THE CHILD TRENDSETTER

Just as Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis set childrenswear trends now, from the day she was born – 21 April 1926 – parents around the world looked to little Elizabeth for inspiration.

‘Many poor gentlewomen have profited by the Duchess’s order for fine lawn and muslin frocks, little bonnets and jackets, and all the delightful accessories of baby’s toilet,’ read one report, while her mother, then the Duchess of York, joined the debate about whether infants should be dressed in cotton or wool, coming down firmly on the side for ‘frilly babies’ in cotton over ‘little gnomes’ in wool.

When Princess Margaret arrived in 1930, the Yorks became renowned for dressing their daughters in matchymatchy outfits, said to be a deliberate strategy to maintain as much normality and equality between the girls as possible.

In 1932, social commentator ‘Sylvia Mayfair’ declared that the Duchess of York was setting ‘a Royal fashion lead that will undoubtedly be followed by many mothers’. Mayfair reported that she had spotted the ‘two little princesses… driving in the park’ where ‘they were dressed in exactly similar raspberry sage coats with bonnets trimmed with rosebuds while neither wore gloves’.

After her uncle’s abdication in 1936 and the onset of the Second World War, Princess Elizabeth’s wholesome outfits took on added meaning, conjuring up the reassurance craved by the frightened nation.

But by the end of the war, Elizabeth’s look had taken a rather more grown-up turn. In early 1945, aged 18, she joined the war effort as part of the Auxiliary Territorial Service and trained as a mechanic, a job for which trousers and boilersuits were de rigueur. It was to be the only time in her life when practicality would trump ladylike elegance.

1937 Above The Royal family in robes for King George VI’S coronation