A few days after her tragic death, Lady Di put on a leopard-print halterneck swimsuit and posed for a few moments at the insistence of the paparazzi. She did it aboard Dodi Al Fayed’s father’s private yacht that floated in the sparkling waters of the Mediterranean, without knowing that this would be her last summer.
Another model that did not go unnoticed was the light blue that she wore sitting on the yacht’s catwalk while contemplating the horizon, on August 24, 1997. That image of the princess, which conveyed a certain message of isolation and sadness, has been the same as Zara has replicated to present the spring/summer 2024 swim campaign, along with that of the leopard swimsuit model.
The images of Diana Spencer aboard that yacht went around the world as part of a series of stolen photographs that fueled speculation in the tabloids about her alleged murder. The cover of Hello! magazine I planned to publish on September 6, 1997, with as its main photo the image of Lady Di sitting alone on the stern diving board, but following her sudden death on August 31, it never saw the light of day.
Zara has recreated that same photo by altering certain very relevant details such as the color of the model’s swimsuit and hair. Famed stylist Karen Hunt told Grazia UK that “the cyan blue that Princess Diana wore conveyed that isolation, innocence and sadness that her gaze reflected.” In the world of royalty, blue also symbolizes credibility and is always very present in the wardrobe.
Zara, on the other hand, has replaced it with a bright red color, the opposite tone to cyan blue, and has opted for a brunette model to avoid any speculation. To present the printed swimsuit, the brand simulated a daily scene of a famous woman hunted by a paparazzi, that is, the same one that she starred in on Lady Di’s yacht.
