David Sassoon, who passed away at the age of 92, was one of the co-founders of Bellville Sassoon, the fashion house adored by royals and celebrities; he was a loyal ally of Diana, Princess of Wales, helping to shape her fashion choices as she took on and developed her public role.
In an interview for the 2019 Channel 5 documentary, Secrets of the Royal Wardrobe, Sassoon recalled the first time he met Princess Diana Spencer when her mother, Frances Shand Kydd, brought her to the Belville Sassoon studio in Knightsbridge before her wedding. She had come to the shop once before, prior to her engagement, but had left when a pushy French sales assistant suggested she might be better off at Harrods.
Her mother took her to have her trousseau made, and Diana chose about 10 dresses. "I was very pleased that she asked us to design her farewell outfit," Sassoon recalled, "although I was disappointed that we didn't make her wedding dress."
Over the years, Sassoon made more than 70 dresses for the Princess, recalling that when they first met, she was incredibly shy and took her mother’s advice on what to wear. Among the first outfits was the sailor-style dress she wore in her first official portrait and her peach farewell outfit. But "a year after she married, she knew exactly what she wanted."
When Diana first appeared in royal settings, many 'rules' about dressing etiquette were still in effect: "You were not allowed to wear velvet after May and had to wear a hat to every wedding." The Princess changed all that: "[She] stopped wearing gloves and was the first to wear trousers. She also stopped wearing hats. Sometimes she would say to me, 'I want to surprise people.' She was a joy to dress – absolutely no bother. Contrary to what you might think, she didn’t make a fuss about clothes. She didn’t try things on constantly."
The princess often returned sketches with just one word “Please!” written neatly in pencil. Small gifts and thank you notes always accompanied the delivery of dresses.
Among other outfits, Sassoon created the off-the-shoulder dress she wore at the opening of the 'Splendours of the Gonzaga' exhibition in 1981 and the bright red ball gown she wore to meet Rudolf Nureyev in 1982. In the Channel 5 interview, he recalled one time when the Princess sketched a design for the State Opening of Parliament in 1981. The design had “a satin skirt, white organza, embroidered with little silver trees scattered all over the puff sleeves.” But it didn’t work out: “That was her only attempt. She never designed a dress again.”
In fact, their alliance seemed anything but impossible. Sassoon was the son of Sephardi Jewish immigrants from Iraq, Diana was the daughter of an earl. He was nearly 30 years older than his royal guest and a few inches shorter. Nevertheless, the two became good friends, he recalled.
“She always asked, 'What have you done, what have you seen?' Sassoon told the Daily Mail. “She knew I liked ballet and so did she. There were times I was quite tense, and she would gently tap on the sofa beside her and say, 'Now, what’s the problem? Sit down and have a cup of tea.' She was very good at listening to your sadness, but she rarely opened up about her own. The only time I saw her cry was the week before the wedding when everything was weighing heavily on her.”
On that occasion, Diana came straight to the Knightsbridge studio from the wedding rehearsal at St Paul’s Cathedral: “It was the final fitting for the farewell outfit, and she was very sad and panicked because she had forgotten her bag. I told her not to worry and made a small bag out of the same fabric. There was a small compartment for a mirror, and I added a little card that said, 'Wishing you much happiness on your special day.' … She was very touched by that.”
Sassoon was a guest at Diana's wedding, and later at her funeral, and recalled that a few weeks before she died in 1997, they met at the preview of a charity auction of her clothing at Christie's. They talked about the outfits Sassoon had made for her over the years, including the farewell outfit she wore on her wedding day. He asked if it would be auctioned, and was very pleased when she replied: "Oh no! I'm not losing that."
As the third of six children, David Sassoon was born in Highbury, north London, on October 5, 1932. His parents, George Sassoon and Victoria, née Gurgi, came to the UK from their home in Baghdad on their honeymoon in 1925 and never left. When the family home was bombed at the start of the war, they moved to Llandudno, where David was sent to boarding school.
He wanted to be an actor and won a scholarship to Rada – “but my father, who was very Middle Eastern, was not happy about this idea. So, he persuaded me that I would do the less terrible of the two terrible things, which was fashion.” Sassoon had been interested in clothing since childhood, dressing his sister in handmade creations and poring over his mother’s copies of Vogue magazines. After serving in the Royal Air Force in Egypt, he attended Chelsea College of Art.
At the 1958 graduation show, he met Belinda Bellville, who had founded the fashion house Bellville et Cie in Knightsbridge five years earlier. She was pregnant and looking for a design assistant. She offered him a temporary job, and he worked there for 50 years. The company became Bellville Sassoon in 1970, and he took over when Belinda Bellville retired in 1984.
The royal commission for Bellville Sassoon was first established in January 1960 when Lady Pamela Mountbatten married David Hicks. Princess Anne was one of the bridesmaids, and young Sassoon was sent to Buckingham Palace to fit a dress for the eight-year-old princess.
“I had to go through the tradesmen's entrance,” he recalled. A uniformed servant took him up to the children's room. “There were ink stains on the carpet and toys everywhere. Princess Anne wore Clarks sandals and had braces.”
When the Queen appeared, Sassoon stepped back to bow: “I stepped into one of the corgi's bowls, splashing water all over my shoes. The Queen pulled a cord beside the fireplace, and a uniformed servant came over to clean my shoes. The funny thing was, the bridesmaid's dress was a beautiful white organdy gown, and the Queen was only concerned about whether it was washable.”
After marrying Tony Armstrong-Jones the same year, Princess Margaret tasked Bellville Sassoon with designing outfits for her visit to the United States. The American press rated each outfit, and Sassoon was delighted that all of Bellville Sassoon's outfits received five stars: “Poor [Norman] Hartnell and others didn’t do as well.”
Until then, the fashion house only made haute couture. Women would come and buy a wardrobe for the entire season – cocktail dresses, ball gowns, outfits for Ascot, etc. Sassoon credited Belinda Bellville for showing him how to be a 'nice' designer. “[She] taught me how to understand women, something many male designers don’t manage to do.”
From Sassoon, Belinda Bellville gained many more clients beyond teenage girls and duchesses – he also had many connections with wealthy Sephardi and Ashkenazi clients (“Jewish tradition plays a big role in the outfits I design”) – and learned to embrace the youth culture of the 1960s: “I taught her how to do the Twist.”
In 1962, the company launched its first ready-to-wear collection, and it was a resounding success. By 1970, the company employed 100 staff and dressed many of London’s most fashionable women: at one point, four women turned up to dinner with the Queen in Windsor wearing the same Bellville Sassoon dress. They also designed Audrey Hepburn’s wardrobe for the 1967 film Two for the Road.
Other royal clients of Sassoon included Princess Alexandra, Princess Alice, the Duchess of Gloucester and Kent, and Princess Michael of Kent, for whom he designed a wedding dress, although he regretted that it was never worn in a religious ceremony.
The Duchess of York proved to be a friendly but difficult client. “One evening, a motorcade with two people in front stopped. It was 6 PM and the shop was closed. [The Duchess] came in and said she wanted to buy some clothes, and we thought, 'Oh dear, really?' She received very bad press.
“She was very funny, very lively, but she wouldn’t listen. I’d say, 'Oh come on, dear, that dress is too short for you,' and she’d say, 'No, I like it like this'… She was here one week and lost weight, then the next week she’d put it on again, so we kept taking things in and letting them out.”
Sassoon's creations have appeared in many exhibitions, most recently in 2023 at Fashion City: How Jewish Londoners Shaped Global Style at the London Museum Docklands. He retired at 80, although he remained busy as a trustee of the Fashion and Textile Museum and as a mentor to young designers and a lecturer at universities and museums. "When you stop looking at the work of young designers, you should give up," he once said.
David Sassoon, born October 5, 1932, passed away April 9, 2025
According to: Telegraph
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