Anyone who travels will commit a cultural error from time to time.  But generally speaking, if you want to err in such a way that a national uproar will ensue, it helps to be famous.  Take the case of Princess Diana’s 1991 visit to Lahore, Pakistan.

Lahore, the cultural capital of Pakistan, is home to several national landmarks, including the Badshahi Mosque.  Completed in 1674 by the Moghul ruler Aurangzeb, the mosque is capable of holding up to 100,000 people (some sources say only 55,000).  In centuries past it was said to have been the largest mosque in the world; it is still among the largest today.

Entrance to the mosque

When Princess Diana walked up the steps with her entourage, removing her shoes as she passed through the imposing Alamagiri Gate, she had a problem that, quite literally, brings us to her knees: her skirt stopped just shy of the said body parts.   The outfit, reasonable enough in many other parts of the world, wasn't at all here.

In contrast to the Oscars, where Monday morning fashion quarterbacks employ television and other media to tear apart people whose clothes they didn’t like, in Pakistan the judicial system was used (by conservative religious leaders) to bring criminal charges against the mosque’s imam (not only did he allow her inside; he also presented a copy of the Koran to Her Short-skirted Highness).  The case was eventually dismissed, but the memory of Princess Diana’s fashion faux pas would carry on in the minds of many, including, one supposes, the British royal family.  In 2001, when Prince Charles and his wife Camilla visited this same mosque, Camilla wore an outfit meant to hide even her ankles.

Inside the Mosque

During my own visit to the mosque in 2004, I never saw a female knee.  But in other times and places I’ve seen travelers wearing clothes that said anything but “I respect your culture.”  I’ll never forget, for instance, a young German woman in a café in Hue, Vietnam.  Braless and donning a revealing white shirt, she stood out all the more because every other woman in the vicinity was much more conservatively clothed.  Her dress had put an awkward electricity in the air, and the Vietnamese people serving her, though courteous, were visibly uneasy.  The young woman was traveling with an aspect of her culture that most locals would have preferred she’d left behind.

While Princess Diana’s slip-up isn’t by any means one of her prominent legacies, it does provide us with a high profile lesson in the importance of dress in cross-cultural settings.  Whether royalty or a simple backpacker, how we dress will affect our journey.  It probably won't ever lead to a criminal charge, but it will shape how others see us, for good or bad.

Pakistani visitors in the mosque

Pakistani teenager in the mosque

Joel Carillet, chief editor of Wandering Educators, is a freelance writer and photographer based in Tennessee. He is the author of 30 Reasons to Travel: Photographs and Reflections from Southeast Asia. To learn more about him, visit www.joelcarillet.com.