Around 200 pieces of clothing and accessories from throughout her life will be displayed in a significant new exhibition that will open in Buckingham Palace in the spring, nearly half of which have never been publicly displayed.
She once said of herself, ‘I have to be seen to be believed’. And during her 70 years on the throne, Queen Elizabeth II used her wardrobe, and impeccable sense of fashion, to ensure exactly that.
From her stunning evening gowns and countryside chic to her love of silk headscarves and vibrant colour-blocking outfits with matching hats, Britain’s longest-reigning monarch was also one of the world’s greatest style icons.
The Queen used the manner in which she served in public for seven decades to effectively conduct diplomacy on the global stage and in subtle expression of her feelings.
Now, the sartorial elegance for which she will forever be remembered is to be celebrated in a major new exhibition in Buckingham Palace next Spring, marking what would have been her 100th birthday. Queen Elizabeth II: Her Life in Style at the King’s Gallery will feature around 200 garments and accessories from across her life, nearly half of which have never been displayed publicly.
One of the earliest surviving couture pieces from the Queen’s childhood wardrobe will be the bridesmaid dress that eight-year-old Elizabeth wore to the 1934 wedding of her uncle, the Duke of Kent, which will be on display for the first time.
According to royal biographer Ian Lloyd, the exhibit will help people remember how in tune the queen was with the power of fashion. You’ll be able to witness the evolution of her style from a young, slim, attractive queen at the age of 25 to her 20 years of changing fashion, he says.
The early fashion movement is both historically uninspired and incredibly fascinating in terms of couture. Her elaborate evening gowns, each made by Norman Hartnell, resembled wedding dresses.
Princess Beatriz wore one of them, a Hartnell dress he made for the Queen for the 1962 premiere of Lawrence of Arabia, as her wedding dress. Norman Hartnell, the queen’s designer for more than three decades, created both her 1953 Coronation dress and 1947 wedding dress, both of which will be on display in the exhibition.
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However, Hardy Amies, a designer from London, is credited with beginning in the 1950s with modernizing the Queen’s wardrobe with brighter, more streamlined dresses. Queen Elizabeth typifies what I admire most about the English woman’s attitude to dress, he once said in an evening gown made of silk chiffon with gold thread embellishments she wore for a state dinner in Bahrain in 1979.
Later in her reign, and especially after the emergence of color television, Elizabeth II, author Ian Lloyd claims that she increasingly chose to wear one color head-to-toe, making a powerful visual impact.
She wore a bright primrose yellow outfit to the 1966 World Cup that stood out in the royal box at Wembley, he claims. That meant that anyone watching the game could recognize a tiny yellow figure even from a distance of a half-mile away.
She believed it to be true to her duty. Because of her bright, vivid colors, people could tell it was her because she knew they frequently caught a fleeting glimpse of her from a great distance. She paired her hat with a matching color palette.
She always dressed as the Queen and kept her true to herself. According to one of her designers, she was always dressed for a wedding, just like your mother or aunt would only get one outfit for a significant occasion every day.
“She’d be on a royal engagement in Sheffield or Birmingham and have the handbag, the pearls, the court shoes, hat and gloves. She was always dressed immaculately and presented herself in that very formal, elegant way. Today’s female royals, like Queen Camilla and the Princess of Wales, don’t have the same style, they don’t wear gloves or hats in the same way.”
Ian says that in the last three decades of her life the Queen’s clothing was made in-house by her senior dresser and personal designer Angela Kelly. “It suited the modern era and the Queen’s desire to save money and ‘make do and mend’ attitude,” he says.
Additionally, it allowed the Queen to participate in the design process even more. She frequently incorporated a message into what she wore, according to Ian, and had a unique understanding of the soft power behind her clothing.
He claims that she once had the ability to dress diplomatically and that she frequently wore clothes that suited the country she was visiting. It was a diplomatic coup because she researched the nation before incorporating the national colors into her outfit.
A gown by Norman Hartnell, one of the dresses on display, incorporates Pakistan’s national colors through a dramatic green pleat cascading down the back, making it one of the displays.
Wearing an emerald green coat and hat, which were widely accepted as a sign of goodwill and reconciliation, the Queen made historic four-day visits to Ireland in 2011. Later, at a state dinner, she wore a silk dress with 2, 091 hand-embroidered shamrocks and a left-shoulder pinched, Swarovski-embellished Irish harp.
For a monarch constitutionally bound to remain mute on political issues, the Queen became known for the coded messages embedded in her choice of attire. In June 2017, almost exactly a year after Britain’s vote to leave the European Union, she addressed parliament dressed in the blue and yellow of the EU flag, with the flowers on her hat mimicking the flag’s stars.
Her brooches often wielded intent. When she met Donald Trump, during his 2019 state visit, she wore three different brooches on each day. The first had been given to her by Trump’s political nemesis Barack Obama, the second by her the Governor-General of Canada, and the third was one the Queen Mother had worn to King George VI’s funeral, a brooch inextricably tied to mourning
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The Queen’s jewelry, hats, shoes, and accessories will also be displayed in the “Life in Style” exhibition, which will run from spring to autumn 2026, along with never-before-seen design sketches, fabric samples, and handwritten correspondence that reveal the behind-the-scenes dressing of the most famous woman in the world.
“Queen Elizabeth II’s remarkably long reign, her distinctive style became instantly recognisable around the world, bolstering the British fashion industry, and influencing generations of designers and couturiers,” said curator Caroline de Guitaut.
Only now can we share the tale of a lifetime of thoughtful style choices, from her hands-on role and understanding of the soft power behind her clothing to the outstanding craftsmanship behind each piece of clothing, as the late Queen’s fashion archive is cared for by Royal Collection Trust.
Source: Mirror
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