Princess Diana's Favorite Designer: What You Need To Know About Katherine Walker

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Many consider Gianni Versace to be the favorite designer of Princess Diana. This is partly true: Lady Dee did wear his dresses quite often. True, only for a fairly short period of time after the divorce from Prince Charles. For the formation and development of the style of the Princess of Wales, in fact, a completely different person is responsible - Catherine Walker. The French-born British designer has created over a thousand dresses for Lady Dee - and has had a hand in her transformation from a naive fairy princess into a style icon of a universal scale. Here's everything you need to know about her and her dazzling career in fashion.

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Frenchwoman in Foggy Albion

Despite the seemingly typical English name, Catherine Walker is actually a real Frenchwoman. Born Catherine Marguerite-Thérèse Bao was born in 1945 in the French city of Calais. After completing her master's degree at the University of Provence, she moved to London to work on her PhD thesis. There she married lawyer John Walker - and became a British subject. The couple had two daughters, but this love story was not destined to become a fairy tale in reality: just 5 years after the wedding, John dies in a car accident while on vacation in his wife's homeland - France. Fortunately, Katherine managed to meet her love for the second time - her new husband was a teacher of the Chelsea College of Art of Iranian origin, Said Cyrus.

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Successful designer

Actually, it was the second spouse who pushed Walker to a career in fashion design. As often happens, everything happened purely by chance. Cyrus simply suggested that the widowed and grief-stricken woman take up some creative hobby to alleviate her suffering. To which she replied that she knew how to cook and sew. He liked the second option much more. A couple of years later, the Catherine Walker & Co brand was born, which the couple opened together. Already in 1990, Walker received her first prestigious British Fashion Awards, and a year later - her second. As they say, a star is born.

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Princess Diana dresses author

By 1981, Catherine Walker was already a well-known designer among the British establishment. In the same year, Lady Diana Spencer marries Prince Charles of Wales - and becomes Princess Diana. The new status demanded a new wardrobe - to replace funny sweaters and naive and modest dresses of a fairy princess, a more adult, restrained and refined style should have come. Diana turned to Catherine Walker & Co. for help. And as a result, she became a regular client: the cooperation between Lady Dee and the Fashion House lasted for 16 years, right up to her tragic death in 1997. During this time, Katherine Walker created over a thousand outfits for her main client, including the famous "Elvis dress" with a bolero with a stand-up collar, embroidered with natural pearls. Modest green polka dot dressin which the Princess of Wales appeared on the doorstep of the hospital with the newborn Prince William in her arms - also the work of Catherine Walker. Their relationship was so close that at some point already went beyond a simple business partnership. Diana was even buried in a black Catherine Walker dress, which she bought a few months before her death in a car accident.

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Kate Middleton also wears things of her brand

After Diana's death, the tradition of wearing clothes of her favorite designer was taken over by her daughter-in-law, Kate Middleton. She has ordered things from the Catherine Walker brand more than once for official meetings and events - for example, for a visit to Pakistan in 2019. True, their team created without the participation of Walker herself - she died of cancer in 2010. True, she turned out to be such a fruitful designer that she left sketches for another two years - until 2012, the brand of her name made clothes only for them.

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