This ASOS Capsule Collection Is Your Chance to Dress Like Princess Diana–Well, Kinda 

By Kelly Faircloth  |  October 13, 2016 | 6:45pm
Entertainment

If you’ve been longing since the age of five to bring some of Princess Diana’s style into your life—or if you’re really too young to remember her but keen to update your wardrobe with some whimsically exaggerated late 1980s touches—ASOS has got the capsule collection for you!

Women’s Wear Daily reports that the online retailer has launched a capsule collection in collaboration with Sharmadean Reid, founder of WAH Nails, which is a bit of a tribute to the People’s Princess. Its emphasis is less awkward-working-royal-at-Ascot (God forbid) and more about raiding the upscale looks of the ‘80s for cheeky reproductions. Reid told Dazed:

For this collection, Reid was inspired by both her West London girlfriends and Princess Diana – an idea that came from a back issue of WAH Zine (the fanzine that preceded the nail salon). “One issue, we did a page called ‘When Di Was Fly’ and myself and Charlotte Roberts from The Mushpit had found all these images of Princess Diana in streetwear… she always loved bomber jackets, she actually dressed quite American preppy, she even wore Harvard jumpers.”

She’d been repeatedly pitched on doing a collection, she said, but, “I didn’t want to do it until I had an idea, and then I had just moved to West London and I felt like a real West London mum, like ‘ah I feel a bit like Princess Diana, dropping the kids off to school’ and I thought: that’s a good idea for a collection, an East London girl moving to West London.” Queen Elizabeth II would be exceedingly bewildered by the results.

Some of the pieces are a bit generic.

And if you’ve, say, recently finished Diana Bradford’s biography Diana and come away with a lot of opinions and also spent some time pouring over the various eras of her looks, it all looks just slightly off.

Though the woman did love those odd preppy sweaters, and the collection is overall charmingly bananas.

If anything, the result in many cases is less Di, more Fergie.

To be clear, that is a compliment, not a complaint.

At any rate, brace for an incoming wave of Diana-mania nostalgia. After a decade of enthusiasm for Kate and a ten-year cycle of adoration for Queen Elizabeth II, we’re due.

 
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