This cheerful floral print Bellville-Sassoon dress was a Diana favourite of which the press eventually became tired because she wore it to so many visits featuring sick children. The background is a bright, royal blue with a tight, medium sized pattern of pink, yellow and violet flowers with green leaves. The dress is a basic shift dress sheath shape with a high crew neckline, midi-length puffed tulip sleeves and a wide ruched self-cummerbund pulling in the waist. The silhouette is reminiscent of the white and black polka dot peplum dress by Victor Edelstein later remodelled to this style waist.

Diana wore this with different earrings, sometimes gold hearts with blue centres, other times with wide gold buckle style earrings. Other accessories were a long gold chain necklace, a matching clutch purse and pumps. Shown is the original designer sketch from which Diana ordered the dress.

The sketch shows the hat originally designed to go with the dress, a wide-brimmed cartwheel style with a self-fabric band around the crown. It was reported in 2021 during an exhibition of Bellville-Sassoon fashion sketches at Kensington Palace that the hat was rejected by Diana on the basis that "you can't cuddle a child wearing a hat." My guess is that Philip Somerville missed out as a result because this was his style. I love the royal slings shown in the sketch, but they were replaced with the typical matching court shoe style pump and possibly for a similar reason to the hat: you can't get down to a child's level in thin strap sling-backs.

She did wear it at least once with a small pillbox style in matching royal satin, and because she wore it so often, the press became bored with events when she showed up in it, so we don't have much of an historical archive, which is a shame. She looked lovely it in and it remained fashionable and instantly recognisable.