One of the greatest mysteries about Princess Diana's style has been the circulating photos of her inexplicably wearing a Philadelphia Eagles varsity jacket in the '80s and '90s. It's hard to imagine her distinct charming voice whisper, "Go, Birds!" but it is fun. Did she ever utter the phrase?
Probably not. The story of the jacket can be traced back to the funeral of a Philadelphia native, Princess Grace of Monaco, in 1982. Jack Edelstein, a statistician and spotter for the Eagles radio network, was in attendance, because he was friends with Grace Kelly's brother, Jack Kelly.
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He and Diana struck up a conversation, which he recounted to the Philadelphia Daily News after Diana's death in 1997. "She thought football was like soccer," he said. "She asked, 'What are your colors?' I said, 'Green and silver.' She said, 'Those are my favorite colors.'"
She was also charmed by the Eagles' graceful logo, and Edelstein promised to send her some T-shirts. The owner of the Eagles at the time, Leonard Hyman Tose, thought a custom jacket would be more fitting. After receiving it, she sent Edelstein "a very nice note" about "how she'd been wearing it around."
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And wear it around she did. In 1991, she was photographed outside London's Wetherby Prep School wearing the jacket and again on the cover of People magazine in 1994. Andrew Morton, who wrote her biography, Diana: Her True Story—in Her Own Words, told Daily News writer Barbara Beck in 1991, "She knows very little about English sports, let alone American teams." The jacket had nothing to do with allegiance, but everything to do with aesthetic. She just liked the look.
Philadelphia disagrees. In 2017, The Philadelphia Inquirer writer Tommy Rowan wrote, "Di was one of us." He then described how photos of Diana in the jacket are framed in dive bars across the city, above pool tables and dartboards. It's true; I've seen it.
Maybe I am an Eagles fan. I have no credentials other than having lived in Philadelphia for four years for college and somewhat knowing what a touchdown is. But supporting the team has always intrigued me. Not so much because of the fervent fans who mount bus station stops with such ferocity they crash through the glass (which a group of them did, in fact, do last night after the team's place in the Super Bowl was solidified), but because Princess Diana dressed like one.
And that's all the information I need to convince myself to root for the Eagles in this year's Super Bowl. Princess Diana probably wouldn't have actually watched it, but I'm sure she'd still be wearing the jacket, as the People's Princess (of Philadelphia).
Tara Gonzalez is the Senior Fashion Editor at Harper’s Bazaar. Previously, she was the style writer at InStyle, founding commerce editor at Glamour, and fashion editor at Coveteur.
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