It’s been confirmed that Princess Diana increased her heel height by a full inch after her divorce from Prince Charles in 1996.
The revelation, which underlined what fashion onlookers had seen with their own eyes, was made by Jimmy Choo’s creative director Sandra Choi in an online interview in October 2020.
The interviewer, Harper’s Bazaar Arabia’s Editor in Chief Olivia Phillips, spoke with Choi about many topics including Choo’s association with the late Princess Diana. Diana was a frequent visitor at Jimmy Choo‘s workshop in London in the 1990s, and he also visited her at Kensington Palace.
The relationship between Jimmy Choo himself and Princess Diana was in fact so special that he has previously credited her as one of two important figures he had to thank for his success (the other was his mother, who invested her life savings so he could design his own shoes rather than work for someone else).
Princess Diana increases her heel height
Sandra Choi confirmed that the association of the Jimmy Choo brand with Diana was important for its growth as “the whole world was interested in her and what she wore.” She then went on to explain how Diana’s heels increased as she became a single woman again.
“She knew what she wanted,” Choi said. “And I think that, over the years working with her, her heel height changes!”
Choi then revealed that Diana had added a full inch to her heels. “She started off like 2 and half inches and it grew to like 3 and a half,” she said.
Choi confirmed that Diana’s heel height increased as she became a single woman again, saying: “I think her confidence grew and her lifestyle changed as well because of the divorce.”
The story about Princess Diana’s heels increasing in height may be true, but it certainly isn’t new.
Jimmy Choo himself first told the story to Richard Kay, a journalist seemingly shortly after Diana died in 1997.
Kay wrote a biography of the princess, called Diana: Her True Story which was first published as a 12-part magazine supplement to the Daily Mail in 1998. In it, Jimmy Choo recalled how Diana’s heel heights increased as her marriage fell apart.
“First she went up to 2in, then 3in, then 3½ in, then 3¾ in,” Choo said. “They just kept creeping up and up.”
You can see the whole interview with Sandra Choi in the video below.