Every September, users on TikTok, Reddit, and Instagram begin to recirculate old photos of Princess Diana leaving the gym in spandex and a statement pullover. One enduring image shows her wearing a sweatshirt with the Virgin Atlantic logo; another, with the emblem of Harvard. She often sported collegiate designs, including a bright purple version from Northwestern. Some fans have even taken to calling it “Princess Diana Fall.”
How did it catch on in gyms and training facilities everywhere? Part of the reason is that Diana understood something athletes have always known: what you wear to train is a statement. Her athleisure looks, in particular, have a story worth knowing.
Diana never liked being photographed in exercise clothes, yet there was an insatiable demand for private images of the Princess. In 1993, The Mirror reportedly paid £150,000 for photos of her working out at her health club. (She later sought legal action.) In the parking lot of her gym, she often walked backwards to avoid showing her face to photographers. Her most effective strategy, however, was sartorial: wearing the same outfit every single time. Spandex bike shorts with a sweatshirt, over and over again. By repeating the look, she diminished the value of paparazzi shots; no newspaper wanted to pay a premium for a photo nearly identical to one already published.
“Every single session all the media were outside camped with their stepladders and cameras and lenses and everything,” her personal trainer Jenni Rivett recalled in 2018. “It wasn’t her that asked for all this. I remember one of her strategies was that she was going to wear the same Virgin Active sweatshirt every single session.”
By the 2010s, the internet and social media had cemented their influence. Images of Diana weren’t limited to magazines or newspapers but appeared constantly on blogs, Twitter feeds, and Instagram pages. At the same time, athleisure was exploding as a billion dollar category, with brands like Lululemon and Alo Yoga rising to prominence. Diana’s 90s gym looks suddenly felt not just nostalgic, but cutting edge.
So go ahead, grab your favorite sweatshirt, and head to the gym. There’s nothing wrong with training like royalty.
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