"Shy Di" Makes a Daring Debut

By Michael Demarest

The Queen-to-be's glamorous new image leaves Britain gasping

Spiking the stale beer of Britons' discontent--deepening recession, wallet-walloping new taxes--came a tulip glass of bubbly named Di. When blond, blue-eyed, 19-year-old Lady Diana Spencer made her first formal appearance last week as the fiancee of the Prince of Wales, she left the island gasping. Attending a benefit recital at the Goldsmiths' Hall --close to St. Paul's Cathedral, where the royal couple will be married July 29--the Queen-to-be stepped out in a strapless, black silk-taffeta evening gown that radiated a wolf-whistle glamour not associated with Britain's ruling ladies for generations. (But certainly in the tradition of England's first Princess of Wales, the fair wife of Edward, the Black Prince. Holding forth in English-ruled Bordeaux in the 1360s, the Princess scandalized a local lord with her "luxurious trimmings and low-cut bodices.") It was clear from the decolletage that the gown was not a couturier's illusion. Lady Di filled it to overflowing. Said one observer: "I thought she was going to take a deep breath and fall out of it."

LADY DI TAKES THE PLUNGE, punned a Daily Mirror headline. DI THE DARING, exclaimed the Sun, which ran one picture of her on the front page and three more inside. The Daily Express said flatly that "a crowd of 200 gasped" as Lady Di stepped out of her limo. Even the Times of London permitted itself a slight whimsicality. When Prince Charles ascends the throne, mused Columnist Alan Hamilton, "the royal couple will be known as the King and Di." Writer Jean Rook of the Daily Express complimented Diana "for putting on a bold, beautiful front, and for turning her cold, bare shoulders on the traditional, covered-up royal evening dress." Added Rook: "Her Gone With the Wind dress is high, young fashion. It takes courage, and a lot more, to uphold it. And sitting through an evening in that tight, boned bodice takes guts, because, unless you stay upright and regal, the bones stick like fish knives into your midriff. All Di must learn to watch, which the TV cameras noticed, is the ounce or two of puppy fat which boned bodices tuck under a girl's arms. But you can't have too much of as good a thing as Lady Diana."

It is not that Prince Charles' chosen would qualify for a Charlie's Angels sexpot role. At 5 ft. 10 in. (Charles is 5 ft. 11 in.), she is a blooming English rose, with a bounteous figure, shapely legs (as a back-lighted photograph of her in a Diaphanous dress showed clearly a few months ago), large luminous eyes, a sweet smile and the velvety skin and hair of a 19-year-old. Those qualities, plus her blushing innocence and aristocratic reserve, are what made her sexy, sophisticated debut such a stunner.

The debut might not have been so smashing an event without a young husband-and-wife fashion design team who have established a veddy select salon in Mayfair. David Emanuel, 28, and Elizabeth, 27, have made clothes for Lady Diana before and will make her wedding gown. They, and she, both obviously like the young, with-it look that she projects. Says David Emanuel: "Lady Diana is fantastic looking and will look magnificent in a wedding dress. She is young, fresh and lovely, and the dress should emphasize all that. We want to make her look like a fairy princess."

Which she certainly should, unless the Emanuels go overboard. According to the Guardian, the couple's "extravagant high-society gowns often go well past the borderline of the erotic . . . Their rapid fame has been based largely on exotic, intricately decorated, grand evening gowns which blend the pre-Raphaelite and Nell Gwynne styles. Demand for their work, which they advertise as 'bringing glamour back to evening clothes,' has grown as jet-set and upper-class balls have become more nostalgically lavish in times of general gloom." British commentators noted happily that Di seems determined to project a style that is in keeping with her own personality rather than that of a waxwork royal at Madame Tussaud's.

Lady Di's coiffure also launched a thousand snips. A layered cut, brushed off the face and neater but more stylized than the shag that was popularized by Jane Fonda in the early 1970s, it looks basically like a soft wedge graduated to the nape of the neck. Her hairdresser, Kevin Shanley, 25, who works in a South Kensington salon prophetically named Headlines Hair and Beauty Salon, confirms rumors that her locks are touched up with "a little blond highlighting" (or Di-lighting). Hairdressers throughout Britain are being besieged by young women who, as they say, demand a Di job. American hairdressers say they have not had a great many requests for the style; it is fairly familiar in the U.S., where it was introduced by Vidal Sassoon and other hair stylists some years ago.

The new royal look will doubtless set a standard for British models in TV commercials and other ads. Already the Daily Mirror has launched a nationwide Lady Di look-alike contest (first entrant: Lyn Hooper, 22, a policeman's wife in Leeds, Yorkshire).

Alas for the lass, Di's sudden fame as a reigning beauty has only intensified the paparazzi-style photographic coverage of her and Charles. Two French photographers were detained last week for trespassing on the grounds of Prince Charles' country house in Gloucestershire, where the couple were thought to be spending the weekend. For the cameramen, the first crocuses mean only one thing: If spring is near, can Di in a swimsuit be far behind?

-By Michael Demarest. Reported by Arthur White/London

With reporting by Arthur White

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