The Shops at Crystals, an upscale shopping mall in the CityCenter complex on the Las Vegas Strip, currently has a “Princess Diana; A Tribute Exhibition.” The exhibition holds the world’s leading collection of Princess Diana and royal memorabilia.
The exhibition space is 10,000 square feet and houses over 700 artifacts, including several of Diana’s evening gowns, artist installations, historic royal textiles and a collection of correspondence, gifts and personal items of Diana and the royals.
The exhibit took its residency in 2022 and will remain a permanent exhibit at the Shops at Crystals. It has taken around 45 years for all of the memorabilia seen in this exhibit to be collected and has been considered one of the most comprehensive collections to date.
The group that undertook curation is the Pink Ribbons Crusade, a nonprofit raising funds to fight breast cancer, in partnership with SBX Group and SEE Global Entertainment. The exhibit consists of twelve themed rooms with three collections titled, ‘Wedding of the Century,’ ‘Fashion Icon’ and ‘Gone Too Soon: A Memorial.’
The rooms go through Diana’s life, starting in her childhood home, her romance with Prince Charles, her work as a royal, and her untimely death in Paris. A life-size paper recreation of Diana’s famous wedding dress created by Belgian artist Isabelle de Borchgrave using only photos and videos as reference, sits in the middle of one of these rooms.
One of the most interesting collections in the exhibit are the 79-hand stitched, doll-sized replicas of dresses Diana has worn. These were all auctioned off eight weeks before her death, raising $3.25 million for charity.
One of the last rooms in the exhibit features a life-sized recreation of the people’s vigil outside the Kensington Palace gates after her death. Surrounded by flower bouquets, you’re reminded how much of an impact Princess Diana had on the world and how the exhibit has memorialized her.
The exhibit has artifacts from other royals as well, like historical textiles from the time of Queen Victoria to Duchess Kate Middleton, personal belongings of Prince Charles, Queen Elizabeth II, Prince William and Prince Harry, and dozens of photographs depicting royal living.
Tickets can be purchased online, with adult tickets at $37 and child tickets at $29. Discounts are also offered for seniors and veterans. When purchasing a ticket, you must pick an allotted time slot to peruse the collections. You should set aside about one to two hours to get the full experience.
Words by Emily Cigan @emily.cigan and Amy Harris @thetraveladdictig