‘Does Your Highness feel like a gold person or a silver one?’ Princess Margaret and Dior
This article charts the relationship between Princess Margaret (1930–2002) and the House of Dior. Her relatively early adoption of the New Look accelerated her rise to a major fashion icon. Choosing a Dior ball gown for her offi? cial twenty-first birthday photographs cemented her image as the archetypal princess. Unusually for a member of the British royal family, Princess Margaret visited the French fashion house in Paris in 1949, 1951 and 1959, ordering couture gowns on several occasions, and also attended Dior fashion shows at Blenheim Palace in 1952, 1954 and 1958. While the close association between the Princess and Christian Dior (1905–1957) was relatively short-lived, it was mutually beneficial and important to the public image of both royal patron and couturier. 1