Elizabeth Emanuel: 'I always wondered what could top doing Diana’s wedding dress, but I think my new collection can'

[#Dobe~ClasSy!☠]

Scavenged luxury” is the phrase Elizabeth Emanuel uses to describe the nipped-waist jackets, wispy cotton shirts and intricately embellished silk gowns she’s leafing through in her Maida Vale studio. It’s a grey, drizzly afternoon and the boiler has just conked out – but in Elizabeth’s world, we’re in the imaginary decadence of ‘Paris 1902’, the title of the first collection in her latest couture design venture.

“I don’t know what happened in Paris in 1902 but it looks so nice when it’s written down,” she muses, gesturing to a patchwork of hessian cloth with the phrase etched in graceful calligraphy. “It’s as if you’ve found the House of Dior after the apocalypse and you go in and raid it then...