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Princess Diana’s Iconic Blue Dress Returns to Cannes 39 Years Later

A French-Russian actress paid tribute to Lady Diana’s glamorous gown.

Roosa RahkonenReporter, The Looker

PublishedMay 22, 2026, 5:31 PM EDT

UpdatedMay 22, 2026, 5:42 PM EDT

Updated May 22, 2026, 5:42 PM EDTPublished May 22, 2026, 5:31 PM EDT

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A young actress paid homage to the late Princess Diana by replicating her iconic Cannes Film Festival look.

On Monday, French-Russian star Anastasia Andrushkevich walked the red carpet at the premiere of Fjord in Cannes. Her icy-blue gown was reminiscent of a look Princess Diana wore at the same event almost four decades earlier.

In 1987, Princess Diana attended the Cannes Film Festival for the first and last time in a light blue look with a flowing hem and a matching chiffon scarf.

At Cannes, a 25-year-old Diana attended a screening of The Whales of August, a drama starring Bette Davis, and went to dinner with her then-husband, Prince Charles, who is now King Charles III.

Andrushkevich’s floor-length dress was not an identical replica of Lady Diana’s gown, though its similarities struck immediate nostalgia in anyone who remembered the 1987 look.

The original dress, which was auctioned in 2003 for $108,000, according to Vogue, was designed by French-born fashion designer Catherine Walker, who is still favored by Princess Catherine, the wife of Diana’s eldest son, Prince William.

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Andrushkevich’s strapless dress was custom-made for the French-Russian actress and professional pianist by Mehmet Ozden, according to Vogue.

While both designs were icy-blue, strapless, and light, they had one significant difference.

Andrushkevich’s dress featured horizontal draping around her breasts and torso; Diana’s featured criss-crossed draping around her waist.

The 21-year-old starlet styled the gown, as Diana did, with a light chiffon scarf softly placed around her neck, the ends falling behind her back.

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Her blond hair was also styled with a voluminous blowout, a signature of Diana’s.

But Andrushkevich made some styling choices that differed from those of the beloved royal.

Andrushkevich opted to style her dress with dangling silver spiral earrings and open-toe shoes.

Diana, on the other hand, wore diamond-and-sapphire chandelier earrings and ice-blue pumps.

Diana’s 1987 outfit, too, was inspired by a legendary royal: Princess Grace of Monaco, formerly Grace Kelly.

The actress wore a blue gown with spaghetti straps and a thin chiffon stole in Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief in 1955—a romantic thriller also filmed at the French Riviera.

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The two women met in 1981, shortly after Diana’s engagement to then-Prince Charles and just over a year before Kelly’s tragic death in a car accident.

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Roosa RahkonenReporter, The Looker

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