- Princess Diana's wedding dress designer shared sketches of a secret second dress.
- Elizabeth Emanuel told Hello Magazine that the pearl-embroidered gown was a backup.
Images of Princess Diana's backup wedding dress have been released by the royal's designer for the first time.
Elizabeth Emanuel designed Diana's wedding gown with her then-husband, David, for Diana's wedding to Charles on July 29, 1981. She shared sketches of the second dress that was never worn by the princess in a Hello Magazine article published on Saturday.
"The spare wedding gown was made just in case the secret of the real dress ever got out. Fortunately, it was never used," Elizabeth told the outlet.
Sketches of the dress, titled "The Spare Dress," were shared in the Hello Magazine article. It was made with pale ivory silk taffeta with embroidered scalloped details on the hem and three-quarter-length sleeves in addition to tiny pearls sewn onto the bodice, Elizabeth told the outlet.
The dress has a couple of similarities to the one Diana wore, including the ruffled V-neckline and wide princess skirt.
"People always ask you what it was like. It was similar in certain respects and both had the big skirt, but everything else was different," Elizabeth said. She added that the dress was a backup to the original.
It isn't the first time Elizabeth has opened up about the spare dress. In 2017, she told the Daily Mail of the gown's existence, adding that it was only three-quarters finished because they didn't have time to complete it.
She added that they didn't know where the spare gown ended up after the ceremony.
"It was hanging up in the studio for a long time, and then it disappeared. I don't know if we sold it or put it into storage. It was such a busy time. I'm sure it'll turn up in a bag one day!" she told the Daily Mail.
Diana's original gown had 10,000 pearls, 300 feet of tulle in the petticoat, and another 450 feet of tulle in the veil, according to Harper's Bazaar. A square of Carrickmacross lace that belonged to Mary of Teck, Charles' great-grandmother, was sewn into the dress, according to Town & Country.
During an appearance on ITV's "Invitation to a Royal Wedding" in 2018, Elizabeth said she was "horrified" by how creased the gown got on the wedding day.
"We did know it would crease a bit but when I saw her arrive at St Paul's and we saw the creasing I actually felt faint," she said, according to the Daily Mirror. "I was horrified, really, because it was quite a lot of creasing. It was a lot more than we thought."
Representatives for Elizabeth Emanuel and David Emanuel did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.