Sam McKnight reflects on the day he first met Princess Diana and created her iconic hairstyle

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1st Jul 2019

I first met Princess Diana in 1990, when make-up artist Mary Greenwell and I were booked to shoot some young royals for in London. It was a very normal day and not really anything unusual for the magazine. At the end of the day we knew that there was someone else coming, though [then deputy editor] Anna Harvey and photographer Patrick [Demarchelier] hadn’t told us who it was. Then Diana comes bounding up the stairs and kind of just charmed all of us.

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In retrospect, she could have scared the pants off us, but what I came to realise – having spent many years with her after that meeting – was that an incredible part of her charisma was her ability to immediately put everyone at ease, without you even knowing you weren’t at ease in the first place. She was so disarming and her big laughing smile could melt the whole room: we all instantly fell in love with her.

For that now iconic shoot, I styled her hair so it appeared short for the picture. Afterwards she asked: “What would you do if I gave you free reign?” and I replied: “I’d just cut it all off.” Her hair was fabulous, but it was time for a change, and I think she felt that, too. So she said: “Okay, do you want to do it now?” So I did.

I had been shooting for for 13 years by then, so I wasn’t nervous to cut her hair. I rarely read the British papers, because I wasn’t in London very often, so I didn’t realise the impact that haircut would have. It was July and I had left to shoot in Paris when I was inundated with phone calls about Diana’s hair. By then I realised that the change had caused quite an impact.

Diana was secure in how she looked, because she looked great. To be quite honest, she looked beautiful coming out of the gym with wet hair in the morning. It wasn’t about having some hairstyle that she couldn’t get in the wind or anything like that – for her it was about practicality. She didn’t wear a whole lot of make-up and she wore clothes that she felt comfortable in. Diana had a great relationship with Versace; [Gianni] made all those wonderful pastel power suits for her. It was comfort that gave her the confidence, and in her 30s, like many women, she found the confidence to be herself.

Over the years I travelled a lot with her and it completely changed my life. She took me to places like Mother Teresa’s hospices in India and refugee camps on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan, because she wanted us to see the work she did. As a hairstylist, my role is to get her ready, but she wanted her team to see beyond that. It was an incredible time, and I would never have been able to go to those places if it wasn’t with her.

Diana and I just clicked. We made each other laugh, and we laughed a lot for seven years. I’m a hairdresser, so I have licence to be the light-hearted one of the pack. In knowing Diana, I made a real friend. It was magical: I’m so lucky and I will treasure those years forever.

This article originally appeared in the 2019 Vogue Royal Special, on sale now. Buy it here.