Photographer Compares Princess Diana's Hair to Plastic
Photographer David Bailey recalls a photoshoot he did with Lady Diana in the 1980s when the princess's hair looked like plastic.
David Bailey, an iconic British fashion photographer, recalled in a recent interview what a photo shoot with Princess Diana was like in the 1980s. Bailey worked at different times with members of the British royal family and revealed that the princess' hair was not as silky as it appeared to be.
Bailey mentioned that because Princess Diana needed her hair perfectly in place, she often used an excessive amount of hairspray. "Terrible hair. You know, from the hairspray. The strands were as solid as a plastic mannequin," he said.
During the interview, Bailey also talked about an embarrassing moment he experienced with the Princess of Wales when he accidentally dropped a lighting fixture on her head. “I thought, 'Oh, shit.' She said, 'Don't think about it; it was a terrible accident,'" he recalled.
Lady Diana's signature haircut was crafted by hairstylist Sam McKnight in the 1990s. "I could feel that she wanted to change," commented McKnight in the documentary Diana: Queen of Style. "I said I was going to cut it all off. Cut it all off and start over. So she said, 'Okay, let's do this,'" he recalls.
In the 2017 documentary Diana in Her Own Words, a recording shows Lady Diana commenting on how important this haircut was to her: "I think last summer, when Sam cut my hair in a different way, it set something completely loose. different."
