While I watched the first two seasons of The Crown, I was struck by how much fun it could have been for Great Britain to have such a youthful queen. QEII was only 25 years old when she became Queen, and she was already the mother of two children (Andrew and Edward would follow during her reign). It could have been so much fun to get dressed up and have a young, fashionable, bejeweled Queen as a style icon and she could have put British fashion houses on the map. She was probably discouraged from that kind of superficiality, and she probably would have rejected it outright too, because I never really think of the Queen as caring that much about fashion and style generally. That hasn’t changed in decades – the Queen’s dresser basically gives the Queen a few options each morning and the Queen chooses and her clothing is sent for:
While us commoners are out here putting on our pants one leg at a time, Queen Elizabeth has a dresser to do that for her. In an installment of Yahoo UK’s video series “The Royal Box,” Paul Burrell, who was Her Majesty’s footman before becoming Princess Diana’s butler, revealed how HRH gets ready every day.
“The Queen has to have her outfits brought down to her, all her clothes are kept on the top floor,” Burrell began. “Her dresser will bring down two outfits in the morning, which are sketched with pieces of material clipped to them so that the Queen can remember whether it’s silk or cotton or wool. The one the Queen picks is the one which is brought downstairs from up above, so she doesn’t actually see her wardrobe with clothes in it.”
The Queen also has no fear of repeating her outfits, regularly re-wearing some of her favorite brightly colored looks created by her dressmaker Angela Kelly or royal couturier Stewart Parvin. And according to Brian Hoey, author of 2011’s “Not in Front of the Corgis,” she’s a full fan of sharing the wealth when it comes to her wardrobe.
“The Queen’s clothes are a constant source of comment in the media and she will wear a favourite outfit for years,” Hoey wrote. “When she finally tires of it, she will hand it to one of her dressers, who can either wear it or sell it.”
Just my opinion, but the fun of having access to all kinds of clothing and all kinds of jewelry is the idea of PLAYING with all of it and looking at all of it and mixing and matching and seeing what you have. Unless the Queen has an encyclopedic memory of every article of clothing she owns, I just don’t see how the Queen enjoys this process. I mean, half the fun of getting dressed in the morning is looking through your closet and figuring out what to wear! Next they’ll tell us that the Queen never looks through her collection of brooches just to play with the pretty sparkly jewels.
Photos courtesy of WENN, Avalon Red.
I want the job of playing with the jewels!
I love her style and she always looks fantastic
Also, I think she was a fairly stylish young woman. Much of that was tempered by wartime and the aftermath and the need to not be outwardly frivolous, and she wasn’t necessarily super fashion-forward, she may never have been a risk-taker, but she was a pretty young woman with an enviable figure and I do believe she, at least at one time, took care to present herself attractively and stylishly, that she took pride in her appearance like most any 25-year-old woman. But yes, that only lasted so long, and now I think she just dresses for the engagement, and her enjoyment is limited to just getting through to cocktail hour. And I don’t begrudge her that. I do the same, albeit in yoga pants, rather than garish suits and hats. 😉
The Queen was indeed really pretty in her younger days and I admire the fact that she seemed less frivolous and superficial than the younger royals. I know that largely the monarchy itself is frivolous and I really cannot stand the younger royals spending habits but QE held onto that post war feeling for a long time. I do feel that as the years have ticked by though, that feeling has of course been lost.
I would bet that she does look at her wardrobe sometimes. Maybe not often but I can’t imagine she doesn’t every now and then. Also I cannot imagine that in this day and age they’re presenting her with sketches of outfits. Photo’s on an ipad seem much more likely.
As the article says, she sometimes gives clohes away, I think she probably has a few inspections of the corrodor long Royal closet a few times a year and decides which ones to throw out.
Most of her personal Jewels are kept in the basement Vaults below Buck Palace , so she could trip down stairs (not literally) and play with them if she liked. Who knows what tickles her fancy,
I can’t imagine her wardrobe is that exciting at this stage unless she still has outfits she wore decades ago—the clothes she wore in her younger years would be more interesting to go through.
But for the past 10-15 years she’s basically worn the same outfit. Long coat with buttons, the same style hat, and a long dress usually with flowers. She just has them in different colors. I get it, it’s comfortable and practical. But I can’t get excited about a boring wardrobe, even if it’s the Queen of England’s. The Duquesa de Alba wore more interesting clothes than she did at this stage in her life.
Remember her age. I doubt she would want to discuss how to construct a dress … where the seams run … princess cut or other … . At her age priorities change. And her main concern seems to be that her outfit stands out colour-wise from the crowds. Hence the off-white coat in that pic with the red and dark blue uniforms. Hence her wearing bright pink colours when meeting peasants or suited office people who likely wear some dark-ish clothes (grey, blue, brown, black).
Oh, and her brooches game.
Paul Burrell is disgusting, is my only comment on this.
Indeed, he is a lying narcissistic toad.
Well that just sucks. They should move her entire wardrobe downstairs so she can peruse it at her leisure. Lol I guess she doesn’t want to but I would be partying in that closet every morning with mimosas.
I wish!
I have a big walk-in closet and I hate choosing something to wear.
I wore a uniform for 22 years and I think that is part of it.
You don’t have to think much about what you are going to wear.
I want to be Jane Jetson from The Jetsons.
I just want to drag my tired a$$ into my bathroom and step out seconds later with full hair, make-up and all dressed to go out.
My jewelry is kind of hidden away but my mom has this…this…board/shadowbox thing on her bedroom wall with all her jewelry.
It’s pretty but says, “Steal me.”, to me.
She comes by this honestly. From what I’ve heard about Queen Victoria, she wanted the royal family to seem as stuffy and proper and boring as possible.
I often wonder if her life seems exciting because we aren’t living it. She might be curious about waving at neighbors, going to the grocery store, seeing what’s new at Target, walking to the corner with nobody paying attention to you, etc.
I could see getting dressed being a chore, because it’s always talked about and it’s easy to be safe and basic. Also when you have a million brooches and can get anything you want, I imagine much of the magic is lost. Plus, the idea of people fawning must be awkward and REPETITIVE occurrence that just gets old, and I bet she’s heard a million times how much everyone wants her stuff, but nobody says they want the responsibility of becoming a historical storyline, constant criticism, and fodder for rumors.
The idea of being a queen fascinates me.
The Queen’s style isn’t all that interesting to me. To have tons and tons of outfits would make me crazy. I used to like a lot of options, but now I just prefer to pare things down and not have such stuffed closets.
This actually sounds ideal to me. Trying to pick out an outfit, and especially trying to accessorise, is really stressful to me. The irony is that I used to work in fashion and I love fashion, just not for myself! Until then I’m happy to wear mostly black (removed much of the stress).
I have never thought about choosing an outfit in the morning as being any kind of fun. I was so relieved when I learned about the European practice of a) wearing dark clothes and b) repeating an outfit frequently during a week, possibly 2-3 times in a row. I do this now, and am also known to have uniforms of my own making. Next level I aim for: wearing the same style every day, period.
My dream documentary–even though I know it will never, ever happen–is to see a behind the scenes look into everything that goes into the Queen’s wardrobe. I envision rows and rows of colors fading in and out and hats, hats, and more hats. God, what fun it would be!
Also, I just love the “What the f*** is this bulls**t?” look on her face in that top photo on the balcony.
I saw an interesting TV program on PBS fairly recently which I believe was titled The Royal Wardrobe (I’m fairly certain it was a BBC production. It examined clothes/styles worn by British royals going back to Elizabeth I (maybe a bit earlier?) up to Diana (may have thrown in Kate’s engagement dress at the end?). Anyway, the bit I remember most was that while Princess Margaret was free to wear Dior (I love Dior’s New Look although I probably wouldn’t find such restrictive clothing comfortable), Queen Elizabeth had to confine herself to British designers and a more subdued style. I think even as a younger royal, Elizabeth wasn’t very fashion-forward, nor do I think she’s really interested in fashion.
I think if I was here I would not look at my wardrobe either. I would just pick a hat every day and let them choose the outfit to wear with it. Her hats are usually super cute.
I want the job of playing with all the clothes and jewels. Oh my what fun!!!
i have always said the only reason to marry into this family is for the Jewelry.
Every morning, OK royal jewelry dudes..I have my coffee, bring in the trays of excellent jewelry so I can gear up for the day.
BRF jewelry is top shelf….Wallis Simpson had custom jewelry that people wrote book about, documenting/photos. Every soul who ever “Oooooh’d” at sparkly things would be lucky to get up close.
I read an article years ago in which Queen Elizabeth was quoted as saying something along the lines of “There is a type of cruelty to high fashion.” (I’ll keep looking for the exact quote.) The article noted that she did not wish to look “icy.”
This just made me have my first moment of Royal-Envy ever.
Not having to mess with it all? Having other people doing the wardrobe heavy-lifting, and then just having the final say & getting on with it? Heaven.
I’d definitely do what the queen does if it was available to me.