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, advised British Vogue. Regardless of it being certainly one of his “first jobs after lockdown,” he mentioned he initially questioned taking over the position to recreate his former shopper’s hair at first.

“To be trustworthy, Emma is enjoying Diana earlier than I even met her, so it felt nice,” he mentioned. “We took a nod to the photographs of Diana [in that period] and made somewhat pastiche of it.”

As Princess Diana’s private hairstylist for seven years till her demise in 1997, McKnight can be the person answerable for Diana’s trademark reduce in 1990 — taking her locks from huge and fluffy to her now-iconic, a lot shorter tousled crop reduce 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 certainly one of her in a tiara, white costume 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, ‘Effectively, I’d simply reduce all of it off and begin once more,’ as a result of it was 1990,” he mentioned, noting the androgynous development brewing on the time. “I mentioned, ‘Lower it off, do away with the ’80s frou-frou and begin once more with a minimal, quick 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 scorching rollers and handled it as I might have accomplished on shoots for Vogue within the ’80s,” McKnight mentioned. “Every time the mannequin got here into the studio within the ’80s she bought huge hair. Whether or not her hair was quick, lengthy or in between, we went huge with a scorching curler set, backcombing and hairspray.”