Lady Diana (†36)
Fashionable alliance with Charles’ ex-lover
This dress is from a very specific fashion label – a clever affront to Camilla.
© Anwar Hussein/Getty Images
Lady Diana proved several times that she had a knack for combining revenge and fashion. At a Live Aid concert broadcast worldwide in 1985, she deliberately took a swipe at Camilla with her dress – and for this she joined forces with Charles’ ex-lover Lady Tryon.
The fact that Lady Diana, †36, was not the only woman at Charles’ side has been an irrefutable fact since his affair, relationship and marriage to Camilla. But a second extramarital relationship seems to have been almost forgotten these days: his liaison with Lady Dale “Kanga” Tryon, †49. The blonde, attractive woman, who burst with joy at every appearance, met Charles at a dance party in Victoria in 1966 while he was studying at Geelong Grammar School in her native Australia. Dale followed the then Prince of Wales to Great Britain and married his childhood friend Lord Anthony Tryon three years later. According to author Tina Brown, she shared bed with the future king for years. Along with Camilla, she was the second married woman who was “on call for the prince while their husbands looked away.” This is what Brown writes in her book “The Palace Papers”.
That’s why Lady Diana allied herself with Dale Tryon
Regardless of the romance speculation, Dale and Charles shared a deep friendship. They loved to go fly fishing together and spent time together all the time. Lady Tryon named her second child “Charles” and made the Prince of Wales godfather.
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According to Dale’s statements, Charles referred to her as:
The only woman who ever understood me
But when she started speaking to the press, he cut off all contact with her. Only his love and affair with Camilla Parker Bowles remained – as we later find out, even during his marriage to Lady Diana. A fact that is a concern not only for the then Princess of Wales, but also for Lady Tryon.
How a polka dot dress becomes a vendetta
The fact that Dale and Charles were so close for years and that she was the only woman who ever understood him went against Camilla’s grain, as Tina Brown writes in her book. She didn’t like the fact that her current husband wanted someone else – she couldn’t stand Lady Dale Tryon. True to the motto “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” Diana took advantage of this fact.
In 1983, Lady Tryon created a fashion brand, which she named after her nickname “Kanga”. The label grows into an internationally successful company and, in addition to the branch on Beauchamp Place in Knightsbridge, also opens other stores in Hong Kong and Dublin. According to Brown, in 1985 Diana’s jealousy of Camilla reached its peak. To rub salt in Camilla’s wound, she decided to wear a Dale Tryon dress to one of the most important events of the year.
© Dana Press
The Live Aid concert, which was a charity event to fight hunger in Africa, was televised worldwide – so the eyes of the world were on the royal couple who opened the event. Diana used this international stage to exact revenge on Camilla. She wore a light blue “Kanga” dress with white dots and stripes. Not really her style, is it? Well, it wasn’t just about fashion for her, just like with her revenge dress. According to Brown, she chose the outfit from the label, which was still relatively unknown at the time, to “drive Camilla crazy.” It would not have been an act of friendship, as Lady Tryon and Diana Spencer had never met before. So it seems like her fashion choice was a clever and planned affront to her husband’s mistress – Lady Di even linked up with her husband’s ex-mistress for it.
Sources used: Dailymail.co.uk, The Palace Papers