The Eagles will be back in Kelly Green this Sunday, breaking out their 1980s throwbacks for a prime-time showdown with the Dolphins. It turns out one of the biggest icons of the '80s was also an underrated fan of the design, with the bodyguard of the late Princess Diana telling ESPN in an upcoming feature that the royal celebrity cherished her own Eagles varsity jacket.
The former Princess of Wales was famously photographed wearing the Kelly Green jacket in a summer 1994 edition of People magazine. She had worn the item for a trip to Alton Towers Theme Park in Staffordshire, England, per People, and Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie later "had the cover enlarged for his office at Veterans Stadium." But Diana herself apparently sought to use the Eagles apparel as a way of proving she was "with it" among fans of the day.
"Diana always craved the normalcy," former bodyguard Ken Wharfe says in ESPN's upcoming feature on the subject, via People. "By being a member of the royal family, that was almost impossible. Neither [children] William or Harry, when they were kids, wanted their mother to sort of dress in her finery, take them to school. So all Diana would do is be as casual as possible. ... Diana loved to be different; this was her style. It sort of showed the public and her children that she was a normal mother in a style that people liked."
How, exactly, did she come to own the jacket? People recites a story that's been told before: Former Eagles statistician Jack Edelstein apparently met Diana at the funeral for Princess Grace of Monaco (aka Grace Kelly, the Philadelphia-born, Oscar-winning actress) in 1982. At some point Edelstein and Diana had a conversation about the Princess' favorite colors -- green and silver -- matching those of the Eagles. And eventually word got back to the team, which promptly outfitted Diana with apparel of her own.
"It was [former team owner] Leonard Tose's idea," Edelstein went on to tell the Philadelphia Daily News. "He never went second-class. She sent me a very nice note, how she'd been wearing [the clothes] around."
