Elizabeth Debicki says Princess Diana used fashion as 'an incredibly powerful currency'

Elizabeth Debicki says Princess Diana used fashion as “an incredibly powerful currency”.

‘The Crown’ star – who took over playing the late Princess of Wales from Emma Corrin for the Netflix series’ upcoming fifth season set in the 90s – praised Diana’s “strength” for showing up in the Christina Stambolian dress adorned with a pearl and sapphire choker to the benefit at London’s Serpentine Gallery on the evening her husband, then-Prince of Wales, now King Charles III, admitted to cheating on her with his long term mistress Camilla, now Queen Consort, in an 1994 ITV documentary. .

In the video ‘The Crown’s Elizabeth Debicki Revisits Princess Diana’s Most Memorable Looks’ for British Vogue’s ‘Life In Look’ series, the 32-year-old actress said: “She was claiming the space. The way she walked out of that car, the luminosity, the strength of her as that car door opened, she was so fast and so forward. It’s an extraordinary thing to watch. To decide what you’re saying about yourself through fashion… it was a currency – an incredibly powerful currency.”

Elizabeth knew the black dress – which was dubbed ‘the revenge dress’ by the media – was “symbolic” when that was the fashion moment friends and family were most interested in her wear in the Peter Morgan-created historical drama.

She said: “When people in my life found out that I was going to play this part, this was the dress that everyone texted me about.

“That’s when I started to realise how symbolic this dress is to people”

The ‘Widows’ star called the frock “complex” and spent a lot of time considering its meaning to the show, which will controversially explore the events leading up to, during and after the Paris car crash that killed Diana aged 36, leaving behind her two teenage sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, now 40, and 38 years old respectively.

Elizabeth said: It’s a complex dress. I let the fittings happen around me while I thought about what the dress meant.”