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Princess Diana's perfect posture has been praised by fans on social media after a clip showing how she held herself while sitting has been viewed over five million times in five days.
The footage, showing images of Diana from her earliest public engagements to the final years of her life, was uploaded by user princess.diana.spencer and has received more than 420,000 likes.
The images all show the princess adopting what has become known in recent years as the "duchess slant," a way of sitting while wearing a skirt, with knees together and feet offset to one-side.
The term "duchess slant" was popularized by the American-English etiquette coach Myka Meier in 2020 to describe the posture now faithfully adopted by the then-duchess of Cambridge, Kate Middleton (now the princess of Wales), and Meghan Markle, the duchess of Sussex.
A notable example of a royal who did not adopt the duchess slant is Queen Elizabeth II, who, throughout her life, preferred to sit with her knees and feet together and parallel to one another.
Commenters on the viral TikTok video were quick to pick up on Diana as the blueprint for the "duchess slant," writing: "It's know[n] As 'The Duchess Slant'. Catherine does it too if you look at some pics. Like her & will at Taj Mahal."
"If Elegance was a person it would be her," wrote another TikToker.
Some users compared the princess' sitting position and royal etiquette to that depicted in the popular 2001 movie, The Princess Diaries, starring Anne Hathaway and Julie Andrews as members of a fictional royal family.
"She was so incredibly ladylike," wrote one commenter. "Really was 'Lady Di.' Reminds me of that scene from Princess Diaries where they show how to sit like a royal."
The reference to "Lady Di" is a nod to the princess' maiden name of Lady Diana Spencer. In Europe, many still refer to her as such, so much so that after her death in 1997, the French fashion house of Dior named in her honor the style of handbag she often wore: "Lady Dior."
Throughout her time in the public eye, Diana was well-known for her sense of style and eye for fashion. Though she famously said there was "too much emphasis on my clothes," she undoubtedly knew the power that fashion could yield.
Part of the princess' adoption of the duchess-slant position was her preference for skirt suits, which required careful posture to avoid the long-lens zooms of paparazzi cameras.
Catherine Walker, Diana's close friend and fashion designer who made more dresses for her than any other, wrote in her 1998 memoir, Catherine Walker: An Autobiography by the Private Couturier to Diana, Princess of Wales, how the royal used her skirt length as a "barometer that altered to reflect her changing life."
"Over the years the princess's skirts had been a busy topic for fashion journalists," Walker wrote. "It is true they went up and down, and in my memory they are a little like a barometer that altered to reflect her changing life.
"At the time of her divorce, they lengthened; shortly before her death they were probably the shortest. I always liked the fact that she didn't follow fashion but did what was right for her."
James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek's royal reporter based in London. You can find him on Twitter at @jrcrawfordsmith and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.
Do you have a question about King Charles III, William and Kate, Meghan and Harry, or their family that you would like our experienced royal correspondents to answer? Email royals@newsweek.com. We'd love to hear from you.
About the writer
James Crawford-Smith is a Newsweek Royal Reporter, based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on the British royal family ... Read more