Princess Diana, one of the most stylish folks to ever live, wore a lot of cool things. One of her most bizarre and excellent outfits featured a kelly green and silver Philadelpha Eagles varsity jacket that immediately became the stuff of Diana outfit dreams.
Over 30 years later, Mitchell & Ness is releasing Princess Di's Eagles jacket, granting the letterman the luxurious treatment it deserves and offering fans a rare opportunity to own the inimitable outerwear piece for the first time in decades. Note that M&N didn't produce the original, though.
It's a thoughtfully worthy reissue of a garment so strikingly unusual that it'd have been a classic in its own right, though Diana took it from intriguing to iconic.
Back in 1991, Princess Diana was first seen wearing her green Eagles jacket while taking Prince Harry to school; she'd wear it again in the cover story for a 1994 issue of People.
In a recent episode of ESPN's Sunday NFL Countdown, Ken Wharfe, Diana's former bodyguard, talked at length about the jacket, which is an oddity not only because it was unusual enough to see a member of the royal family in sportswear but also because American football was a true curio at the time in Britain, especially compared to sports like what the bloody Yanks call soccer.
According to Wharfe, Diana received the jacket in the '80s from Marnie Schneider, granddaughter of then-Eagles owner Leonard Tose. Diana wasn't seen wearing it in public for another decade.
Everything Diana wore turned to gold. Sure, it was partially because she was indescribably famous but primarily because she had enduringly exceptional style that resonates to this day.
British knitwear company Warm & Wonderful has to sell its contemporary iterations of the sheep sweater that Diana herself once wore as pre-orders because demand remains so high, for instance, and the knit that Diana herself wore recently sold at auction for over $1 million.
Here we are in 2023 and Mitchell & Ness is reviving Princess Di's bespoke Eagles jacket as part of a limited edition release that goes beyond recreating the original.
This new edition is actually cut to affect the oversized fit of Diana's own Eagles jacket, for one, and boasts "exceptional attention to detail" in its construction, for another, according to Mitchel & Ness' press release.
Dropping November 9 on Mitchell & Ness' website and Fanatics' web store, the new edition of the Princess Diana Eagles jacket will retail for $400.
Might sound like a tall order for non-Eagles fans — hell, Eagles fans too— but considering that some folks are trying to sell their own '80s-era Eagles jackets for upwards of $2,500 due to the Diana associations, it's actually kind of a deal.
The only downside is that the jackets will be a real challenge to buy at retail. Princess Diana's many adoring fans don't let Di-related goods go quietly.
