This is so exciting!! Instead of putting a young celebrity on the cover of the July issue of Vanity Fair, VF decided to put Her Majesty, the Queen on the cover. Annie Leibovitz came to Windsor Castle a few months ago to photograph the Queen and various other royals. We already saw some of Annie’s exclusive photos in April, including the amazing photo of the Queen with her daughter, the Princess Royal, and the photo of the Queen with some of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. VF included some never-before-seen photos in their portfolio, including a great photo of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, and this cover shot of the Queen with her dogs. Because the Queen never speaks (on the record) about her business, VF quotes Annie Leibovitz:
“The most moving, important thing about this shoot is that these were all her ideas,” says Leibovitz. “She wanted to be photographed with her grandchildren and great-grandchildren; her husband, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh; her daughter, Anne, the Princess Royal; and her corgis. I was told how relaxed she was at Windsor, and it was really true. You get the sense of how at peace she was with herself, and very much enthralled with her family.”
In addition to the portfolio and an accompanying appreciation of the Queen’s lifetime’s worth of portraits by Laura Jacobs, the issue includes reminiscences by royal biographer William Shawcross and other Vanity Fair contributors, and a report from Michael Joseph Gross on her beloved corgis.
About those corgis: on the cover, the Queen poses with Holly (held) and, from left, Willow, Vulcan, and Candy. (The latter two are both dorgis—the crossbreed the Queen engineered when one of her corgis mated with a dachshund that belonged to her sister, Princess Margaret.) The corgi breed has been a part of the Queen’s life since 1949, when she started a program of royal corgi breeding from her first puppy, Susan. The Queen herself oversaw this program through at least 14 generations, over a period of five decades. Although the Palace has made no announcement of it, the Queen has ceased breeding: Holly and Willow were born the year after the Queen Mum’s death, and there has been no further breeding since then.
Re: the corgis… it was widely reported last year and this year that the Queen isn’t going to take on any more dogs, and she’s not going to breed her personal corgis any longer because she wants to leave no corgi behind. Meaning, she doesn’t want a huge menagerie of dogs left behind when she passes. Holly, Willow, Vulcan and Candy are her final dogs.
I genuinely love these shots of Anne and her mother, and the Queen and Philip.
Photos courtesy of Annie Leibovitz/Vanity Fair.
Yaaaasssssss!(a la Wendy Williams)
Indeed, can anyone ID the flowers (pink) behind her on the cover?
Camellia?
Looks like a camellia to me.
I would say: peony [Paeonia]. But I’m not an expert.
The photos are lovely.
They look like camellias to me….
Camellias, it would have been too early for peonies.
Camellias. They’re blooming everywhere right now. Very messy flower once they drop, but the rabbits love them.
may she live forever! cardigans and corgis and all.
I second that!
I always wonder if this is how they always dress in private? Like are they ever allowed to put on sweat pants and a t-shirt? I hate getting dressed at home, I’m usually in a sports bra and shorts
I think the queen dresses that way (or something similar). She might wear trousers sometimes but I think that’s as casual as she gets.
I don’t think the Queen would even know what to do with sweatpants. She probably does dress very similarly to what you see here. I know I’ve seen her in trousers before (I think they were pics when she was at Balmoral or somewhere more rustic) but I don’t believe that she gets quite as casual as we do.
Heck, I work from home and sometimes all I wear is a clean nightshirt and slippers. LOL.
I think that’s the generation. My grandmother didn’t own a pair of pants until she was in her 60’s, until then it was a dress, hose and heels (low heels) every day. Once my mom talked her into a pair of pants, nice pants, not jeans or sweats, she never wore another dress. LOL Still wore the low-heeled shoes at home with the pants.
I wonder stuff like this as well about all of them. I mean does Kate wear a nice pair of flannel pjs in the winter or t-shirts with pajama pants?
Just chiming in to agree. My dad, grandparents and my older inlaws simply don’t dress down the way we do. Their idea of casual was/is khakis and a sweater or a button down shirt. I LOVELOVELOVE the corgis!!! I grew up with two corgis and they’ve always been my absolute favorite. <3
when you have an enormous staff around 24/7 you need to be dressed. she would want her staff to respect her, which might be difficult if she cruised around in jammies all her down time.
Probably the younger ones to (well, maybe not Waity and Workshy) but women of that generation do tend to always dress in that style of clothing. My grandmother and great-aunts always did.
She wears trousers sometimes, but this is her casual style. When she’s at the races, she adds an equally no-nonsense raincoat and one of her endless collection of Hermes scarves tied babushka-style. It’s a generational thing, all the lovely ladies I know of that age range are most comfortable in sturdy tweed skirts and sweaters. Her casual clothes are probably older than most of us who post here. When you get that kind of quality, it never ever wears out – and the style is timeless.
In the late 1940s, my mother scandalized her Philadelphia mother-in-law by wearing jeans to do housework instead of a housecoat. What a rebel!
CORGI LOVE!!! 🐺❤️
I assume all four dogs are 13 or older then? Or maybe the dorgis are younger, since it mentions only the two corgis being born year after QM’s death.
I wouldn’t want to leave a pet behind, either, yet I enjoy their company so much.
at first i thought “dorgi” is just posh people spelling of doggies.
but its so FLUFFY!
These are lovely. Every time I see any picture of the Queen, I now see Princess Charlotte. The resemblance is uncanny!
Any time I see a photo of the Queen, it makes my heart skip a beat. She looks so much like my recently-passed mamma, they could have been twins. It’s actually quite unnerving, because Anne looks so much like my sister-in-law. Lovely photos.
My Mother’s friends all said how much my Mom looked like The Queen. My Mom would lift an eyebrow and kindly remind everyone that she was 3 years older so actually The Queen looked like her. Somehow, I think The Queen would find that amusing.
This is wonderful. How incredible…sitting in front of the fire together and the house extending outside … good heavens. Incredible life she’s lived and she truly earned every penny I think. Only Prince Harry can match her work maybe. Charles does a lot but for serving the people truly, feels like Harry does that best.
My Mom looked nearly exactly like the Queen. I love these photos.
Also never noticed until now the strong resemblance with Prince William! The first photo looks like William in his advanced years.
I love the one of her and Anne…
Yes. It captures such a lovely moment between a mother and daughter. I am not generally a fan of Annie Leibovitz’s work, but this image is absolutely perfect.
Props to Vanity Fair for a great cover, and it’s The Queen!
I absolutely love the photo of the Queen and Princess Anne. You can feel the love between the sisters straight through the lens. So heartfelt.
Princess Anne is her daughter.
I misspoke, sister Margaret passed. The photo is lovely
I fucking loathe the Royal Family on the whole, cannot wait for Australia to become a Republic! But I cannot shade Liz’s love of Corgis and Dorgis…..LONG DOGS OF THE WORLD UNITE!!
Do you loathe the Monarchy or the Royal Family as individuals?
Just the monarchy in general. Don’t understand why we can’t have an Australian as our Head of State. It’s archaic and antiquated that just because you were born into a certain family you get to rule a tonne of countries, just ridiculous.
I love our Queen E! And the photos are darling.
Quite a step up from their covers with Kartrashians, Mileys and Brittneys of late.
Anne looks like a BOSS in that photo. Wish I had a tenth of the coolness when posing.
Charlotte is going to look a lot like Elizabeth!
So, question. Are Philip’s socks white because a) compression socks for health b) this is how the aristos do it c) he’s a big dork, the guy who’ll wear dark socks with sandals.
One of these answers would make my husband happy.
Even a peon like me can buy black or nude compression stockings. I vote for (C). 😀
Aw. Prince Dork!
I love it! And I fully understand her concern for her dogs-I’m the same.
I volunteer for a shelter. We got in two adorable frightened little dogs whose owner just died from cancer. The family had sworn they would take care of the dogs, but they were dumped at a county shelter where they can legally euthanize immediately. We got them and they were so fearful it was heartbreaking. Good news: a hospice nurse heard the story and adopted both. It made me worry about my own pets if I died.
But where is The Purse?!?!
Mia took it!
The Royal Purse needs its own cover.
Yo! I was gonna comment about how the doggie thing got me in my feelings, then deleted, then went to the link… DAMN those pics are dramatic and so GOOD! with her Finery!! Go Off! England’s Meemaw Royale!
Also the one pic with the great grandkids looks like the worst superimposed photoshop of life!
Sadly those dogs are obviously photoshopped in. Crap job VF.
I love the two photos with Anne and Phillip. I am not very fond of the rest of the gallery. I gives a feeling of person to be artificially placed in the scenery, like a ghost.
I’ve always felt that Princess Anne doesn’t receive the amount of respect she deserves for being hard working and no non-sense when it comes to her job. I think she is a lovely lady, and appreciate her desire and dedication to portraying herself as a someone who takes her role seriously and isn’t focused on her external appearance (though I still think she looks nice!)
The Queen is a doll, and I have loved her my entire life. She is classy and a great representation of Great Britain. Long may she reign!
I have a dashchund and I worry if I were to die unexpectantly what would happen to him. My parents love him but I fear they are too busy being retired (always on the go) to care for him. I have thought of actually putting something in writing just in case.
I love that she has dorgis and it makes me wonder if I should try that or a corgi next, since I would assume they are similar temperments.
Please do put your arrangements in writing, so there’s no doubt. I am the named caretaker of my friends’ two dogs (with money earmarked to cover expenses) in their wills. They each have a kid (from previous marriages), but said kids are a mess and would not care for the dogs as my friends would want.
Do it. And not just if you were to die but were taken unexpectedly ill or had an accident, became unconscious etc. It’s the biggest worry of my life imagining my pets unfed and desperate for the toilet etc because I was unable to get home to them. Just as we have ICE (In Case of Emergency) numbers in our phones we should have a plan and a person to take care of our pets if something were to happen to us. We make a lifetime commitment to these little critters who are helpless without us, and what love and loyalty we get in return. Please give it some thought, they deserve it!
I don’t want to upset you, but when my great-aunt died, my cousins had her shih-tzu put to sleep. She was old but not crazy old.
I love the Queen and truly hope the Royal Family continues. They represent tradition and nationalism that is disappearing in England and everywhere else. I would hate to see England lose its identity.
I agree, Joannie.
But now I’ve got to get all technical and ruin it by saying it’s Great Britain, not just England. 🙂
Great Britain it is!
Thank you for being a good sport, Joannie.
It’s actually the United Kingdom (i.e. Great Britain and Northern Ireland).
I guess I threw N Ireland in with Great Britain. My bad!!
I like the cover photo; I think it was appropriate for Vanity Fair and shows the Queen at what is probably one of her more relaxed moments. I also like the variety of photos taken (Queen as monarch, Queen as wife, etc.), although I would have liked to have seen one with her sons and/or other grandchildren. I think the one with Philip really shows the benefit of a good consort: they still seem to love and like each other and, although he has done and said the wrong things at times, he seems to be a great sounding board and support for her.
I love the Queen’s style. I love that it is entirely her and not updated. I love that it’s
I hope and look forward to my kids sitting with me like the pic with Anne and the Queen.
And I want Anne’s hair.
I like this Vanity Fair cover, mainly for the dogs. The dogs are too cute for words.
Wouldn’t it be great if the Queen adopted some shelter dogs? She can stop breeding and still continue to have loving canine companions, and set a new standard.
I think Camilla has two Jack Russell terrier rescues from a shelter, so the precedent is there.
Look at the doggies! Her Majesty looks very nice. I love the picture of her & Anne & her & Phillip.
One of my favorite people in history is Queen Elizabeth the 1st, this Queen Elizabeth is right up there. Love the Queen and her fur babies!