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David Sassoon obituary

Fashion designer who worked with Belinda Bellville and dressed Diana, Princess of Wales, for many years

She explained how to be patient with clients’ non-model figures, and age and status fears, made introductions and led him through the Buckingham Palace tradesman’s entrance to fit the young Princess Anne with a bridesmaid’s frock, Bellville’s first royal commission. These were a different genre of display from post-1990s red carpet gowns: in the earlier era, celebrities did not do a lot of static posing, so gladrags had to be wearable through active nights of partying, dancing, and going to the loo, without assistants on hand to rearrange the drapery afterwards. Bellville retired in 1981, and handed over the firm to Sassoon, who recruited Lorcan Mullany, particularly for ready-to-wear designs, which were crucial from the 1990s, as couture dwindled because clients grew time-poor: two hours for a fitting had become a luxury.

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