Princess Diana Made This Bold Move Before Attending Her First Met Gala & We’re Living for This Story

If you’re a fan of Princess Diana , or Met Gala history, or both, then you know that the late Princess of Wales attended the event only once , back in 1996. At the event, which paid homage to Christian Dior, Diana wore a gorgeous and surprisingly revealing navy slip dress with black lace detailing by John Galliano. And now, many years since her headline-making appearance, Galliano is giving the world a glimpse at what it was like to dress the royal for such an important event.

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“I remember one day we all jumped into this old van, and we went to London, where we met Princess Diana,” Galliano recalled in the new Hulu docuseries In Vogue: The 90s , per Page Six . “She’d been invited to the Met, and she would wear one of my dresses.”

“It was like a blessing. I mean like, wow,” Galliano said of the honor. “We went to Kensington Palace and discussed drawings.”

When it came to the design of the dress, it seems Diana had some strong opinions on what she didn’t want on the big day. “I was trying to push for pink, but she was not having it. ‘No, not the pink!’” he remembered. “That was real, real fun.”

“So we did the dress and subsequent fittings, and it was beautifully done,” he added.

On the night of, however, Diana was having some second thoughts about the dress, which included a skin-hugging corset. “Fast-forward to the event, and I just remember her getting out of the car,” Galliano said, imitating a shocked gasp. “I couldn’t believe it. She’d ripped the corset out.”

“She didn’t want to wear the corset,” he explained. “She felt so liberated. She’d torn the corset out.” Talk about a power move!

By letting go of the corset, Diana’s dress, in turn, gave off a different vibe. “The dress was much more… sensuous,” Galliano affirmed.

Of course, the revealing dress led to plenty of talk about what Diana was trying to tell the world about her new era (the appearance was a few months after her official separation from King Charles on August 28, 199).

“She knew she could never get rid of the attention and the spotlight on her, but I think she was positioning it in a different way, as a kind of international megastar, Marilyn Monroe-type icon rather than a member of the royal family,” royal fashion expert Eloise Moran told Yahoo . “And I think the dress really reflected that.” It did indeed!

Before you go, click here to see all of our favorite photos of Princess Diana.