Americans liked Princess Diana from the beginning, and my family was no exception. In fact my mom still fondly speaks, like it was yesterday, of when she and one of her sisters awoke at 4:00 am to watch Diana’s fairytale wedding to Prince Charles back in July 1981.

To commoners like us, Diana seemed less a royal and more of a celebrity whose struggles and flaws that were lived in the public eye only humanized Diana – a rare attribute for anyone who wears a crown.

So with her regalness never in question, I wondered about these pictures of the amicable princess wearing this very American jacket. Turns out the story begins in 1982 during the funeral of actress and Philadelphia native turned Princess of Monaco, Grace Kelly.

Jack Edelstein, a statistician for the Philadelphia Eagles radio network, was in attendance because he was friends with Grace Kelly’s brother, Jack. At some point during the funeral, he and Diana struck up a conversation, which he recounted to the Philadelphia Daily News after Diana’s death in 1997:

“She thought football was like soccer,” he said. “She asked, ‘What are your colors?’ I said, ‘Green and silver.’ She said, ‘Those are my favorite colors.’” She was likewise enamored with the Eagles’ uniquely American logo, so Edelstein promised to send her some t-shirts.

The owner of the Eagles, Leonard Hyman Tose, thought a custom jacket would be more fitting. After receiving it, she sent Edelstein “a very nice note” about “how she’d been wearing it around.” And wear it around she did. In 1991, she was photographed outside Wetherby Prep School in London wearing the jacket, and again on the cover of People magazine in 1994.

For Diana, fandom had little to do with the jacket; it was all about style. Andrew Morton, who wrote the biography, Diana: Her True Story, told writer Barbara Beck in 1991, “She knows very little about English sports, let alone American teams.”

Hence Diana’s regard for the jacket was all about aesthetics – she just liked the look. But some Philadelphians disagree. In 2017, Philadelphia Inquirer writer Tommy Rowan wrote, “Di was one of us.”

Rowan also described how photos of Diana in the jacket are framed in dive bars across the city. The preference of Philly fanatics to think of Lady Di as one of them is understandable: Diana typified sophistication, whereas Philly sports fans aren’t exactly known for their tact.

So naturally Philadelphians are inclined to gravitate toward anything that makes them seem a little less crotchety. I suppose only a princess could do that.