Princess Diana’s Beloved Cannes Film Festival Dress Paid Homage to Both Princess Grace of Monaco and the South of France

When Prince Charles and Princess Diana attended the 40th Cannes Film Festival in May 1987, they were there for a whirlwind 10-hour visit, one that saw the Prince and Princess of Wales meet and greet and mingle with a bevy of Hollywood’s finest actors and actresses.

There to promote and support the British film industry, after touching down in Nice, France, they toured the British film pavilion, spent some time relaxing on a private yacht, and emerged that evening in full Hollywood glamor to attend a screening of the Bette Davis movie The Whales of August and a gala dinner, where Sir Alec Guinness was the guest of honor. While at the dinner, they were joined by an impressive group of British actors and actresses, and after, hopped on a plane to head directly back to London.

As ever, Diana’s fashion stole the show. Her soft blue Catherine Walker gown—a tulle strapless dress—was accompanied by “a matching chiffon scarf that looped around her neck and billowed out behind her as she walked,” British Vogue describes. (As Newsweek put it, the scarf was dramatically noticed as it kept “catching the breeze that was high on the evening of the film screening.”) Diana’s dress, actually, was inspired by what the outlet calls “one of the original icons of the French film festival,” Grace Kelly. Grace—an Academy Award-winning actress—actually met her future husband, Prince Rainier of Monaco, while attending the famed film festival; after meeting in April 1955, the two were married almost exactly a year later, in April 1956.