A VERY ROYAL FASHION STATEMENT
From Princess Diana’s ‘caring dress’ to the Duke of Windsor in a servant’s bowler hat, royalty has always used clothes for propaganda. Historian Lucy Worsley takes us on a tantalising trip through centuries of the regal wardrobe
FROM Queen Victoria’s mourning dress to the Duke of Windsor’s bowler hat and Princess Diana’s “caring dress”, the Royal Family have always used clothes to make a statement. And while the Historic Royal Palaces are closed for now – although lovingly looked after by a retenue of devoted staff during lockdown – the public will get the chance to learn about their exploits during a live talk tonight with TV historian Lucy Worsley.
“Oil paintings and sculptures are seen as art but fashion can be just as influential as a form of propaganda – even though we don’t give it as much status in exhibitions,” says Lucy who is Historic Royal Palaces’ Joint Chief Curator. She will be joined by Royal Dress Collection Curator Eleri Lynn for a virtual trip inside the regal wardrobe which holds more than 10,000 garments, from King Henry VIII’s hat to the famous “Travolta” dress worn by Princess Diana when she danced with Hollywood star John at the White House in 1985.
The Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection at Hampton Court Palace is cared for by a team of 20 highly skilled experts, led by Eleri, a modern-day Keeper of the RoyalWardrobe.
Lucy and Eleri will take the public through the extensive and priceless collection using up-close images and end with a questionand-answer session. They want to highlight the crucial role fashion has played in history, particularly for women who possessed few other ways of expressing themselves.
“It’s a tool that has traditionally been used more by women because more of their influence was bound up in their appearance,” says Lucy. “But further back into history men were wearing their wealth. If you meet a male billionaire nowadays, he’s likely to be wearing a hoodie and jeans but a Tudor male billionaire would literally wear his wealth, in velvet and tailoring of gold thread. But we live in a more democratic age where the gap between us and the royals has contracted to the point where members of the Royal Family are in the same bracket as Hollywood stars or influential fashion models who express something through their clothes,” says Lucy whose own zany dress sense has become her trademark.
The presenter claims the Queen’s late sister as her favourite royal style icon. “I was once asked by a producer to channel my glam 1960s Princess Margaret for a series, which I did gladly with big skirts,” she says laughing. Lucy has a theory that clothing also veers into the political.
“When the Queen wears her robes for state occasions, she dresses like somebody living in a different era. You see this a lot, people dressing from a time in which they last had real power in the world. In the Vatican the papal guards are dressed as medieval soldiers like they’re frozen in time politically to when the Pope wielded worldly power. The Queen wears imperial-style dresses harking back to the days of empire.” Eleri takes the collection on tour so that students of design and history can examine the garments in detail. She says: “The pieces were made by the best couturiers using the best fabrics and craftsmanship. It’s fascinating for students of textiles, fashion and history. What we will reveal tonight is that clothes make the person and tell us so much about the times in which people lived and the social mores and values of the day.” In an intriguing foretaste of the rebellious streak that would see him abdicate to marry divorcée Wallis Simpson, Edward VIII made a point of breaking sartorial rules which outraged his father, King George V.
“For example,” says Lucy, “although he was really good at fashion – we have his selfdesigned safari suit with sleeves which button up to different lengths depending on the weather – he insisted on wearing a bowler hat which enraged his father because a bowler hat was for a servant, not a gentleman. “The king thought his son was flakey and didn’t dress properly. He saw it as his son’s moral failing but it was a huge asset to Edward and it made him popular and accessible. “Perhaps it was also a flaw because kings and queens do not follow their dreams and do not marry a woman, who had been previously married, for love.”
Eleri says that Edward also wore tweed in London. “No brown in town was the rule but he broke it, and made headlines wearing his tweeds in the City. He also wore a morning suit to the Trooping of the Colour instead of his regimental uniform.
“It used to infuriate his father who was very traditional and still insisted on four changes of clothes over a long shooting weekend in the country, which meant 16 different outfits had to be taken.”
Fashion as a statement was something Princess Diana channelled from the mid-80s until she died.
“I don’t think of the iconic Diana outfits always,” says Lucy, “but of her at the theme park wearing a baseball jacket. She was saying she was one of us.”
Eleri adds: “Jasper Conran recalls her standing in front of a mirror in an outfit and saying, ‘What message am I giving out by wearing this?’ She was a proud ambassadress of British fashion because she wore largely only British pieces. But she also knew how to dress down when she was visiting a children’s hospital, and to wear bright cheerful colours so she would be approachable and warm which is typified by the David Sasson blue summer dress which became known as her ‘caring dress’.
“On humanitarian trips to places like Bosnia and Angola, she wore a plain shirt and jeans so that the cause, rather than her outfit, was the focus of media attention.
“We have 14 pieces worn by Princess Diana and also the original sketch of the ‘caring dress’ as well as pieces dating back to her late teenage years,” says Eleri. “We see the choices she made in the early ’80s were very of their time, the new romantic frills, lace and ruffles. The big change came in 1985 when she started to really enjoy the design process and would read newspaper reviews of how her outfits were received and if the fashion press was particularly damning of an outfit, she wouldn’t wear it again. She was shaping her image through that public lens.”
Around this time, Princess Diana started working with Catherine Walker and Victor