The Secrets of Queen Elizabeth’s Style

The biggest exhibition in history of Queen Elizabeth II’s fashion is on display now at Buckingham Palace, and while it may include the expected grand designs for state occasions and the Norman Hartnell coronation and wedding dresses, the show also opens a unique window on the inner life, and style inspirations, of Britain’s longest-reigning monarch.

There is a sweetness and mystique to “Queen Elizabeth II: Her Life in Style,” which opened earlier this month and runs until Oct. 18 at The King’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace.

More than 300 items are on display, many for the first time, including baby bonnets from the queen’s childhood; a Lanvin gold lamé dress beloved by the young Princess Elizabeth; and the lineup of Hartnell jewel-toned velvet coats that were a declaration of independence from her mother’s more romantic style.

The show offers so much insight into the public and private life of the late monarch, and that’s just what curator Caroline de Guitaut, surveyor of the King’s Works of Art at Royal Collection Trust, was aiming for.

De Guitaut, who has spent more than 30 years at Royal Collection Trust, the charity that cares for one of the world’s greatest art collections, has curated fashion exhibitions and written books about the late queen’s style, but she says this show is like no other.

It not only celebrates the centenary of the queen’s birth in 1926, but also marks the official transfer of the monarch’s fashion archive — including designer sketches, fabric swatches, and accounts, including a an original invoice from Burberry for purchases and services ordered in 1966 — to the Royal Collection.

It’s also the first time that de Guitaut has had a full view of the queen’s wardrobe, which means “we’ve really been able to build up a complete picture of the queen’s relationship with fashion throughout her life. We’ve been able to explore the big moments — wedding, coronation, jubilees — and everything else in between.”

She sorted through 5,000 wardrobe items and memorabilia from couturiers, designers and dressmakers including Stewart Parvin, Ian Thomas and Angela Kelly, and from labels such as Burberry and Bernard Weatherill. She also catalogued the queen’s footwear, including brogues by Lobb and Church’s, riding boots by Maxwell and Schnieder, and childhood ballet slippers and baby shoes.

De Guitaut said the research was partly a treasure hunt, as in the case of the Hartnell “wattle dress.” The queen wore the yellow gold, silk tulle dress adorned with sparkling gold wattle — acacia flower — motifs, for her first visit to Australia in 1954.

The Australian artist Sir William Dargie painted her in the dress and its matching stole, and there are many images of the queen wearing it on the tour, but the unique piece was thought to be lost.

De Guitaut says she’s spent decades looking for it, and even the queen could not recall what happened to it. “So, imagine my thrill and delight when I opened a box and inside, delicately wrapped in tissue paper, was the stole that went with the dress,” says de Guitaut.

She’s positioned the stole alongside Hartnell’s original sketch for the wattle dress, which was part of an album of sketches he made and sent them to the queen. “She kept it among her personal possessions for the rest of her life,” says de Guitaut.

During her research, she came across many other treasures that shine a light on the queen’s early years and young adulthood.

“There was a note in her handwriting, which I found alongside two baby bonnets from the 19th century. According to the queen the bonnets were worn by her and by Princess Margaret, and she wanted them to be carefully put away. It is just one example of how she wanted” certain things to be preserved for posterity, says de Guitaut.

The curator also discovered evidence of a budding fashion lover. One of the displays is a gold lamé Lanvin dress that Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, ordered from the Paris couturier. It even came with a little doll which had its own mini trousseau.

“Princess Elizabeth obviously loved her dress so much. You can tell it has been worn on multiple occasions, and that she clearly adored it because someone has very carefully added an extra panel of gold lamé fabric around the hem to lengthen it, to allow her to continue wearing it. Maybe it had got a little bit too short,” she says.

The early love of fashion blossomed, and it wasn’t long before the young princess was calling the style shots. De Guitaut says she came across four velvet jewel-tone Hartnell coats that showed how Princess Elizabeth’s own tastes were quickly diverging from her mother’s love of powdery pastels and frills.

De Guitaut says the princess was around 18 or 19 when she started making her own orders from Hartnell.

“It was clear that she wanted to have a very distinctive look, and that desire coincides rather beautifully with the impact of [Christian Dior’s] New Look,” says de Guitaut.

The curator says the queen made it clear to Hartnell that she wanted to wear “stronger, darker colors,” in contrast to her mother who was a lover of soft grays, pale blues and lilac, and so he delivered the bold coats.

“Clearly Princess Elizabeth wanted to do something rather different. Then, of course, she began branching out and started working with Hardy Amies. She was independent-minded, and wanted to create her own style,” she says.

It’s an attitude the queen adopted throughout her life.

De Guitaut argues that, during public engagements, the queen “used her clothing to deliver those wonderfully obvious, yet subtle, messages as a form of communication,” color-coding her outfits to match those of host country or wearing symbols — such as the wattle dress in Australia — to demonstrate understanding and respect.  

“It was not just the designers having the bright ideas and good suggestions. The queen was absolutely making decisions in dialogue with the designers,” says de Guitaut, adding that while the queen worked with her couturiers she was, ultimately, “the decision-maker.”

In private, the queen still took a rigorous approach to fashion, wearing tailored clothing, luscious Scottish cashmere and Irish Aran sweaters. Off-duty, though, her attitude was more practical, relaxed — and green.

“There’s a kilt in the exhibition paired with a beautiful tweed jacket with quite a strong check. And, of course, it’s kind of clashing, but it’s also rather wonderful. I first saw a picture of her wearing it in the early 1950s, and she continued to wear it throughout her life,” says de Guitaut.

“The skirt is quite worn, but in a way, I wanted that to be visible because we know that she re-wore things multiple times. Now that we have all the documentation from the archives, we’ll be able to pinpoint every single occasion when a certain ensemble was worn over multiple decades,” she says.

The show doesn’t end with the queen’s life.

De Guitaut has tapped contemporary creatives to show just how enduring the monarch’s style is. She asked three London designers, Erdem Moralioglu, Richard Quinn and Christopher Kane, to contribute one of their past pieces, inspired by the queen, to the exhibition. Each ensemble is shown alongside a related item from the late queen’s fashion archive.

Royal Warrant holders, and notably Burberry, have also created tribute capsule collections or items to go with the show.

Burberry’s capsule is inspired by the queen’s countryside wardrobe and includes a cotton gabardine car coat in iridescent holly green, and a silk twill scarf printed with a hand-painted depiction of Balmoral Castle, the British royal family’s home in the Scottish Highlands, and a gold-plated brooch in the shape of a corgi.

Long live the queen’s style.