A dress and jacket worn by Diana, Princess of Wales, by David Sassoon (Alamy)Alamy Stock Photo
“Jewish traditions played an enormous part in the clothes I designed,” he said in a 2023 interview with The Guardian, ahead of a major exhibition at the Museum of London Docklands, Fashion City: How Jewish Londoners Shaped Global Style.
Born in Highbury, north London, on 5 October 1932, Sassoon was the third of six children in a Sephardi Jewish family originally from Baghdad.
His parents, Gourgi (later anglicised to George) and Victoria Sassoon, came to Britain on their honeymoon in 1925 and never left. After the family home was bombed during the war, the Sassoons relocated to Llandudno, and David was sent to boarding school.
He later attended Avigdor High School and was a member of Lauderdale Road Synagogue in west London.
Sassoon in the JC in 2009[Missing Credit]
Sassoon originally aspired to be an actor and won a scholarship to RADA, but, as he told the JC in 2009, his father “encouraged me to do what he thought was the lesser of two evils. I won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art, but sadly, my father died that year so he never really saw my progress in fashion.”
He enrolled at Chelsea College of Art and later the Royal College of Art after National Service with the RAF in Egypt.
At his graduate show in 1958, Sassoon was offered a job by Belinda Bellville, a well-connected designer who had founded a couture house in Knightsbridge.
Their partnership flourished, and in 1970 the company became Bellville Sassoon. Sassoon took over when Bellville retired in 1984.
The house’s first royal commission came in 1960, when Princess Anne was a bridesmaid at the wedding of Lady Pamela Mountbatten.
Sassoon later recalled turning up at Buckingham Palace to fit the young princess, only to step into a corgi’s water bowl before meeting the Queen.
The commission was the beginning of a long association with the royal family, for whom he designed extensively, including clothes for Princess Margaret, Princess Alexandra, Princess Michael of Kent, and the Duchess of York.
But, it was his relationship with Diana, Princess of Wales, that cemented his legacy. He first met her in the lead-up to the 1981 royal wedding, when her mother, Frances Shand Kydd, brought her to the Bellville Sassoon studio.
In an interview for the 2019 Channel 5 documentary, Secrets of the Royal Wardrobe, Sassoon recalled “She had a trousseau made and chose about 10 dresses. I was thrilled she asked us to design her going-away outfit, although I was disappointed we didn’t do her wedding dress.”
Among his earliest creations for Diana was the sailor-style dress she wore for her first official portrait and the peach ensemble she wore to leave for her honeymoon.
“Diana was very charismatic, but what was so nice was that she didn’t take fashion that seriously,” he told the JC in 2009.
“She was always very appreciative, always wrote little thank-you notes and sent little gifts. She was very warm and very considerate and had a great sense of humour,” he added.
Their rapport extended beyond fittings. “She was always asking, ‘What have you been doing, what have you seen?’” he recalled to the Daily Mail. “There were times when I’d be quite fraught and she’d pat the sofa beside her and say, ‘Now, what’s the problem? Sit down and have a cup of tea.’”
He added he was present at her wedding and later her funeral. Weeks before her death, they met at Christie’s for a preview of the auction of her dresses. “We chatted about the outfits I’d made for her,” he said. “I asked if her going-away outfit was in the auction and she replied, ‘Oh no! I’m not losing that.’”
Sassoon’s creations appeared on the covers of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar and were worn by Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, and Jackie Kennedy. He also designed the wardrobe for Hepburn’s 1967 film Two for the Road.
He remained a vital force in fashion well into his later years, mentoring young designers and serving as a trustee of the Fashion and Textile Museum, saying: “When you stop looking at the work of young designers, you should give up,”
David Sassoon, born 5 October 1932, died 9 April 2025.
