The Surprising Story and Inspiration Behind Princess Diana’s Iconic Headband Moment

Leave it to Princess Diana to turn a beauty emergency into a major fashion statement.

While Diana was on a tour of Australia with then-Prince Charles in 1985, she made headlines on October 31 – 39 years ago! – after she memorably wore an emerald choker necklace as a headband. And it turns out, the iconic styling moment was the result of an accidental sunburn.

As the late Princess of Wales’ hairstylist, Richard Dalton revealed in his new book, It’s All About the Hair: My Decade with Diana, Princess of Wales, he was in Melbourne with the princess when she had “a bit of a sunburn around her neck from being out in the hot Australian sun all day.”

Diana had planned on wearing the emerald-and-diamond necklace – which once belonged to Queen Mary and was a wedding gift from mother-in-law Queen Elizabeth – to a gala that night. After hearing about her painful sunburn — which would have made the choker uncomfortable around her tender neck — the hairstylist had another idea for how to wear the glittery accessory.

“This was a totally spontaneous moment where I thought, ‘What should we do for fun?’” Dalton wrote. He added: “I said to Diana, ‘Let’s try something different. Why don’t we stick some emeralds in your hair?’”

Dalton used elastic from a pair of underwear to turn the choker into a headband. According to his book, which is out now, after attaching the elastic to each end of the necklace and draping it across the princess’ forehead, it “fit comfortably without falling off,” and he styled her hair around it. “Diana absolutely loved it,” he continued. “And I never traveled without knicker elastic again.”

Although Dalton had been working with Diana for years by 1985, he called the memorable “necklace-as-headband” his “first big statement” in his book. “As they say, the rest is history.”

The necklace wasn’t seen again until 25 years after Diana’s death when Kate Middleton surprised royal fashion watchers everywhere by wearing it (as a necklace) to the Earthshot Prize Awards ceremony in 2022. And like her late mother-in-law, she paired it with a bright green dress.

“I love that necklace,” Dalton wrote of the statement piece that he spontaneously repurposed nearly four decades ago for Princess Diana in 1985. “We caused such a sensation that night.”