"Icon" is an overused term, and it rarely feels accurate, except when discussing Diana Spencer. Therefore, when director Pablo Larraín ("Jackie Chan") asked two-time Oscar-winning designer Jacqueline Duran ("Anna Karenina", "Little Women") to make costumes for his movie "Spencer" When Kristen Stewart played Princess Diana, Duran knew that public image was the core of the mission. But there is a turning point.

"We want to create her aura without having to recreate a different look," Duran said at her home in England. "In terms of accuracy, we want to reinterpret it and change it a little bit. We don’t want any clothing to state a specific time, place or moment, because all Diana fans will know its historical landmark. We didn’t do that; this is not this. The content of the movie.

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"The most important thing is that we are making a story, our version of Diana; it is very different from the way "The Crown" or the documentary. This is about creating an idea about her based on her public visual effects. The costumes we create give With the Christine element, she can use it in her amazing performance and interpretation of Diana. This is an inner journey, and we have created an outer journey."

Elvis, Bowie, Jackie O-fashion icons know how to use clothing in real life. Does this iconic feature make designers simpler or more complicated when approaching movies such as "Spencer"?

This is largely part of my approach and method. Diana has a strong and clear control over her image, which means that when I browsed hundreds of her photos from 88-92, I began to see her repeated themes and styles. This is how I started, identifying the subject: when she does geometry, she does this kind of thing, and when she uses velvet or these colors, she does this. It allows me to understand her style and how she makes choices.

If you recreate her exact clothes, or even unrecognizable but beautiful clothes, will this movie work?

I think you have to meet certain expectations of people so that they can understand that we are watching Diana, but we haven't fully achieved this. You must keep images that at least feel like Diana. For example, take the opening sequence [Diana wearing a plaid jacket and big sunglasses driving to Sandringham]. It has elements of Diana, but you can't find her look anywhere. She has never worn those Chanel sunglasses. She does have a lot of plaid jackets and velvet skirts, although not in that pattern or color. But when you see it, you think of Diana. It can be traced back to finding the subject, and then you can improvise on it.

I don't remember Diana being so fashionable in her early years. Does she have a personal stylist or team to help her, or has she evolved herself?

I think Catherine Walker has a lot to do with it. She is a fashion designer who met Diana in the 80s and eventually made most of her clothes. They really collaborated very well and developed her style. If you look at her transformation from the 1980s to 1990, it was a huge transformation. She began to understand the performance function of her clothes. She really did it. Then in the 90s, she was more of a liberated woman than a projection of the royal family.

Tell us about the relationship between Chanel and this movie.

They gave us four or five outfits, and the most important thing was a beautiful white evening dress — the one on the poster — which was something from their archives. They sent us many archive dresses to try on; Chanel's big box. This is amazing. We have gone through all of this and everyone loves this [white dress].

Although it is not what we think we are looking for, it comes from archives and has excellent movie quality. This is a gorgeous dress. So they recreated her size for Christine in the studio. It was originally a catwalk dress.

A beautiful red Chanel coat with a black top and a veiled hat. Is that the pattern on a dress in her closet?

Diana didn't wear much Chanel in the early days of her princess title. When she entered the 90s, she dressed more. But during our time, she wore that red coat and had an important trip to Paris. Chanel knew about this coat and made our version for Christine. We made a black hat with a veil. We mixed the Chanel red jacket with the look worn by Diana at Sandringham for Christmas to create this look.

I like your mint low-V back silk dress with big pearls.

That was one of the costumes we made, and it turned out to be very accidental because it was the same color as the soup! It is very similar to other clothes worn by Diana in real life, but not exactly the same; again, it has the feeling of Diana.

Was the black velvet ruffled one-strap dress and diamond headpiece an impromptu performance of the dress worn by Diana and John Travolta at the famous dinner held with President Reagan at the White House?

I actually made a version of the John Travolta dress, but it did not appear in the movie. The special one-shoulder outfit in the film was a major theme of her in the 1980s. Her one-shoulder look looks good, and it shoots well on her.

Wedding dress. Isn’t it a lot of work for 10 seconds in a movie?

[Laughs] It's funny, someone asked me about it and said, "This doesn't look like her clothes, does it?" The wedding dress is not even in the story. This is a brief moment in the montage. In any movie, you will be asked to make an exact copy of that wedding dress in a 10-second movie. This is a very humble tribute to her wedding dress; this is just a suggestion of it. Pablo told us about the montage sequence that she might walk through the woods. So this is what we did.

When I see Diana as an image, I think of her own admission that she is very sick, stressed, and feels bad most of the time, but looks so beautiful and even radiant. Just like in the movie. I remember in an interview, she said that her mother has the same ability.

Given the restrictions of COVID, how much is Christine's involvement in clothing?

She is very committed. It was the peak period of COVID, so travel was very difficult. She came to London in December and then came to London again around January. We have two monster accessories to set everything up. Then because Pablo was in Chile, I was in London, and Christine was in the United States, I had to keep doing it.

We had a very long and fruitful first fitting, and we determined the direction for almost every major costume in the movie. This is the longest try-on in my career, about nine hours. Christine is great because she just flew in, but is completely focused on Pablo and me. It was indeed a productive day. The yellow sailor suit with a pirate hat is very interesting. Diana had something similar in the navy review. Pablo really liked the idea of ​​her wearing a pirate hat, so we reinterpreted her suit, which has a yellow boat hat and a pirate hat. But it is still the same silhouette, it is still Diana. In fact, she often wears that pale yellow.

Does anyone know where Diana's real clothes are? Are they archived at Kensington Palace?

I have no idea. I don't want to archive too much of the wardrobe, nor do I want to get too involved in the work of the royal archivist. I think it's more like the territory of "The Crown". But I have a dream, there must be a ledger somewhere, and someone writes it all down. At least I hope so.

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