Princess Diana’s Wedding Shoes Hold a Hidden Love Story

Princess Diana‘s royal wedding look is seared into public memory, from her diamond-encrusted tiara to her dramatic ivory dress to her intricately embellished slippers.

When Princess Diana wed King Charles III, then the Prince of Wales, on July 29, 1981, the much-anticipated union was broadcast to a global audience of millions. Of course, all eyes were on the dress; David and Elizabeth Emanuel were tasked with crafting her gown, a quintessential fairytale dress with a full skirt, puffed sleeves, and a 25-foot train. While the dress was the star of the occasion and went on to significantly influence future wedding fashions, an enormous amount of effort went into crafting her shoes as well.

Although largely obscured by her gown in photographs from the day, the wedding slippers tell the story of ornate craftsmanship, customization and gender norms. Here, FN looks back at the history of the shoes designed by Clive Shilton.

Kerry Taylor Auctions auctioned a duplicate pair of Princess Diana’s wedding shoes and wedding dress in 2011, with Shilton selling the second pair for a price of 36,000 pounds, decades after he brought the coveted shoes to life.

Per the auction house, it was the Emanuels who reached out to Clive Shilton about creating the shoes, asking him to visit them to meet with a “special client” — this person was ultimately identified as Lady Diana Spencer, accompanied by her mother, Mrs. Shand-Kydd.

One crucial design element of the shoes was their height: Princess Diana stood five-foot-ten, so the goal was to avoid having her appear taller than King Charles on their wedding day. Shilton crafted a custom last for flat-pointed shoes based on her foot measurements, and small fluted heels were added to accent the silhouette.

Shilton had around six meetings with Diana, sharing preliminary sketches and getting feedback from the bride-to-be. For the design on the vamp, he presented four options — a diamond, an oval, a circle, and a heart — and she chose the heart.

With the help of his entire studio, Shilton created two identical sets of shoes (lest a mishap necessitate a spare pair) over about 4 months.

The Emanuels sent silk to Shilton, which they were using for Diana’s dress, but he found it too delicate for the shoes. “It was too fine — it would have crumpled across the instep,” Shilton told the Daily Mail. “Instead, the weavers came up with a heavier silk satin.”

The hours that went into making the shoes are evident in the details. They were crafted in ivory satin with a top-stitched lattice design; 542 hand-knotted mother-of-pearl sequins were spangled across the shoes, and 134 seed-pearl beads were used as well. The heart piped in gold kidskin was applied to each vamp, decorated with sequins and pearl beads, and finished with Nottingham lace. Meanwhile, the leather arches were painted in gold leaf, and a small detail nodded to the royal couple: the initials “C” and “D” were painted with a heart in between the letters, all beneath a blossom design.

Notably, Clive Shilton didn’t dedicate the rest of his career to fashion. According to The Independent, Shilton pivoted to exotic landscaping, discovering his calling after encountering a striking Fatsia japonica. Following this interest, Shilton and his family opened a specialist nursery, Hardy Exotics, in Penzance.

Shilton said, “I was 40, I’d gone to Buckingham Palace, I’d been here, done that and was getting a bit disenchanted,’ he recalls. ‘I was at the age when people start to wonder: ‘Do I want another 20 years of this? What else is there?’”

Though he didn’t stay in the fashion industry, his work remains an essential piece of one of the most famous sartorial statements of our time. While perhaps not everyone watching the royal wedding on July 29, 1981, caught a glimpse of Diana’s shoes, they were most definitely fit for a princess.