Princess Diana’s favourite stylist breaks his 27-year silence… and for the first time reveals her hair-raising secrets (including a very strange use for knicker elastic)
It was a mistake Princess Diana would only make once. The year was 1984 and the woman known as ‘Shy Di’ had blossomed into the Royal Family’s superstar. For the State Opening of Parliament, Diana and her trusted hairdresser Richard Dalton decided to experiment, weaving her trademark short hair up into an elaborate bun or ‘chignon’ around her Spencer family tiara.
It was one of the few times the late Queen was reportedly ‘furious’ at her daughter-in-law.
Mr Dalton says: ‘Diana’s glamorous new hairdo made all the front pages the next day, totally eclipsing the solemnity of the occasion. The Princess learned her lesson that day and vowed her hair would never again be the centre of attention and distract people away from the work of the royals.
‘From that point on, I only ever cut her hair a quarter of an inch at most. Her style was simple and flattering. Because it was short I could have her ready in 15 minutes.’
Mr Dalton, who was Diana’s personal hairdresser for a decade at the peak of her fame, has never spoken of his role with the Princess – until now.
For decades, he loyally kept Diana’s secrets, including her pain over her marriage breakdown and her heartbreak at scurrilous rumours that Prince Harry was not really Charles’s son.
He has finally been persuaded to tell his story in a new book, It’s All About The Hair: My Decade With Diana, written by Renae Plant, one of the world’s leading Diana memorabilia collectors.
Mr Dalton, 76, says: ‘I have never spoken publicly but Diana has been gone for 27 years and I was part of history.’
Wistfully recalling her ‘many sides’, Mr Dalton says: ‘She was hilariously funny, impossibly glamorous and even more beautiful in real life than her pictures show. I want to share my stories to preserve her legacy.’
And what stories they are.
From tying on tiaras with knicker elastic to washing the hair of the most famous woman on the planet over his kitchen sink, to watching the Princess hurl a hated portrait off the back of the Royal Yacht Britannia, Mr Dalton witnessed the private side of a global – and often tormented – icon.
There were days she would be
‘in pieces’, confiding in her hairdresser that ‘my bloody husband has disappeared again’ as Charles rekindled his affair with Camilla.
It was then that he would become her part-time therapist, boosting her confidence and reassuring one of the most beautiful women in the world that she would, one day, find true love again.
‘Diana was madly in love with her husband. I saw her day in and day out. The love she had for Charles was genuine. If only Camilla had stayed away after the marriage, things could have been so different.’
When Diana was at home in Kensington Palace, Mr Dalton would style her hair most mornings at 8am. He accompanied her on every royal tour from 1983 to 1991 and helped create some of her most iconic looks, including styles they nicknamed ‘Dynasty Di’, ‘The Elvis’ and ‘The Vera Lynn’.
When Diana suffered sunburn on her neck at a gala in Australia, in 1985 and could not stand to have Queen Mary’s emerald necklace touching her skin, Mr Dalton whipped out the knicker elastic he kept in his ‘tool kit’ – alongside his scissors and hairspray.
‘I tied one end of the elastic to the emerald necklace and draped it across Diana’s forehead. I attached it in the back to fit comfortably without falling off and styled her hair around it. Diana absolutely loved it.’
The knicker elastic came to the rescue again when Diana developed a headache from wearing the Lover’s Knot Tiara, traditionally worn by the Princess of Wales (as Diana then was) and now a favourite of Princess Catherine’s.
‘We were in New Zealand at a state dinner. She took the tiara off and handed it to me, saying: ‘I can’t wear it, it’s killing me.’
‘I rushed to my room, pulled out the knicker elastic and put the tiara on my head and adjusted it. I ran back down and put it back on her and quickly arranged her hair to hide the elastic. She never complained about it hurting again.
‘I often wonder if the knicker elastic is still there when Princess Catherine wears it?’
Scots-born Mr Dalton first met his future boss when he was manager of the salon of Fenwick of Bond Street, one of London’s poshest department stores.
The then 17-year-old Lady Diana Spencer would come in with her older sisters, Lady Sarah and Lady Jane, who were working at nearby Vogue magazine.
But it was not until after her 1981 wedding, after Diana’s hair stylist Kevin Shanley sold his story to the tabloids, that Diana approached him and said: ‘Will you be my full-time hairdresser?’
Mr Dalton, who owned a salon in Claridge’s, agreed to sell up to devote his time to the Princess.
Although she was one of the most recognisable women in the world, she was also surprisingly down-to-earth and loved to visit his small mews home in South Kensington.
‘The car would stop right at the entrance of the mews. Diana would open the door, run up the metal staircase and I would shampoo her hair over the kitchen sink – nothing grand.
‘I always joke I could have sold that stainless-steel sink for a fortune today.
‘People ask me if I kept a lock of her hair. I never did. It didn’t occur to me. I only have one photograph of us together and that was one someone happened to get as we exited a plane. It was a different era. There were no cell phones.’
Mr Dalton says those close to Diana called themselves ‘The A Team’, where ‘loyalty and discretion were everything’.
‘I did her hair in the first-class loo when we flew commercial. We flew on Concorde several times. Charles would pilot the royal flight, which Diana jokingly called ‘Albatross Airways’.’
Ever environmentally conscious, Charles banned all aerosols from Kensington Palace, Mr Dalton recalls, which proved an issue given that he ‘went through can after can of hairspray to keep Diana’s hair in place’.
He says: ‘I was asked what hairspray I used and I said: ‘Non-aerosol pump-action.’ Diana thought it was hilarious. Charles never found out the truth.’
As the Princess’s star rose, and interest in every aspect of her life deepened, she found a trusted confidant in Mr Dalton. ‘Every woman confides in her hairdresser and she was no different,’ he says.
‘Being the keeper of such big secrets sometimes made me feel sick with stress. My job was to listen, help her feel beautiful and confident and bring a little of the real world into her world.
‘She loved the TV show Dynasty and would make me watch it if she couldn’t because of work commitments. The next morning she’d say: ‘Tell me everything!’
With rapt attention, the Princess would listen to his digest, a packet of Opal Fruits in hand – her favourite, alongside ‘Nestle white chocolate with crunchy bits in’.
Mr Dalton heard Charles scream in anger at his wife twice. The first time was when Diana, egged on by Sarah Ferguson, dressed as a policewoman and sneaked into a nightclub for Prince Andrew’s stag do.
‘Charles was not amused. The next morning he was screaming at her, really shouting. She was crying and he was yelling, ‘You are the Princess of Wales, you do not do things like that!’
‘The only other time was when she danced on stage at the Royal Opera House with Wayne Sleep as a surprise for Charles’s birthday.
‘She danced to Uptown Girl by Billy Joel and the crowd went wild. But Charles was furious.’
Mr Dalton gave Harry and William their first haircuts at Kensington Palace. ‘The boys loved it because when they had their hair cut it meant extra telly time. William came in while I was giving Diana a perm once. He wrinkled up his nose and said it smelled of ‘Biggies big jobs’. Diana and I rolled on the floor laughing.’
For Diana, being a mother was her ‘greatest joy’. ‘She was devastated when there were awful rumours saying Harry might not be Charles’s son.’
But, as Mr Dalton says, Diana hadn’t met James Hewitt – the supposed father of Harry – until after her youngest son was born.
‘I cut the hair of her sisters and her brother Charles,’ Mr Dalton adds pointedly. ‘The red hair came from the Spencer family.’
What would Diana think of the rift between Harry and the Royal Family now?
He pauses.
‘I don’t think she would ever have let it get this far. Diana respected the institution of the monarchy. She may have had her issues with certain members of the family but she always respected the Firm.
‘She would never have allowed relations to deteriorate as badly as they have. Nor would she have tolerated anyone denigrating or besmirching the Royal Family.
‘I will leave it at that.’
Mr Dalton, still fiercely loyal, is scathing about those he believes did not have Diana’s best interests at heart. He accuses Sarah Ferguson of ‘using’ Diana to get close to Prince Andrew, saying ‘once she had that ring on her finger, Diana never heard from her again’.
And Charles’s former valet Michael Fawcett is described as ‘more royal than the royals’.
‘One day Charles came in wearing a rather bright tie and he asked me what I thought.
‘I said, ‘Sir, it’s very striking.’
‘Diana said: ‘Oh shut up Richard, he looks like Michael Fawcett.’
‘Charles didn’t miss a beat and replied: ‘Don’t be silly, darling, I don’t have my shoes hand-made.’
It is the laughter Mr Dalton mostly remembers from his years at Diana’s side. ‘She had a wicked sense of humour. She was always laughing.’
Richard parted ways amicably with Diana in 1991 when he moved to America, where he now lives in Laguna Beach, California.
Ironically, he once styled Meghan Markle’s hair when she was a briefcase girl on the TV show Deal Or No Deal and recalls she was ‘rather aloof’.
When Diana died, Mr Dalton was invited to her funeral and was seated in the family section behind her sisters. ‘I felt numb. She had so much left to do.’
His all-time favourite hairdo was in 1988 during a tour of Thailand.
‘I rushed around the Imperial Hotel in Bangkok, pinching orchids from the floral arrangements to use as accessories in Diana’s hair to match her dress.
‘She looked absolutely amazing that night. That is how I will always remember her.’
Richard’s favourite iconic looks
1. The Elvis
British Fashion Awards, October 17, 1989
‘The high collar on this Catherine Walker dress demanded that Diana’s hair be lifted off her shoulders. Wearing her hair up gave Diana a more structured look.’
2. Dynasty Di
September 1984
‘Diana loved big hair – and so did I. We used gallons of hairspray and heated rollers to give her that 80s Dynasty look after her favourite TV show. When she gave birth to Prince Harry, I was in Spain. I told her to put hot rollers in but she kept them in too long. ‘I had big, big hair,’ she told me.’
3. The Vera Lynn
November 1984
‘Diana had tried to grow her hair out a little more than usual and I was inspired to do a 1940s-style ‘victory roll’, turning her hair under. The next day, Charles came into the dressing room and said: ‘How are you, Vera Lynn?’ ‘Oh, shut up,’ Diana replied.’
Day Diana chucked her portrait into the ocean
On a trip to Saudi Arabia, Mr Dalton recalls, a sheikh had given Diana an oil painting of her in a black chador, a Muslim robe in which only her face and right hand were visible.
‘We got back on [the Royal Yacht] Britannia and were sailing out through the Persian Gulf and Diana started screaming: ‘Give me that thing!’
‘She took it to the bathroom, rolled it up in a towel and then she and I went to the back of the boat and she threw it into the ocean.
‘I said: ‘Your Royal Highness, what happens if it washes ashore? Do you want a fatwa out on you?’
‘We burst out laughing.’
Who is Renae Plant?
Author Renae Plant is the world’s most prolific Diana memorabilia collector and owns more than 2,700 items that once belonged to the Princess, including her iconic ‘black sheep’ jumper, which is on display at The Princess Diana Museum, an interactive, online, 3D museum.
Renae, whose passion for Diana began after she met the Princess twice as a child, said writing Mr Dalton’s book has been ‘a labour of love’.
‘It is important to preserve his stories as part of Diana’s legacy, just as we are preserving her gowns, shoes and bags.’
Renae is looking for investors for a bricks and mortar museum to house her vast collection. The book features QR codes that connect readers to exhibits within the online collection.