Elizabeth Emanuel: I designed Princess Diana’s wedding dress – these days, there's no glamour on the red carpet

While it’s difficult to top a royal wedding seen by 750 million around the world, I’ve been lucky enough to design costumes for so many environments, from aircraft (creating one of Virgin Atlantic’s earliest uniforms for Richard Branson) to the Royal Opera House. But it’s on the flashbulb-lit red carpet – which has always been a riot of colour and fabrics, imagination, inspiration and spectacle – that we’ve witnessed the biggest change. Glamour on the red carpet is dead.

Everyone seems to be doing the same thing, flashing as much flesh as possible. You may not have heard of the “naked dress”, but if you follow celebrities in the media you’ll know that nakedness on the red carpet has really taken off. It’s everywhere – the Vanity Fair Oscars Party, the Met Gala, the Grammys and Golden Globes.

See-through, sheer-mesh or chain-mail gowns – in which you can see nipples, breasts or even everything underneath – have become such a red-carpet staple that the Cannes Film Festival banned them this year. “For decency reasons, nudity is prohibited on the red carpet, as well as in any other area of the festival,” they announced.

Some disagreed with this edict. But I agree with the sentiment because the naked dress has been done to death. Everyone looks like they’re trying to stand out, but they all look the same. While the catwalk is still a place of variety, on the red carpet at least, it’s time to come up with something new.

Fashion has an immense power. You can create an identity or reveal a side of your personality with what you choose to wear or not wear, whether it’s soft and gentle, sensual or knockout. You can choose to stay in the background or turn heads.

I believe that fashion is a vocabulary, a means of sending a message without saying anything. Princess Diana understood this well. When, in 1981, she wore a black dress I created with my then husband David Emanuel for her first official outing as Prince Charles’s fiancée, it was a huge departure for her. Up to that point, she hadn’t found her style. Our gown was sexy and glamorous with a deep plunge. As I say in my documentary for 5, we didn’t know royals only wore black while in mourning because we were inexperienced. But Diana became a fashion icon from that moment on.

Some 13 years later, she made a statement with what was dubbed the “revenge dress” – a fitted, off-the-shoulder Christina Stambolian number, worn after Charles’s admission, on television, of adultery. Clothes have an immense power, one that should be celebrated. But that power doesn’t seem to exist any more. Individuality has gone. That’s most evident on the red carpet.

You might ask, why this matters in the scheme of things? Of course, as a designer, clothes are my world. But they tell us where we are as a society. When we’re all in the same clothes, it says we’re afraid, insecure, we want to follow the herd. Perhaps that’s the influence of social media and influencers using the same make-up and Botox. The use of filters has wiped out individuality – people look immaculately beautiful, but with no character at all.

I know, from years of experience, that you don’t need filters. Anyone can look fabulous in their own unique way. But to stand out, you need to show your own personality and dare to be different, not just follow what everyone else is doing. Clothes give you a story and power, something that I hope we wake up to.

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