Early November 1985, Princess Diana and her husband Prince Charles visited the United States. The royal pair remained at the White House and on November 9 attended a gala supper.
Photographed in the Entrance Hall dancing with actor John Travolta to the soundtrack of his 1977 film Saturday Night Fever, the 24-year-old Princess
Widely shared worldwide, the pictures and TV footage of them “gliding around the room” helped the gown to become known as the “Travolta dress.”
Before another Hollywood star, Tom Selleck, cut in for a waltz with Diana, the couple danced to some of Travolta’s biggest singles from the Saturday Night Fever album and “You’re The One That I Want.”
Big celebrities in every profession were there at the party: Tom Selleck, Gloria Vanderbilt, Estée Lauder, Mikhail Baryshnikov, opera diva Leontyne Price. A handful of the invites, like Travolta, Clint Eastwood, and Neil Diamond, came from Diana personally.
Speaking about the legendary event in years since, Travolta has said, “one of the highlights of my life” and “the best moment of the eighties.” I had to tap her on her shoulder at midnight and ask, “Would you kindly dance?” Travolta said in 2007, “She turned around and dipped her head in that Lady Diana way and we were off for 15 minutes dancing.”
“I won never forget it. Being able to witness it makes me very privileged; I know for sure that this was her favorite moment of living in the United States. I am thus quite sorry that she is not here; she made my life better and hers.
Designed by Victor Edelstein, Princess Diana’s dress is an off-the-shoulder dark blue velvet evening gown. Actually, Edwardian fashion—which offered a “slight sweep of costume drama—inspired it. Journalist Jackie Modlinger said it was “dramatic in style” and “regal in fabric.”
Once more in Germany in December 1987 and for the Wall Street premiere in April 1988, the Princess of Wales donned the gown. She wore it for a last formal portrait picture shot in 1997 by Earl of Snowdon, Prince Charles’s uncle.
It sold for $325,317 in 2019 to Historic Royal Palaces, an organisation looking after royal antiques including costumes and relics.
(Photo credit: Ronald Reagan Library / Pete Souza / Consolidated News Photos).
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