Victoria’s Secret model Elsa Hosk has recreated one of the most infamous looks in Royal Family history for Halloween — Princess Diana’s iconic “revenge dress.”
Hosk, 35, took to Instagram on Thursday, October 31, to share a carousel of images that featured herself replicating the black dress that Princess Diana wore back in 1994.
“Wishing you an ICONIC Halloween🖤” Hosk captioned the post.
The model also posted an Instagram Reel, where she showed off the replica outfit, complete with an uncannily similar necklace to the one the late princess wore at the time.
“The people’s princess 👑” she wrote via Instagram.
Diana’s original “revenge dress” was a Christina Stambolian design, featuring a low-cut, off-the-shoulder bodice and relatively short hemline.
The outfit was a relatively risque sartorial choice for anyone in the royal circle, with the family traditionally opting for more demure fashion.
Diana’s decision to wear the dress — and the reason it was dubbed by the public as a “revenge dress” — was the timing of its debut. Diana stepped out in the dress for a gala at the Serpentine Gallery on June 29, 1994 – the same night Prince Charles confessed on TV that he had been unfaithful to Diana with mistress Camilla Parker-Bowles.
“It is a deeply regrettable thing to happen, but it does happen, and unfortunately, in this case, it has happened,” Charles said in the ITV documentary, Charles: The Private Man, the Public Role, which aired a year and a half after the couple’s split.
In the same interview, Charles was asked if he had tried to be “faithful and honorable” to his wife, to which he responded, “Yes. Until it became irretrievably broken down, us both having tried.”
A year later, Diana also opened about the former couple’s marriage woes in a controversial interview on BBC’s Panorama.
“Do you think Mrs Parker Bowles was a factor in the breakdown of your marriage?” journalist Martin Bashir asked Diana.
She responded with a line that would soon become infamous, “Well, there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.”
Diana and Charles formally divorced in August 1996 after 15 years of marriage. The princess died at age 36 in August 1997. The King and Camilla wed in April 2005.
Meanwhile, the “revenge dress” could have looked very different to the one that ultimately became well known.
Claudia Joseph, the author of Diana: A Life in Dresses, which explores the late princess’ fashion evolution, told Us Weekly in February 2023 that the late princess almost wore something else.
“The story behind her wearing the ‘Revenge Dress’ is quite interesting,” Joseph told Us. “She’d gone into Christina Stambolian’s dress shop with her brother Charlie Spencer, and he sat there while she tried on clothes.”
The writer explained that Diana had ordered the memorable off-the-shoulder dress but originally “wanted it in white.” Joseph continued: “But Christina said, ‘No, no I think it would look better in black.’”
Diana, however, wasn’t convinced. “She was [groaning] about it, but Christina insisted, ‘This looks fabulous on you,’” Joseph told Us.
She ended up obliging and ordered the piece in black. On the day of the Serpentine Gallery event, the British press leaked that Diana would be wearing Valentino, which didn’t sit well with her.
“She got quite angry about that, so she went into her closet and her butler suggested she wear the [Stambolian], and it of course got dubbed the ‘Revenge Dress,” Joseph claimed.
