether, becoming free from the burden of gossip and betrayal.
