On the evening when Prince Charles admitted to millions of viewers that he had been unfaithful, Diana did not release interviews and did not respond publicly. He left the house and presented himself to one of the most photographed events in London.
It was June 29, 1994. At the Serpentine Gallery, Diana came wearing a black dress, with her shoulders discovered, designed by Christina Stambolian. The photographs quickly made the tour of the world and that dress would have passed to history with a name that Diana had never attributed to him: Revenge Dress, the dress of revenge.
The story behind that choice makes that dress even more interesting. Diana owned the dress for about three years, but according to what she told later she had never worn it because she considered it too daring. That evening, moreover, she should have presented herself with a Valentino dress. But when some details of the dress ended up in the press before the event, he changed the program at the last moment and chose the black dress remained until then in the closet.
The coincidence with what was happening in television turned everything. That same evening a documentary was broadcast on Carlo. When asked about fidelity during marriage, the prince recognized that he was not faithful after the relationship, according to his words, had become “immediably compromised”.
Diana did not try to compete with those statements through words. The Serpentine Gallery appeared smiling, confident and with a much more daring image than the British audience was accustomed to.
His former style consultant Anna Harvey would then summarize that choice in a few words: Diana wanted to look better. And he did.
The next day, in fact, on the first pages there was not only Carlo. She was there.
Defining that dress a revenge means giving Diana an intention that only she could have known really. The name was born above all by the way the press and the public interpreted that extraordinary coincidence.
But maybe that's what makes photography so powerful today.
In the middle of one of the most painful and public periods of his life, Diana did not allow that night his image was only that of his betrayed wife.
He went in front of the high-headed photographers.
He said nothing.
Yet the next morning everyone also spoke about her.