The first Monday in May is the perfect time to look back at Met Gala history.
Before stars like Beyoncé and Rihanna stole the spotlight on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, it was Princess Diana making a splash on fashion’s biggest night.
The only Met Gala that the people’s princess attended was in 1996, for a show that paid tribute to Christian Dior.
Fresh off her highly-publicized divorce from then-Prince Charles, Diana collaborated with John Galliano — who had just become Dior’s head designer — for her Met Gala debut.
Diana’s navy-blue, lingerie-inspired slip dress featured black lace spaghetti straps that matched the trim of the sweetheart neckline.
She accessorized the slinky ensemble with a matching robe, as well as a sapphire choker necklace and earrings that matched her iconic engagement ring.
In the 2024 Hulu docuseries “In Vogue: The 90s,” Galliano revealed that he tried to convince Diana to wear pink to the Met Gala.
“We went to Kensington Palace and discussed drawings. I was trying to push for pink, but she was not having it. ‘No, not the pink!’ That was real, real fun,” he recalled.
Galliano’s dress originally had a corset, but he said Diana removed it without letting him know before she arrived at the Met Gala.
“Fast-forward to the event, and I just remember her getting out of the car,” Galliano said. “I couldn’t believe it. She’d ripped the corset out.”
“She felt so liberated. She’d torn the corset out. The dress was much more… sensuous,” he added.
Eloise Moran, author of “The Lady Di Look Book: What Diana Was Trying To Tell Us Through Her Clothes,” told Yahoo during a 2021 interview that Diana’s Met Gala ensemble was a “revenge” look following her divorce from Charles.
“That was one of her most shocking dresses,” Moran said. “But I thought she looked fabulous. She just looks so happy and confident.”
“I think she was embracing it and enjoying it,” the author added. “She knew she could never get rid of the attention and the spotlight on her, but I think she was positioning it in a different way, as a kind of international megastar, Marilyn Monroe-type icon rather than a member of the royal family. And I think the dress really reflected that.”
Diana did have some reservations about the dress.
Royal biographer Katie Nicholl, who wrote “William and Harry,” revealed that the princess was worried it might embarrass her eldest son, Prince William, who was 14 years old at the time.
Now the dress is part of fashion history, even going on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
And, without a doubt, it’s one of the best Met Gala looks of all time.
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