Gottex is re-releasing the famous leopard print swimsuit designed for Princess Diana

Princess Diana is one of those public figures whose style has served and still serves as satirical inspiration. Her elegance in everyday life and on red carpets continued with the outfits she wore on her beach vacations. The Princess of Hearts was especially known for matching the patterns of her pareos to her swimsuits. One print in particular had its favorites: the leopard.

In 1990, she wore it to play on the beach with her sons William and Harry, in front of her mother and sister, on Richard Branson’s private island. In July 1997, a few days before her death, Diana Spencer was on vacation in Saint-Tropez with her billionaire boyfriend Dodi Al Fayed. The paparazzi take pictures of him on a jet-ski, on the beach, on a boat. In the photos, she appears in a one-piece swimsuit with a mix of tiger and leopard print. A Gottex brand model that has just been re-released.

So now it’s possible to get the same swimsuit as Princess Diana, or almost. While the patterns have been somewhat modernized by the brand, swapping out the tiger pattern for leopard print in more orange hues, the cut is identical and the presentation is wrong. Gottex explains on their website that this model was designed directly for the Princess of Wales in the 1990s. The label is now re-creating it in his honor and for the general public for £200 or around €230. Gottex was a brand appreciated by the princess, and she wasn’t the only one. Elizabeth Taylor, Brooke Shields, Caroline of Monaco and even Queen Elizabeth II have been clients of this brand, which has a special history of being launched by a Holocaust survivor.

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The name Gottex is a combination of the word “textile” and the surname of its creator, Lea Gottlieb. The latter, born in Hungary in 1918, fled the country during the Second World War and immigrated to Israel with her husband and two daughters. Then he designs raincoats, then realizes that with nine months of sunlight a year, the terrain isn’t for him. So she chose to create swimwear in 1956, borrowed a sewing machine and assembled models in her apartment in Jaffa. Gotex slowly became successful, dressed celebrities for the beach and continued to grow.

There’s even a documentaryMrs. GAbout Leah Gottlieb and her business history. Directed by David Kimor in 2019, it paints a portrait of an ambitious and resourceful woman with a personality described as domineering, complicating the relationship she had with her daughters. This brand with an interesting history bears his name. And today it is no longer reserved for greatness.

In the video, “Lady Diana died in an ordinary car accident,” recalls Marion Galli-Ramuno.