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- <text id=89TT0472>
- <title>
- Feb. 13, 1989: Diana Makes A Splash
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- Feb. 13, 1989 James Baker:The Velvet Hammer
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- PEOPLE, Page 71
- Diana Makes a Splash
- </hdr><body>
- <p> How do you take Manhattan? A royal smile, a common touch and
- just a hint of blue eyeliner did the trick for the Princess of
- Wales last week. On her first official visit to New York City,
- Diana, 27, who made the trip without Prince Charles, sailed
- through two days and nights of duties like a seasoned royal
- campaigner.
- </p>
- <p> Long gone was the shop-until-you-drop Sloane Ranger who used
- to drift off at stuffy functions. The Princess's biography,
- distributed to the media army that followed her, emphasized her
- serious interests: "Wales, the disabled, children (their
- problems and development), ballet and music." There was no
- mention of her weakness for EastEnders, Britain's seamy, steamy
- version of Dallas.
- </p>
- <p> The Princess left New Yorkers burbling with admiration.
- "Di-mania," as local papers called it, slowed traffic
- everywhere. Diana dismayed her Secret Service bodyguards by
- dipping into crowds of onlookers to shake hands. But her main
- task was promoting things British. Wearing a royal blue top and
- black skirt by English designer Catherine Walker, she met
- fashion mavens Oscar de la Renta and Donna Karan at a reception
- thrown by a British cashmere manufacturer. There, the Princess
- warmly greeted the wheelchair-bound owner of a chain of fashion
- shops. When she discovered that the woman's nurse was
- English-trained, Diana remarked, "You're in good hands, then."
- </p>
- <p> The Princess, who stayed in a $1,800-a-day suite at the
- British-owned Plaza Athenee Hotel, followed her script well. She
- held a photo op in FAO Schwarz, the pricey toy shop, with such
- British-made playthings as Paddington Bear and Thomas the Tank
- Engine. While there, she checked out the stuffed animals for her
- sons William and Henry.
- </p>
- <p> Then it was on to the American premiere of the Welsh
- National Opera's production of Verdi's Falstaff at the Brooklyn
- Academy of Music, where the Princess was resplendent in a white
- satin evening dress with a beaded bolero jacket by British
- couturier Victor Edelstein. Among the audience at the
- $1,000-a-ticket production: Donald and Ivana Trump, Bianca
- Jagger and Malcolm Forbes. Before Diana went backstage to meet
- the cast, Mayor Ed Koch expressed the feelings of most of his
- constituents when he offered the Princess "a royal New York
- welcome."
- </p>
- <p> Diana returned the hospitality in kind. She visited a
- shelter for the homeless, where the former teacher told a child
- making a Valentine card, "That's a lovely Cupid." At one point,
- she leaned down and tied a small boy's shoe. She also visited
- children with AIDS at Harlem Hospital. To help dispel the myth
- that the AIDS virus can be passed by touching, Diana picked up a
- seven-year-old sufferer and hugged him. After that, even the
- most hard-boiled of New Yorkers had to admit that Diana was a
- class act.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-