Princess Diana used to refuse to wear a hat.
The late royal – who tragically passed away in 1997 in a car crash in Paris, France – put loads of thought into her outfits and told her staff that she didn’t want a hat and gloves when she paid visits to children because she couldn’t "cuddle" with the accessory and liked to hold hands with people.
Eleri Lynn – who is in charge of the Diana’s fashion exhibition at Kensington Palace, London, later this week – told Vogue magazine: "She often wore the same happy floral dress for hospital visits (memorable from a 1991 visit to a Sao Paulo shelter for abandoned children, many of whom were suffering from AIDS)… She called it her caring dress. You’ll notice she is not wearing gloves. That’s a royal protocol that she ditched because she liked to hold hands with people and make skin-to-skin contact. The original sketch came with a hat, but she didn’t wear a hat because she said, ‘You can’t cuddle a child in a hat.’ "
‘Diana: Her Fashion Story’ was commissioned to commemorate Diana’s life on the 20th anniversary of her death in August 1997, at which time she left her now-grown-up sons Prince William and Harry without a mother.