 | Popularized by and named for turn-of-the-20th-century Anglo-African adventurers, safari-style jackets were engineered for comfort and function, and may originally have been based on certain British military apparel worn in warm climates..
The Prince of Wales had long known about their value for travel in hot or humid areas, and for the 1990 tour of Nigeria Catherine Walker made Diana a companion outfit in cotton twill, with a pleated culotte skirt. She wore this suit for several years thereafter - to Brazil (left) in 1991 (when she and Charles made a coordinated pair visiting a rainforest), to Egypt in 1992, and to Zimbabwe in 1993. It was still in her wardrobe at Kensington Palace when she died, and is now in the collection of her clothing at Althorp. Diana disliked this photo op in Zimbabwe (right), feeling it was demeaning to the local people, filled with steretypes and looking like a staged stunt, and feared negative reaction might hamper her hopes of establishing a post-separation role as an independent ambasadress . The Red Cross had asked her to visit a feeding station they had established there to raise awareness of the famine devastating the population and, according to Majesty magazine, her Red Cross guide promptly handed her a spoon and maneuvered her in front of the cameras (which immediately started whirring away), and she was unsure how to gracefully extricate herself from the situation.
|  |
