Who doesn’t love the ’90s? The decade of shoulder pads, VHS tapes, grunge and boxy sweatshirts sparks fuzzy nostalgia for those who grew up then and fascination for those born after. But in The Crown Season 5, the era represents modernity. As a backdrop, it underscores the tension between forward-thinking progressives and the resolutely traditional royal family, who seem to cling to the past and its outdated customs.

So how did the show’s costume design and production design departments re-create the aesthetic of that not-so-long-ago time? We’ve got the 411.

Inside Princess Diana's Wardrobe in The Crown Season 5Elizabeth Debicki chats with the show's costume designers.

Using a mix of research, historical imagery and personal memories, production designer Martin Childs and set decorator Alison Harvey leaned into Diana’s newfound liberation (in Season 5, Prince Charles (Dominic West) and Princess Diana (Elizabeth Debicki) separate and Diana moves into her own apartments at Kensington Palace) as a means to fully explore the ’90s.

“One of the great things about Season 5 was that a whole lot of new things came in,” Childs tells Tudum. “We had free rein to design an entire set on an entire stage. It was an opportunity to do a bit of decorative progress into the ’90s that we’d not had up until that point. This is the first time we’ve got a major character [Diana] who was of the time she lived in.”

The team got to work building a soundstage from scratch, paying particular attention to period details. They based Diana’s rooms on real photographs taken by her former butler, Paul Burrell, which gave them a starting point for the color palette and scope. Harvey then filled in a lot of the smaller details.

“I had to buy every single item,” says Harvey. “I had to find virtually obsolete wallpaper, because the palette was terracotta sand and a pale blue — it’s unfashionable [now], so nothing in the ’90s has really been kept because no one wants rag-roll effect walls.” Harvey hit auctions to source more items for the rooms. “Weirdly, the bookcase I bought at auction was made by Lord Linley [Princess Margaret and Antony Armstrong-Jones’ son] and is actually exactly the same as the one that she had in Kensington Palace.”

Eagle-eyed viewers might catch a glimpse of a VHS copy of The Nutty Professor on that bookcase shelf, which, along with the other movies and books, nods to ’90s pop culture. 

“We included films of the time — things that she would watch with the children,” Harvey explains. “There were a few in-jokes. I did get a load of tragic things about Italy, because she’d just come back from this disastrous holiday.” She adds that they liked to add items that were “pertinent” to the scene so if the actors happened to pick them up, they could use them for character development. “All of Charles’ books are about organic gardening, neoclassical architecture — all the things that we know he’s interested in, although you may never see them.”

Beyond books, Harvey also purchased real technology from the era, including televisions, VCRs and mobile phones. Much of it was found on eBay and from specialized museums. “It’s a decade where technology moves very, very quickly, and so introducing that immediately gives a sense of that time,” Harvey notes.

Once the team found the obsolete tech, they had to get it to actually work, including the TV that befuddles Queen Elizabeth in Buckingham Palace in Episode 8, “Gunpowder.” The monarch’s television purposefully stands in contrast to the rest of her technology, which is even more out of date. Although the world around her is evolving, the traditionalist royal continues to resist. “The queen doesn’t change,” Harvey explains. “She’s a nexus point around which everything else changes. Her sets have stayed the same through the seasons. If you look at the footage of the queen’s rooms, she’s still got the same old telephone. She’s still got the same two-bar heater to keep her feet warm.”

While the queen’s television is on the outs (not to mention her royal yacht), other technology around her is developing at a rapid pace. “You see the two things going in opposite directions,” says Childs. “The simplest way to [depict that] was to show things being invented at a rate that you couldn’t keep up with at the same time as other things are becoming obsolete.”

Queen Elizabeth isn’t really keeping up to date when it comes to ’90s fashion either, but Princess Diana’s clothes, like her apartment, are distinctly of the time. Costume designer Amy Roberts and associate costume designer and head buyer Sidonie Roberts wanted Diana to feel modern, especially in comparison to her fellow royals. The team did an extensive amount of research on both Diana’s particular fashion sense and the overall look of the period. Some of Diana’s costumes are careful reproductions of actual outfits she wore, while others are fictionalized designs that feel right for the character.

“You can completely embed yourself in that world because you are dealing with real people, but we’re always treading a fine line between where we replicate and where we do our own thing,”

Sidonie explains. “We put it all in, and then what comes out is just the essence of something and that’s what you work from — the essence and the muscle memory. ‘Did [Diana] wear it?’ becomes less the important question, but rather, ‘Do I believe that our Diana would wear that?’ ”

Once the team found the obsolete tech, they had to get it to actually work, including the TV that befuddles Queen Elizabeth in Buckingham Palace in Episode 8, “Gunpowder.” The monarch’s television purposefully stands in contrast to the rest of her technology, which is even more out of date. Although the world around her is evolving, the traditionalist royal continues to resist. “The queen doesn’t change,” Harvey explains. “She’s a nexus point around which everything else changes. Her sets have stayed the same through the seasons. If you look at the footage of the queen’s rooms, she’s still got the same old telephone. She’s still got the same two-bar heater to keep her feet warm.”

While the queen’s television is on the outs (not to mention her royal yacht), other technology around her is developing at a rapid pace. “You see the two things going in opposite directions,” says Childs. “The simplest way to [depict that] was to show things being invented at a rate that you couldn’t keep up with at the same time as other things are becoming obsolete.”

Queen Elizabeth isn’t really keeping up to date when it comes to ’90s fashion either, but Princess Diana’s clothes, like her apartment, are distinctly of the time. Costume designer Amy Roberts and associate costume designer and head buyer Sidonie Roberts wanted Diana to feel modern, especially in comparison to her fellow royals. The team did an extensive amount of research on both Diana’s particular fashion sense and the overall look of the period. Some of Diana’s costumes are careful reproductions of actual outfits she wore, while others are fictionalized designs that feel right for the character.

“You can completely embed yourself in that world because you are dealing with real people, but we’re always treading a fine line between where we replicate and where we do our own thing,” Sidonie explains. “We put it all in, and then what comes out is just the essence of something and that’s what you work from — the essence and the muscle memory. ‘Did [Diana] wear it?’ becomes less the important question, but rather, ‘Do I believe that our Diana would wear that?’ ”

While Diana’s iconic black “revenge dress” has a key on-screen moment, the costume designers ultimately preferred her more casual looks. She wears cycling shorts with Reebok sneakers and a classic Virgin Atlantic sweatshirt — an exact replica of the one Richard Branson gifted the princess. Harvard and the British Lung Foundation also reproduced sweatshirts famously worn by Diana in the ’90s for the show. Not only are the costumes accurate, but they offer the viewer a better understanding of the character’s mindset as she’s separating from Charles.

“She was comfortable in multiple versions of herself,” Sidonie says. “I think that’s also something that’s common today — not wanting to be one version of yourself as a woman. You want to inherit all of them. There was definitely a power in that effortlessness.”

Unsurprisingly, it’s Diana’s ensembles that take the spotlight throughout Season 5, but who could forget about those boxy ’90s suits? The jacket and trousers combo is noticeably broader and more structured than today, particularly on Charles. Wearing these dated suits was actually an enjoyable experience for the cast.

“I found when you did the ’70s and ’80s suits, which were slimmer and tighter, there were a lot of guys who blamed this tightness of the suit on the suit, not the fact they’d eaten too many puddings or drunk too many pints,” Amy jokes. “Now with that bigger, boxier shape, they can do what they like. I think they feel like it’s that old movie star look because it evokes those 1930s big, wide shoulders.”

Oversized, forgiving clothing that’s still chic? Like we said, we LOVE the ’90s.