Princess Diana’s stylist: It was ‘bizarre’ to recreate her hair for ‘The Crown’

It’s a déjà do.

Hairstylist Sam McKnight mentioned he skilled some déjà vu whereas recreating Princess Diana’s hair for “The Crown” on actress Emma Corrin, who will star because the beloved royal in Season 4 of the acclaimed Netflix present.

“It felt bizarre,” McKnight, a legendary stylist well-known for doing the ‘dos of Tilda Swinton, Kate Moss and Girl Gaga, instructed British Vogue. Regardless of it being considered one of his “first jobs after lockdown,” he mentioned he initially questioned taking up the function to recreate his former shopper’s hair at first.

“To be trustworthy, Emma is taking part in Diana earlier than I even met her, so it felt high quality,” he mentioned. “We took a nod to the pictures of Diana [in that period] and made a bit pastiche of it.”

As Princess Diana’s private hairstylist for seven years till her dying in 1997, McKnight can also be the person liable for Diana’s trademark minimize in 1990 — taking her locks from large and fluffy to her now-iconic, a lot shorter tousled crop minimize that made tsunami-level waves when she first debuted the ‘do in public.

Earlier than the chop, he recalled seeing a “very tall, leggy blonde bounding into the studio” throughout a Vogue cowl shoot with Patrick Demarchelier and Anna Harvey — the notorious considered one of her in a tiara, white gown and a mega-watt smile.

“We simply fell in love along with her,” McKnight mentioned.

“On the finish of the shoot she requested me what I’d do to her hair if I may do something I needed, and I mentioned, ‘Properly, I’d simply minimize all of it off and begin once more,’ as a result of it was 1990,” he mentioned, noting the androgynous pattern brewing on the time. “I mentioned, ‘Lower it off, do away with the ’80s frou-frou and begin once more with a minimal, brief haircut.’ Which is what we did.”

However for “The Crown,” which is able to cowl then-Girl Diana Spencer’s budding relationship with Prince Charles when it returns to Netflix in November, McKnight was tasked with creating her coiffure on Corrin within the years earlier than his scissors touched her tresses.

“Like Diana, Emma has a ton of hair. I set it on sizzling rollers and handled it as I might have carried out on shoots for Vogue within the ’80s,” McKnight mentioned. “Every time the mannequin got here into the studio within the ’80s she bought large hair. Whether or not her hair was brief, lengthy or in between, we went large with a sizzling curler set, backcombing and hairspray.”