Princess Diana | 1986 Catherine Walker Falcon Evening Gown (With Book)

A custom cream silk crepe embroidered evening gown designed by Catherine Walker for Diana, the Princess of Wales, for her 1986 Gulf Tour, including countries Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

The gown has a high neckline and long Guinevere-style point sleeves to accommodate local dressing customs. The streamlined gown has pronounced rounded shoulders, a fitted bodice, and a skirt with a circular train. Walker's minimalist design features sequins, beading, and embroidery of falcons with spread wings that begin at the left shoulder. The cream silk crepe works beautifully with the placement of the birds, whose migrational-like pattern goes up the skirt's train around the hip and onto the front of the bodice. The interior of the gown is fully lined in matching silk; a zip closure is located at the back of the dress, with a hook-and-eye clasp at the back of the neck. A Catherine Walker label is sewn at the gown's interior, but no size label is present.

Richard Dalton, Diana's hairdresser, recalls this particular design by Catherine Walker in his memoir It's All About The Hair, My Decade with Diana, writing, "One Night, Diana was invited to join the Sheikhas at the harem. [...] Diana was wearing this cream gown designed by Catherine Walker. It had all these gold birds embroidered flying up the back of her dress and train to honor the native bird of Saudi Arabia." He recalls the following day his conversation with Diana recounting how the women were dressed, who he writes, saying, "'Oh my God, Richard, Every Couture designer you can imagine, and dripping with diamonds and emeralds on their shoes, in their hair--it was unbelievable."

For spring/summer 1998, Catherine Walker drew inspiration from the 1986 royal tour gown to create one of her ready-to-wear gowns featured in her collection. Walker wrote in her memoir, "The inspiration for this dress comes from a dress I designed for the Princess of Wales when she visited the Gulf States. The embroidered motif at the time was a falcon, which we thought was an appropriate symbol."

Princess Diana started wearing Catherine Walker's designs when she was pregnant with Prince William. Catherine Walker's designs from 1982 to 1988 were labeled "The Chelsea Design Company," the designer writes in her memoir, "In Paris, people would laugh at anyone putting their name on a shopfront and calling themselves a designer without the skill and background to prove it. In deference to this inexperience, we called our business 'The Chelsea Design Company' rather than 'Catherine Walker,' the name being simply a description of where we were and what we did."

The lot property comes with a book, Diana Princess of Wales, A Tribute by Tim Graham, which has a supporting image of Diana with Christopher Balfour from Christie's viewing the Catherine Walker falcon gown on exhibition in New York for the 1997 auction "Dresses from the Collection of Diana, Princess of Wales." 

PROVENANCE Lot 64 "Dresses from the Collection of Diana, Princess of Wales," Christie's [Sale 8702], June 25, 1997.

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