An exhibition of Princess Diana’s gowns opened in Plymouth Monday, just a few days before her son, Prince William’s royal wedding.
The traveling collection has been to four countries in its fourteen years…
But this is the last time Diana’s dresses will be on display before they’re auctioned in June.
NHPR Correspondent Shannon Mullen stopped by the show and sent this report.
On Main Street in downtown Plymouth, the Flying Monkey movie house looks like an unlikely venue for an exhibition of Princess Diana’s royal gown
Orange Prom Dresses, but there are no complaints from the people who’ve come to see them.
“Words can’t really describe it,” said Chris Lopez, who drove up from Canterbury. “It’s a piece of history that I’m able to touch. I definitely am interested in Diana and her life, the legacy she left, the humanitarian work means a lot to me.”
The collection includes fourteen of Diana’s floor-length dresses
Wedding Guest Dresses, including the ink blue velvet number she famously wore to a White House state dinner in 1985, when she danced with John Travolta.
The others range from frilly frocks she wore as a demure young princess, to the ######ier column dresses she made famous as a fashion icon.
There’s a short film about Diana’s life
Formal prom dresses, and around the theater several flat-screen TVs play narrated slideshows about Diana’s fairytale wedding, the birth of her two sons, her divorce, and her humanitarian work around the world.
Patti Gamble came to the exhibition on her way home to Boston, after a weekend in the Lakes Region. “I was just Googling to see what was happening in the area, and I said to my husband, I have to go,” Gamble said. “He was like, I can’t go into that. I said, you can sit in the car but I need to do this. So here I am, and I’m thrilled to be here.”
Gamble adds that her fascination with Diana goes much deeper than the dresses she wore.
“She had an awesome figure. What woman wouldn’t want to be in couture dresses, best makeup artists in the world, but even when she did that, you know, a child could come up to her and she’d get down on her hands and knees and play with the child.”
Maureen Dunkel, an entrepreneur from Florida, owns the dresses in the collection, and admits she didn’t know much about Diana’s life or her public allure before the Princess auctioned her dresses for charity in 1997, two months before she died.
“That term, people’s princess
cheap Cocktail dresses, is absolutely true
Bridesmaid Dresses,I’ve come to learn that,” Dunkel says. “When she died and I started really understanding who she was and her background, why so many people were so in awe of her
A-Line Dresses, my feelings did change. It was probably the fantasy of her life colliding with the reality of her life
pink prom dresses 2011, on a very public stage, that made her so relatable to so many people.”
Dunkel’s collection has been shown around the United States, Canada and in New Zealand. Many of the gowns also spent years on display at Kensington Palace in London as part of a royal ceremonial dress exhibit, and now Dunkel plans to sell them at an auction in June.
“It’s bittersweet but I feel good about it,” she said. “It’s just time, it’s an enormous responsibility. It seems like the appropriate time, William is getting married, he’s coming into his own, it’s time for the next generation of royals to do their thing and we’ll see what happens.”
After Plymouth
Princess Dresses, the dresses head to Toronto for a month, then to the auction block. As for why Dunkel chose New Hampshire for their final U.S. showing, she says she was here in the state at her vacation home when she decided to buy the gowns
Formal Dresses, and for her it’s as fitting a place for the finale as any.
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