As we revealed in our article on the Jewels on Display earlier this week, we were invited to the preview of the highly anticipated ‘Queen Elizabeth II: Her Life in Style’ Exhibition in the King’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace, which opened yesterday.!
Discover the remarkable style of Britain’s longest-reigning monarch through clothing worn in all ten decades of her life – from birth to adulthood, from princess to queen, and from off-duty style to dressing for the global stage for momentous occasions in Britain’s history.
Featuring more than 300 items, many on display for the first time, this is the largest and most comprehensive exhibition of the late Queen’s fashion ever mounted. Alongside clothing, jewellery, hats, shoes and accessories, explore never-before-seen design sketches, fabric samples and handwritten correspondence that reveal the behind-the-scenes process of dressing the most famous woman in the world and shed new light on the late Queen’s close involvement in the creation of her wardrobe.
Highlights include her christening robe, bridesmaid dresses, wedding dress, Coronation dress and the ensemble worn for the wedding of Princess Margaret. The archive also contains correspondence and documentation which illustrates the working relationship between Queen Elizabeth II and the couturiers and suppliers she chose. Fashion sketches, some with fabric and embroidery swatches attached, demonstrate the Queen’s close involvement in her fashion choices and the process involved in the finest of couture production and craftsmanship.
The exhibition begins with the magnificent gold lame gown created by Normal Hartnell for the 1952 Commonwealth Tour, which was then notably worn two years later for an Investiture at Wellington Town Hall in 1954.
Clear themes emerge from the collection, helping to define the unique requirements of dressing for different purposes and occasions. There are rare surviving items from childhood such as the dress worn by Princess Elizabeth aged one as well as the first pieces of couture made for her by leading British couturiers, Norman Hartnell and Edward Molyneux, in the 1930s.
The first jewel on display is the silver-gilt Coronet worn by Princess Elizabeth for the Coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in 1937.
As the Princess reached adulthood in the 1940s, London couturiers were producing designs, including those supplied to Princess Elizabeth, which rivalled those being produced in Paris. The Princess’s clothes in this period were influenced by the ‘New Look’ silhouette created by Christian Dior in 1947.
In the same year the marriage of Princess Elizabeth to Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten, the future Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, called for a wedding dress of unique style and Norman Hartnell designed a magnificent gown of duchesse satin, richly embroidered with pearls to a design inspired by the sense of rebirth and renewal after the hardship of the Second World War.
The Queen’s Wedding Gown is topped with Queen Mary’s Fringe Tiara and the Queen Anne and Queen Caroline Pearl Necklaces worn by the Queen on her Wedding Day, after the Tiara had been hastily repaired and the necklace was retried just minutes before the bride departed the Palace.
Hartnell would go on to design Queen Elizabeth II’s magnificent Coronation Dress, worn at Westminster Abbey in June 1953.
A unique aspect of Queen Elizabeth II’s clothing was the production of wardrobes of clothes required for overseas tours, organised at the request of the British government throughout her reign. The Queen would determine her requirements and the couturiers and milliners commissioned would produce designs which often incorporated colours or embellishments which conveyed messages to the people of the country visited, for example by the incorporation of national emblems.
Evening gowns and dresses form a significant element of the collection, showcasing some of the finest craftsmanship in British couture production, from glamorous, richly embroidered crinoline dresses of the 1950s, to the softer silhouettes and fabrics reflecting the contemporary fashion of the 1970s.
In the next room is the main display of jewels, which features the magnificent Burmese Ruby Tiara, which was created for the late Queen in the 1970s from a set of 96 Rubies given as a wedding gift from the people of Burma as well as the Nizam of Hyderabad Tiara, and is now worn by Queen Camilla.
Commissioned by Queen Elizabeth In 1971, the tiara incorporates ninety-six rubies, which were originally set in a necklace given to Princess Elizabeth as a wedding present in 1947 by the People of Burma.
Beside it is the Brazilian Aquamarine Tiara, which was acquired by the late Queen in 1956 and altered in 1971.
Purchased by Queen Elizabeth I in 1956 and altered in 1971. The tiara incorporates some of the aquamarines presented to the Queen by the President and People of Brazil as a Coronation gift in 1953.
In the alcoves are some of the Queen’s iconic outfits displayed with their jewels, which include Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee Necklace and the Duchess of Gloucester’s Pendant Earrings worn on the British State Visit to the United States in 1957.
Also on display is the gown worn for the Wedding of Princess Margaret in 1960, alongside Queen Mary’s Lover’s Knot Brooch and the Duke of Edinburgh’s Wedding Gift Bracelet, which we featured earlier today.
Back at the main display, the Queen’s South African Diamond Necklace and Bracelet, which was a gift from the people of South Africa on her 21st Birthday in 1947.
There is also a selection of brooches on display, which include the Diamond Maple Leaf Brooch, the Australian Wattle Brooch and the New Zealand Fern Brooch, and the Flower Basket Brooch, alongside the Bracelet given by the Duke of Edinburgh on their fifth Wedding Anniversary!
On the opposite side is the Queen’s Grenadier Guards Brooch along with a Bead Necklace and a Cartier Sapphire and Diamond Bracelet which was displayed in 2022 and Cartier last year, alongside a Bead Necklace dating from around 1930 and aa gift from an Afghan Official.
The archive contains daywear made over the decades in almost every colour of the rainbow, with matching millinery showcasing the best of British tailoring as well as the evolution of British couture millinery.
The Queen always understood the need to dress appropriately for official duties, enabling as many people as possible to see her when she was invariably surrounded by large crowds. The designers would use colour as a means of making the Queen visible and for daywear her ensembles always included a hat, usually brimless or with an upswept brim ensuring that her face was never obscured.
Queen Elizabeth II was known for her elegance and her signature style, whether worn for official engagements or during ‘off-duty’ moments, and this has influenced subsequent fashion designers in the United Kingdom and further afield, from Miuccia Prada and Alessandro Michele to Erdem Moralioglu and Richard Quinn.
From her support of the fledgling British couture industry in the 1940s and 50s, shown through her attendance at fashion shows organised by the Incorporated Society of London Fashion Designers (Incsoc), to the establishment of the Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design in 2018, which the Queen personally presented to the first recipient during London Fashion Week – fashion played a continually important role in Queen Elizabeth II’s life.
