Elizabeth Emanuel

Elizabeth Florence Emanuel (née Weiner, born 5 July 1953) is a British fashion designer who is best known for designing, with her former husband David Emanuel, the wedding dress worn by Lady Diana Spencer on her wedding to Prince Charles in 1981. Since then Elizabeth has developed her own label and worked in costume design for airlines, cinema, pop video and television productions, as well as providing a couture service to some of the world's most famous women.

Emanuel was born in London to an American father, Samuel Charles (Buddy) Weiner, and British mother, Brahna Betty Weiner. Elizabeth was educated at the City of London School for Girls and then, upon leaving school, she took a year's foundation course at the Harrow School of Art, followed by a three-year diploma course in Fashion Design.

At Harrow she met and married David Emanuel in 1976, and together they became the first married couple to be accepted by the Royal College of Art for a two-year master's degree in Fashion. Her first collection was sold exclusively at Browns.

Following the birth of their two children, Oliver and Eloise; in 1977 the couple launched their own fashion house, Emanuel Salon, in Brook Street, Mayfair. In 1979, they decided to close their ready–to–wear shop, so that they could concentrate on the couture (custom made) side of the business, and became a favourite designer of Lady Diana Spencer before her marriage.

In 1981, the couple were chosen to design the wedding dress of Lady Diana Spencer for her marriage to Charles, Prince of Wales. The dress—seen by over 700 million people worldwide—was made of ivory silk, pure taffeta and antique lace, with 10,000 pearls and sequins, and had a 25 ft train. Of the dress, Lisa Marsh writes in the Fashion Encyclopedia that "Creations by artists from Botticelli to Renoir and Degas were used as influences, as were photographs of some of the more romantic women in history. The garments seen on Greta Garbo in Camille, Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind, and Marlene Dietrich in The Scarlet Empress were all recreated to some degree."

A copy of the wedding dress was sold at auction in 2005 for £100,000, twice the original estimate. There was some controversy surrounding the auction. The dress' owners, Madame Tussauds, said that it had been made "in case of any hiccup or disaster", and that it had been tried on by Lady Diana Spencer the morning of her wedding. David Emanuel was quoted by the Western Mail, saying "To say it is a direct replica is untrue. There is no such thing. We did not make one. Diana categorically never tried this dress on, on her wedding day or at any other time, and to my knowledge never even saw it. It wasn't even made to her exact measurements, and we, of course, are the only ones who would know that." The copy of Diana's dress had been given to Madame Tussauds after the wedding in 1981 and was placed on display.

After the 1981 Royal Wedding the Emanuels designed a major part of the Princess of Wales' wardrobe for her Gulf Tour, and appeared with her in an Independent Television documentary entitled In Private - in Public. At this time both the Duchess of Kent and the Duchess of York also became patrons of the Salon^{[citation needed]}.

In 1987 the Emanuel Shop was opened in Beauchamp Place, Knightsbridge, bringing the Emanuels' previously exclusive clothing to the general public. The collections also sold at: Browns, Harrods and Harvey Nichols in London; Bergdorf Goodman, Saks, Henri Bendel, Barneys and Neiman Marcus in the United States^{[citation needed]}.