Meghan Markle and Princess Diana: Two Style Icons, Compared

Few pairings in royal fashion invite as much affectionate comparison as Meghan Markle and Princess Diana. One defined style for a generation raised on Sloane knits and the “revenge dress”; the other has built a quieter, sun-warmed wardrobe that still nods, again and again, to the woman who came before her. Neither treated clothes as decoration. Both used them as a language.

That is the real throughline between them. Diana learned, in real time and under extraordinary scrutiny, that a dress could say what she was not permitted to say aloud. Meghan, a generation later and an ocean away, has used a more understated wardrobe to do something similar: signal ease, intention and a life chosen on her own terms.

This is not a contest with a winner. It is a celebration of two women who took the rigid grammar of royal dressing and, in their own eras and their own ways, made it speak.

The revenge dress: Diana’s quiet act of defiance

No single garment captures Diana’s instinct for fashion-as-statement quite like the black off-the-shoulder cocktail dress she wore on the evening of 29 June 1994. Designed by the Greek-born couturier Christina Stambolian, it was worn to a Vanity Fair dinner at the Serpentine Gallery, on the same night an ITV documentary aired in which the Prince of Wales spoke publicly about the breakdown of their marriage.

What makes the story so compelling is the detail often missed: Diana had owned the dress for roughly three years by that point, having bought it from Stambolian’s Knightsbridge boutique in 1991 and judged it, at the time, too daring to wear. She kept it waiting. Then, on the one evening the world’s cameras were guaranteed to find her, she chose it deliberately.

The effect was immediate and total. Newspapers the next morning barely mentioned the documentary; the dress had eclipsed it entirely. Fashion historians still cite the moment as one of the earliest and cleanest examples of a woman using couture, rather than a single word, to reclaim a narrative. It remains shorthand, three decades on, for poise under pressure: proof that restraint, timed perfectly, can be its own kind of statement.

Off-duty and ahead of her time: Diana’s gym-run uniform

If the revenge dress was Diana at her most theatrical, her off-duty wardrobe showed the opposite instinct, and it has aged, remarkably, into the more influential of the two. From around 1995, she became known for a near-uniform: cycling shorts, an oversized graphic sweatshirt and crisp white trainers, worn on regular gym runs from Kensington Palace to the Chelsea Harbour Club.

The sweatshirts themselves became collectible in their own right: a navy Virgin Atlantic pullover, reportedly a gift from Sir Richard Branson, and a Harvard crewneck both became instantly recognisable. Diana was photographed in near-identical versions of the look repeatedly that year, a repetition some biographers have suggested was deliberate, denying paparazzi a fresh image to sell.

At the time, it was treated as merely practical. Viewed today, it reads as strikingly modern: the direct ancestor of the “off-duty royal” dressing that fills fashion coverage now, sweatshirt and trainers worn with the same unbothered confidence as any gown. Few figures were wearing performance-adjacent basics with such ease in the mid-1990s, and fewer still made it look like a considered choice rather than a concession. Diana, without ever naming it, got there first.

A wardrobe built by British couture

Diana’s formal wardrobe told a different story again, one of patronage as much as personal taste. Catherine Walker became her most trusted collaborator, reportedly dressing her more than any other designer across some sixteen years, from sculpted day suits to her most solemn evening looks. The Emanuels, David and Elizabeth, remain forever linked to her as the designers of her 1981 wedding gown. Victor Edelstein gave her the midnight-blue velvet gown she wore dancing with John Travolta at the White House in 1985, and Bruce Oldfield, whom she met through her charity work, dressed her in glamorous couture through the following decade.

Each of these names benefited enormously from Diana’s loyalty. Her patronage was not passive; she understood that a single engagement in the right gown could lift a British atelier onto the world stage, and she extended that gift generously and often. It is one reason her style legacy is remembered as generous as much as glamorous. She rarely wore a look without, in some sense, sharing the spotlight with the person who made it.

Meghan’s tailored beginnings at Kensington

Meghan’s royal-era wardrobe opened in a markedly different key: precise, monochrome, architectural. From her first appearances as Prince Harry’s fiancée, she favoured clean-lined coat dresses, single-button blazers and tonal palettes of navy, camel and ivory: a wardrobe built on shape rather than embellishment, at a moment when “quiet luxury” was not yet a phrase anyone used.

Her wedding gown, a boat-necked design by Clare Waight Keller for Givenchy, worn at St George’s Chapel on 19 May 2018, distilled that instinct into its purest form: a dress with almost no ornament, its statement carried instead by a five-metre veil embroidered with the flora of all 53 Commonwealth countries. It was, in its way, as deliberate a choice as Diana’s black dress thirteen years after her divorce: a wardrobe decision engineered to say exactly one thing, and say it precisely.

Where Diana’s early style softened gradually into confidence over a decade of public life, Meghan arrived already fluent in the grammar of royal dressing, having spent years in front of cameras as an actress. The result was a shorter, sharper evolution, but the same underlying discipline: every piece chosen to carry meaning, nothing left to chance.

From palace precision to California ease

Since relocating to Montecito, Meghan’s wardrobe has loosened without losing its logic. The structured coat dresses have given way to cashmere knits, fluid trousers and easy linen in oatmeal, cream and soft camel: the vocabulary of “quiet luxury” in its most literal sense, expensive simplicity with almost no visible branding.

It is worth pausing on how closely this mirrors Diana’s own trajectory from formality to ease, simply compressed into a single relocation rather than a decade. Both women, once released from the tightest constraints of royal protocol, reached for the same instinct: fewer clothes, better fabric, more comfort, still unmistakably considered. Meghan’s launch of the lifestyle label As Ever, built on preserves, honey and home fragrance in the same soft neutral palette as her wardrobe, extends that instinct from what she wears into how she lives, a throughline Diana, in a pre-digital, pre-personal-brand era, never had the platform to build for herself.

Echoes and homages: when Meghan nods to Diana

Fashion commentators have tracked, with evident delight, the moments where Meghan’s choices appear to reference Diana directly. A navy sequinned Roland Mouret gown worn for a Cirque du Soleil date night recalled Diana’s own taste for sleek eveningwear; a bold purple dress and red coat worn in Birkenhead in January 2019 echoed the colour combination, hat and all, of a look Diana wore decades earlier. Tartan, polka dots and monochrome tailoring have each made similar appearances.

Royal style-watchers generally read these not as coincidence but as considered tribute: a quiet acknowledgement, through fabric rather than words, of the woman whose son Meghan married. It is a gentler echo of what Diana herself once did for the designers she championed: using clothing to say something about lineage and respect that felt too personal to say outright. In that sense, the homage itself continues the very tradition it honours.

Why their style still resonates

Strip away the decades and the geography, and what remains is two women who refused to let a wardrobe imposed by circumstance become a wardrobe without a voice. Diana turned a black dress and a gym bag into a form of quiet self-possession; Meghan has turned a jar of marmalade and a linen shirt into much the same thing. Neither needed to raise her voice. The clothes did the talking, and the world is still listening.

Browse our Royal Style & Fashion stories for more of the wardrobes and moments that continue to shape royal dressing.

Frequently asked questions

What is Princess Diana’s “revenge dress”?

The “revenge dress” was a black off-the-shoulder cocktail dress by Christina Stambolian, worn by Diana on 29 June 1994 to a Vanity Fair dinner at the Serpentine Gallery, the same evening Prince Charles gave a televised interview discussing their marriage. Diana had owned the dress since 1991 and chose to wear it deliberately that night.

What made Princess Diana’s off-duty style so influential?

From around 1995, Diana became known for cycling shorts, oversized sweatshirts (including a Virgin Atlantic pullover and a Harvard crewneck) and white trainers, often photographed on gym runs to the Chelsea Harbour Club. The look is now widely credited as an early, unnamed version of today’s “off-duty royal” and athleisure dressing.

How is Meghan Markle’s style similar to Princess Diana’s?

Both women used fashion deliberately as self-expression within the constraints of royal life. Commentators have also noted specific echoes, including colour combinations, silhouettes and eveningwear choices in Meghan’s wardrobe that appear to reference looks Diana wore decades earlier.

Who designed Princess Diana’s wedding dress?

Diana’s 1981 wedding gown was designed by David and Elizabeth Emanuel, an ivory silk taffeta dress with a train reportedly around 25 feet long. She was also closely associated with designers Catherine Walker, Victor Edelstein and Bruce Oldfield throughout her life.

Who designed Meghan Markle’s wedding dress?

Meghan’s 2018 wedding gown was designed by Clare Waight Keller, then artistic director of Givenchy. The boat-necked, minimalist silk dress was paired with a five-metre veil embroidered with the flora of all 53 Commonwealth countries.

How has Meghan Markle’s style changed since leaving royal life?

Her wardrobe has softened from the structured coat dresses and tailoring of her royal years into a more relaxed “quiet luxury” aesthetic (cashmere knits, fluid trousers and neutral tones), reflecting her life in California and extending into her lifestyle brand, As Ever.

Did Princess Diana influence modern “off-duty royal” dressing?

Many stylists and fashion historians believe so. Her 1990s gym-run uniform of cycling shorts, sweatshirts and trainers anticipated the athleisure and off-duty dressing that has since become a recognisable strand of contemporary royal style coverage.

Is Meghan Markle deliberately inspired by Princess Diana?

Fashion commentators widely interpret specific style echoes, shared colours, silhouettes and eveningwear choices, as considered tributes rather than coincidence, though neither Meghan nor Kensington Palace has ever confirmed intent behind any individual outfit.

Sources: Wikipedia (Revenge dress); HELLO! Magazine, Newsweek and Grazia on Diana’s revenge dress and athleisure style; PureWow, SheKnows and Grazia on style parallels between Meghan Markle and Princess Diana; Marie Claire UK on Catherine Walker, Victor Edelstein and Bruce Oldfield. Some details are reported figures and should be read as such; correct as of 2026.