Great Outfits in Fashion History: Princess Diana's Famous 'Travolta Dress'

Before the ‘Revenge Dress,’ there was this stunner of a gown.

Photo: Pete Souza/The White House/Getty Images

There are perfectly good celebrity style moments, and then there are the looks that really stick with you, the ones you try desperately to recreate at home. In ‘Great Outfits in Fashion History,’ Fashionista editors are revisiting their all-time favorite lewks.

Over the weekend, photos from the set of the newest season of “The Crown” leaked, featuring Elizabeth Debicki looking so spot-on as Princess Diana in her “revenge dress” that I had to check five times that it wasn’t an actual photo of the People’s Princess herself.

Before there was the “revenge dress,” though there was another headline-making Princess Di gown: the Travolta Dress, so named because it was the number she wore to take a spin around the dance floor with actor John Travolta at a White House event in 1985. The midnight-blue velvet dress, designed by Victor Edelstein, cuts a similar figure up top, with its off-the-shoulder neckline and v-shaped bust. It’s certainly got more drama on the bottom, however, with an Edwardian-inspired, mermaid-ish shape that twirled perfectly during her big moment with Travolta. The lush fabric and deep color provided the perfect backdrop for her dramatic choker necklace, a brooch attached with several strands of pearls.

Princess Diana‘s gown may be back in the Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection, after a few high-earning auctions, but that doesn’t mean you can’t dress like her this holiday season — after all, what better time of year to snap up a velvet dress?