If Queen Elizabeth II had been a young queen in a different era, what would she have done differently? QEII inherited a Great Britain which was still limping along after World War II, no longer an empire, with the aristocracy in shambles, and too little fun and excitement in the world. She HAD to be serious, and a bit dour, and never, ever frivolous. But in a different era, I’d like to think that QEII would have liked being a tad frivolous and supporting some “lighter” causes. Which is what she did in London yesterday – she attended the Richard Quinn runway show at London Fashion Week. She sat next to Anna Wintour. And quite honestly, I think the Queen absolutely adored the experience.
Queen Elizabeth II was front row at London Fashion Week! The 91-year-old royal surprised attendees as she was seated next to Vogue’s editor-in-chief Anna Wintour at the Richard Quinn show in London on Tuesday. Looking very stylish in a pale blue Angela Kelly tweed jacket and matching dress, Queen Elizabeth was seen chatting with Wintour and smiling as the models walked the runway during the show.
“Her Majesty The Queen is visiting London Fashion Week today to present the inaugural Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design,” the Royal Family Twitter account shared with its followers on Tuesday. “The Award, initiated in recognition of the role the fashion industry plays in society & diplomacy, will be awarded annually to an emerging British fashion designer who shows talent and originality, whilst demonstrating value to the community and/or sustainable policies,” a second tweet read.
Designer Richard Quinn is the first recipient of the Queen’s award, which he received after the show on Tuesday. Queen Elizabeth also met with other designers during her London Fashion Week appearance and toured showrooms.
The QEII Award for British Design! And it didn’t go to Stella McCartney (thank God). It was very nice of the Queen to attend his show – she must have been curious about what happens at London Fashion Week, and frankly, her presence is a HUGE boost to LFW’s branding. Maybe next year, she’ll be the guest of honor at the Burberry show. Maybe she’ll take the train to Paris to check out the Givenchy spring line. It’s a brave new world now that QEII has learned that she can sit front row at any fashion show she wants. I can’t wait to hear her opinions on nepotism models, Kaia Gerber, the Hadid sisters and whether ruffles will ever truly be “in.” I have this image in my head of the Queen leaning slightly towards Anna Wintour and stage-whispering, “These pieces need some BROOCHES.”
Photos courtesy of Backgrid.
Just promise us you’ll never do bangs, QE.
I love this. I would love to know what they talked about during the show, lol.
Me too, and did Anna curtsey when she met the Queen? Is she capable of humbling herself to that extent? Did she need to? So many questions.
Anna doesn’t have to curtsey, as QEII isn’t her queen (she’s American). But she certainly could if she wanted to.
Since when is Anna Wintour American? She is English.
Mrs Wintour got an O.B.E. last summer, in the Queen’s annual birthday honors list.
I hope she at least took off her damn sunglasses when she met and was speaking to the Queen. I’m sick of Ana Wintour and her sunglasses all the time.
She relinquished her British citizenship and became an American citizen ages ago. She’s American.
She relinquished her British citizenship? I wonder why. It’s not like she couldn’t have dual citizenship. Her dad was British and her mom was American, so wouldn’t have had to naturalize to become American
Didn’t she get her DBE last year?
HM was very fashionable in her younger years. From the book about Angela Kelly, she continues to be very involved in how her outfits are designed and handpicking fabrics that work correctly for the piece.
How elegant is Angela Kelly who is sitting on the other side of Anna Wintour. She’s a silver fox!!
I like the neckline on Kelly’s dress, very Lady Sarah Chatto. I saw one picture of Kelly grinning into the camera like, “This is fun and crazy that we’re here, isn’t it?”. And she’s right, it is.
Vogue is already sucking upto her. Maybe they hope they can use her to get a vogue cover of the Queen.
https://www.vogue.com/article/queen-elizabeth-angela-kelly-london-fashion-week
how does she still look so well? she’s 91 years old! she constantly seems 10 years younger than she is.
I was just going to post the same thing.
it’s genuinely impressive. there’s a documentary on netflix in celebration of her last birthday, it’s just her and a bunch of family members sitting down and watching old home videos. her memory is still incredible, i was really impressed by her. i enjoyed the interaction between her and prince charles while they watched together too, but she’s still such a sharp lady to be 91.
She looks fantastic.
She has access to the highest-quality food, the best doctors, takes frequent vacations, she’s surprisingly active, maintains an active social life and she feels purposeful. The last one is probably the biggest key in her longevity.
Agreed. We should all be queen! Or at least pretend we are, lol.
And there are longevity genes in the family. The ones that died young were all heavy smokers.
The royal family has always had access to the best healthcare and ate while the peasants starved, going back a thousand years. Bound to create a healthy bloodline.
But the inbreeding, Lady D… The inbreeding…. lol
My great aunt is over 100 and looks absolutely fabulous. I think she still drives and she wears heels (though sensible ones) every day. She maintained a healthy diet and reads a ton.
She is active and she doesn’t smoke.
That too.
She has a magic face cream, Murray’s Emollient Skin Cream, made for her by an elderly chemist in Scotland. Same cream used by her mother and sister for years. Not available to the public, but only to a handful of select clientele.
One of the ingredients must mermaid’s tears!
Great, now I want a thing that for me may as well not exist!
Honestly, I should look that good in my 90s.
She really looks great! A better ‘do helps!
I think that wearing those esthetic dark shades I presume when interacting with TQ is extremely rude.
I was thinking exactly the same. That Wintour lady is a massive jerk.
? Since when has wearing dark glasses been rude? The lights are pretty bright at such things and some people have sensitive eyes. It’s not as though the Queen doesn’t know what she looks like.
I once read (can’t exactly remember where) that Anna’s shades are prescription, and she is quite blind without them. So no, I don’t think it’s rude.
They may be medically necessary. My mom had to wear tinted glasses, though not quite so dark, all the time because too much light caused headaches.
y’all are being so nice about her keeping her glasses on. I’m simply not that nice, and think she’s being very rude. I also have prescription sunglasses, and tinted glasses for when indoors under bright light. I do not wear full on sunglasses when indoors, I wear tinted. This is obnoxious. Utterly rude!
Ditto. I, too, have prescription tinted for indoors. They aren’t nearly as dark as Anna’s.
Ditto. I have the same kind of prescriptions. The woman is just a tool.
Couldn’t agree more. It’s rude to wear dark sunglasses indoors, especially if someone is talking to you. If that someone is the Queen, then you definitely show some respect and take them off, no matter what.
Right? She wore them while talking to the Queen? I dont think the Queen is a special human or anything, but it would be like talking to the President while wearing glasses.
And wearing dark glasses which hide your eyes while inside, talking to people, is quite rude. Unless there is a health reason.
She’s such a boss
there were some really cute pictures from yesterday that i will be captioning forever
if i were anna id put her on a cover
Great idea! “Nine Decades of Style “
Anna Wintour is swooning behind those glasses! Her Majesty is really showing how it’s done. Has anyone noticed her chair? It has a pillow, and looks like a throne LOL
From what i read TQ was into the show – she apparently went straight for a hat exhibit. Wintour was clearly nervous, you could see her hands shake in the video clips.
It’s quite something when another woman can unnerve ‘the’ Anna Wintour into shaking. Now she knows how all those interns feel when they bump into her in the lift. But yesterday was a wonderful occasion and I like to think HMTQ had a fun afternoon, she certainly looked like she was enjoying herself.
I doubt the Queen would be commenting on nepotism models seeing that she is one of the biggest beneficiary of nepotism industry and her children and grandchildren continue to enjoy the benefits and will keep on continuing for the foreseeable future.
WORD.
She also has relatives who are nepotism models, including Maria-Olympia of Greece.
This!
The British Royal Family could not function without heavy doses of nepotism and obsequiousness from ‘the commoners’. SMH.
Only rock stars look normal wearing sunglasses inside and all the time. Anna always looks exactly the same, so maybe it’s time for her to remove the shades and get a new hairdo
What? No. The hair and sunglasses are part of her look. I feel like I’m seeing so many comments lately (here and elsewhere) about how Anna needs to change her hair, sunglasses etc, and I’m like…..but that’s Anna effing Wintour. That’s what she wears. That’s part of her icon status.
Exactly! The hair and the glasses are her trademark! She’s iconic for that.
It is ironic because fashion tells you that every season or every year there should be a new look. But Wintour remains the same style-wise.
Exactly. The queen has also had the same look for decades and we adore it, it’s her. Imagine if someone had told her to switch it up 20 years ago and she’d listened. Now, why would we suggest that to Anna.
It would be Lagerfeld without black gloves or Mizrahi without headbands. Quel horreur lol.
One of my favorite quotes of all time came from Larry David. “There are only two types of people who wear sunglasses inside. Blind people and a**holes.” 🙂
LMFAO! I ❤️ Larry David.
I love Queen Elizabeth. I’d love to see more posts about her. She’s so much more interesting than the Dolittles.
Kate and Meghan should attend shows by british designers. That would really boost the LFW brand AND support established and up and coming british fashion.
Yes but Katie wears Erdem so many times at least in high profile outings this year. Isn’t Erdem is a Canadian brand?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erdem_Moral%C4%B1o%C4%9Flu
British-Canadian-Turkish
Regularly attending something “frivolous” like fashion week… They’d be crucified and compared to celebrities. That’s not the image they’re trying to project.
They wouldn’t if they also performed “serious” and “substantial” engagements. If all they do is LFW, then yes. Kate already spends a fortune on clothes, Meghan will do too; imagine then if they lend their image to boost british fashion, especially up and coming designers? I know the Countess of Wessex is patron of maybe a fashion school or something like that (too lazy to google), so it can be done.
Both the Queen and Kate are very un-stylish. fashion-stylish isn’t what they should project and I don’t think they should become fashion (week) patrons. I guess Kate would love it but I doubt she would be good at it. Recently she wrote a cringeworthy forword for some royal photography archive whatever book. And it was cringeworthy despite her MA in history of arts
Kate has an undergraduate bachelors degree, not an MA !
Wintour got paid with a pic with the Queen for agreeing to get papped with Kate in that morbid Morticia Adams’ curtains dress.
I have this image in my head of the Queen leaning slightly towards Anna Wintour and stage-whispering, “These pieces need some BROOCHES. – I actualy LOL’ed there. Thanks. Now this is my happy image of the day.
Queen Elizabeth is just the best. May she live forever. These pictures make me so irrationally happy, I feel like an 8 year old girl that just got permission to pet a bunny.
Anna Wintour looks so scary, is there a reason she’s wearing sunglasses? The Queen looks incredible though, great for 91!
I think I remember watching a Vogue documentary and Anna or someone said she wears the sunnies at fashion shows so people can’t see her reaction to the clothes. I could be wrong though…
This is so cool! And the Queen looks fantastic…love the black gloves with the powder blue!
She really knows how to pull an outfit together. Forget the “Vogue Closet”; I want a weekend of dress-up in HM’s closet (and jewelry room!).
Wintour is actually a not so frightening person. In person. Hubby met her at a work function and she was fine. She seemed to be aware of the fact that people expected the ice queen so she was conscientiously trying to be pleasant if not exactly accessible. He said she had great skin with no (or quite sheer) makeup but was skeletal. She wore a maxi leopard parka, chic cigarette pants and ugly, functional NYC winter boots lol.
Amazing The Queen went to LFW. Maybe she always wanted to.
The Queen looks good.
I was giddy over these photos last night. They were delightful. QEII seemed to truly enjoy the experience! She looks well and happy. The woman deserves some frivolity at the end of her reign.
The Queen rocks! It will be sad to lose her.
What a disrespect wearing sunglasses inside when talking to The Queen. It is a basic social rule in EU you do not have sunglasses when interacting with other people. As mentioned above only blind ppl are accepted to have them. The rest are idiots.
Anna, pls go and have some etiquette lessons, you clearly need them (more than sunglasses in 1st row). I am sure QE was so over about this commoner’s Faux Pas 😂
I’m betting Wintour will make these pix the centerpiece of her wall of fame. You know she has one.
It’s not like this is her pic with the queen. The queen gave her her DBE last year.
I always get a kick out of QEII. She seems like a great lady! I wish members of her family would take some pointers. There is a reason she has sustained affection for so long.
How is the Queen 91?! She looks great!
love this post. love that they had a laugh together. love imagining what is going on in her head…