Diana, a porcelain doll of in the making

Comment by JEMIMA LEWIS

LONDON - A rich American on the warpath brandishing a lawsuit normally triggers my instinct to root for the little guy. But in the case of the Franklin Mint versus the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund, I'm with the Americans.

For this is not really a question of copyright or legal wrongdoing: it is an old-fashioned story of British snobbery and American hurt feelings.

The row started in 1998, when the fund's trustees took exception to a 43cm Diana doll made by the Franklin Mint, a Pennsylvania company that produces commemorative plates and porcelain figurines of the type advertised on the back of magazines.

Most of these feature uncontroversial images such as snowscapes, shepherdesses and tigers peering from jungle undergrowth.

The Diana doll is in the best Franklin tradition. She has a whiff of Barbie about her, with a head far too big for her body, eyes too big for her head and a dazzling-white rictus grin.

She wears a miniature copy of Diana's sparkly Catherine Walker evening dress and crop jacket, topped by a miniature tiara. All very regal.

Alas, the trustees did not think so. In fact, they thought it was horribly naff.

They sued the Franklin Mint to try to halt production, accusing the company of behaving "like vultures feeding on the dead".

The case was thrown out of court, and the owners of the Franklin Mint, Stewart and Lynda Resnick, have now launched a £16 million ($44.2 million) counter-suit for "malicious prosecution".

The Resnicks may be billionaires, friends of the Clintons and respected charitable donors, but they are not above feeling wounded pride. Most people would be pretty crushed at having to justify their dodgy taste in ornamental dolls to a court of law.

Being American, the Resnicks will have felt it even more deeply. The only thing that Americans still find intimidating about the British is their perceived "classiness". They suspect - quite rightly - that no matter how rich they get, or how hard they try, the British aristocracy will always regard them as incorrigible vulgarians.

They long to understand the bewildering nuances of taste upon which such judgments are made.

In Britain, unlike the United States, taste trumps wealth in the game of class. The aristocracy uses it as a kind of morse code to filter out eurotrash, Americans and the nouveaux riches.

The rules are deliberately perverse, the better to confuse interlopers. Thus, luxury is not at all posh. In order to be classy, one should ideally live in considerable discomfort.

Draughts, dust, threadbare Persian carpets, cobwebs in corners and ancient taps that grudgingly drool a trickle of lukewarm water into a bath stained green by the algae of centuries: these are all in excellent taste.

Marble bathrooms, gold taps, three-piece suites, deep-pile carpets, windows that fit, saying "toilet" and "pardon" and "lounge": these are not.

Neither, emphatically, are "limited-edition collectibles" from the Franklin Mint.

The irony is that Diana, herself, although posh by birth, was vulgar by inclination. She had all sorts of dubious American traits: the gym-honed body, the coiffed, highlighted hair, the weakness for pop music and Walkmans, the love of victimhood, the perplexing lack of interest in country sports.

No wonder Prince Charles' set - who were much more of the muddy-boot, cold-bath brigade - regarded her as dangerously subversive.

No wonder, too, that the masses loved her. If you drew a Venn diagram of the people who collect commemorative tiger plates and the ones who lined the Mall to toss flowers in front of Diana's coffin, I suspect you would find that they are one and the same.

Diana appealed primarily to the romantic tastes of the genteel working classes. She was everything a princess should be: pretty, vulnerable, doe-eyed, tripping about the country doing saintly deeds.

She was, in fact, a limited-edition porcelain doll in the making.

If the trustees of her fund had not been blinded by snobbery, they would have seen that the Franklin Mint was the perfect custodian of her image. Besides, there are far worse offenders on the taste scale.

Following her death in 1997, a tidal wave of Diana-related kitsch swept the planet. I myself am the proud owner of an "England's Rose" ashtray, bought in Malta, which features a picture of the smiling Princess in exactly the spot where the stubbing-out of cigarettes takes place.

The Franklin Mint, I am pleased to report, is once again doing a roaring trade in Diana memorabilia. Its range includes the Diana Vinyl Doll in the Blue Suit; the Diana, Queen of Hearts Jewelled Tribute Ring; the Diana, England's Rose Diamond Pendant; and the Angel of Hope Diana Plate.

One can only hope that the trustees of the memorial fund will keep their opinions to themselves this time.

Diana was the "People's Princess", after all, and she should be remembered according to the people's taste.

- INDEPENDENT