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As a royalist and a huge fan of the Queen (my mother kindled an interest from an early age), I was personally thrilled to see her atop of the list - but what is her power base and ability to effect change?

Power is defined by the Oxford Dictionary as "the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behaviour of others or the course of events".

Sure the Queen can control the behaviour of those around her - but how much actual power does she wield over the UK as a whole?

Soft power versus hard power

An examination of Woman's Hour's top 20 shows the Queen is not really like the majority of the women considered to be the most powerful in the UK. The kind of power she wields is soft - as opposed to hard. Her Majesty's power is more about influence - a discreet nod of the head, a polite word in the ear of a Prime Minister at their weekly meeting, or a strategic patronage of a cause being overlooked by the Government - is how she can indirectly effect our world without us even knowing.

Unlike the Home Secretary, Theresa May, who comes in second position, the Queen does not make law nor does she have the capacity to directly change the Government's policy. She doesn't make cuts or structural changes at huge organisations like Moya Greene (who comes in at number 12), the chief executive of the very challenged Royal Mail - which will effect thousands of people's livelihoods.

And yet, a panel of judges, chaired by author and journalist Eve Pollard, and several thousand submissions from the public later, the Queen has triumphed and come out top of Woman's Hour's first ever power list.

Prime Minister face time

Alice Feinstein, editor of Woman's Hour (who was not part of the judging panel), says she wasn't surprised by the Queen's position. "I can see why she is at the top. She's the head of state and Commonwealth. The Queen has a lot of potential power she could exercise, but doesn't.

"I know that the panel considered her weekly meeting with the Prime Minister to be a key indicator of her power. She has been doing the job a long time - and is a major repository of knowledge. The Queen is highly respected because of her experience and access."

Pollard lets it slip that the Queen was not in the top spot at the first. For a long time Theresa May was keeping the number one spot warm - but then the Queen's global standing and epic performance in the Olympic opening ceremony came up during the judges' discussions.

Her Olympic turn

"Can you imagine any other head of state agreeing to play a part in an Olympic opening ceremony where they meet 'James Bond' at home and then allow a stunt double to make it look as if they had parachuted into the stadium? What confidence in democracy and your position you must have to do that. And it didn't backfire," muses Pollard.

"If anything, it made most people in the UK hold her in even higher regard. The Queen is the head of the Commonwealth - and despite her power being soft, as opposed to hard, the more we debated - the more she kept emerging as the front runner."

Fellow judge, author and TV presenter, Dawn O'Porter, says none of the judges were unanimous at first in their decision to put the Queen top of the list - and yet people just couldn't argue with her level of power.

"If anything, we didn't want the list to be predictable - and lots of it isn't. But the Queen's power, above all others, is ultimately undeniable."

Duchess of Cambridge - a woman in waiting?

However, a more controversial and definitely unpredictable omission from the list was the Duchess of Cambridge, with people such as former Spice Girl-cum-fashion-designer Victoria Beckham and the artist Tracey Emin, making the grade ahead of her. The panel decided she was influential but not yet powerful.

"The Duchess of Cambridge is fantastically influential, but not just not yet powerful. I think we could see things shift after she gives birth. How she brings up her child will be very interesting and potentially highly powerful," says Pollard.

Interestingly, no other female royals made the list, despite the huge amounts of time they all respectively give to charity. Historian and author, Frank Prochaska, thinks missing out Princess Anne was an error in light of her incredible charity work throughout her whole life. And yet, she, like the rest of the female members of the royal household, just weren't considered 'powerful' by the panel. Doing amazing work, yes, but not powerful.

Age = experience = power

Dame Jenni Murray, co-presenter of Woman's Hour (also not a judge of the list), is thrilled with the news that the Queen has been named the most powerful woman in Britain.

"Power for me is everything the Queen stands for. It's her being in her mid 80s and being able to do her job perfectly. She can stand on a rainy boat [during the Jubilee river pageant] for hours, smiling and greeting people.

"On the couple of occasions I have been lucky enough to meet her, once when I being made a Dame, I was astonished by just how well she does her job. The Queen is utterly charming to everyone she meets and that is hard work. Age and power are linked and I am happy this is reflected in the list [the average age of those in the power list is 53]. Age and experience are so important. These women in this list aren't just powerful; they are role models too."

Her Majesty's 'glow'

Indeed most people who have met the Queen talk about this incredible aura she has, which draws you in and how she instantly commands respect. One fellow journalist told me: "She has a sort of gravitational pull and an energy field around her. Her skin and her smile are just amazing. I was overwhelmed by her power."

The Telegraph 's Charles Moore, has described her Majesty as having a "glow", which makes people trust her - and imbues her with power: "When the young Queen was crowned, people noted how beautiful she was. She did not have Diana-like film-star looks, but she had a glow. Now that she is an old lady, they note the same thing. It is an outward and visible expression of an inward grace. It is also a sort of reward. At the heart of her life, as of her faith, is the idea of a sacrifice. Because of the sacrifice, comes the triumph."

When does influence turn into power?

Frank Prochaska, who has written several royal history books, including The Republic of Britain, believes a major chunk of the Queen's power comes from her thousands of charitable associations and patronages.

"We don't know precisely when the British monarchy exchanged hard power for influence. But this is what happened," he explains. "The monarchy throughout the late 19th century and early 20th century, gradually lost executive power and the UK effectively became a crowned republic - as the Prime Minister's power overtook the monarch's.

"The Queen has built up a huge network of thousands of charities she and her family support and it is via these organisations that she has tremendous influence and acquired major power. In the UK we have a highly centralised state and it is these voluntary bodies, with which she is so involved, that keeps the big state-led organisations - such as the NHS - in check. They have become a buffer between state and society - and the Queen is at the helm of so many of them."

Permanence is power

Beyond her charitable network, Prochaska, believes the other major reason why the Queen will always and should always trump other women on a power list is because of her permanence. Despite the recent news of the Dutch Queen Beatrix's abdication in favour of her son, our Queen isn't going anywhere.

"The reason why the Queen will come top of these sorts of power lists is because everyone else is so transitory. Next week Theresa May could be sacked. But the Queen? She is here to stay. As is her power," he reflects.

Silence is golden

But how does the Queen keep her power? The secret is in her silence. She keeps it by saying nothing. If you say nothing, according to Prochaska, you rarely offend anyone.

"The real secret of royal influence is saying nothing. And anything the Queen does say publicly, is pretty anodyne. The minute a monarch, or any of the royals say anything remotely political or opinionated, they alienate people and they lose some power. This silence played a large part in how the British monarchy survived post World War One, when other European royal families didn't."

People, such as ex-Tory MP Louise Mensch, seemingly without much knowledge of the monarchy, have recently begun criticising the Duchess of Cambridge for setting a bad example to women by remaining largely silent since marrying into the Firm. However, her silence is very much deliberate as interestingly, it is understood that she is being very carefully advised about her public persona by Lord Robin Janvrin, the Queen's highly respected former Private Secretary.

It would seem therefore, if the Queen's sterling reputation and example is anything to go by, that the Duchess of Cambridge, following the same route, will have no problems in slowly working her way to the top of Woman's Hour power list in years to come.

But for now, the Queen rightly continues to rule to roost.

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Is the Queen the most powerful woman in Britain?

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For the first time in its history BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour has drawn up a power list of 100 women and Her Majesty The Queen has come out top. But what’s the secret of her power? Emma Barnett takes a closer look.

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Despite the coronation ceremony being an ancient and sacred ritual, there have been some moments when proceeding went off script!

Queen Victoria was not amused when her Imperial State Crown was badly damaged at the State Opening of Parliament. It fell from a cushion being carried by the elderly Duke of Argyll and hit the ground with a 'great crash'. The Queen later described it as 'all crushed and squashed, looking like a pudding that had sat down.'
Image: Detail of Princess Victoria (later Queen Victoria), c1833

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Despite the coronation ceremony being an ancient and sacred ritual, there have been some moments when proceeding went off script! Queen Victoria was not amused when her Imperial State Crown was badly damaged at the State Opening of Parliament. It fell from a cushion being carried by the elderly Duke of Argyll and hit the ground with a 'great crash'.

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westminster faith debates

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Wednesday 11th March, 2015, 5:30-7:00pm

Royal United Services Institute, 61 Whitehall, London, SW1A 2ET

Where do we look for moral authority? A recent YouGov poll finds that the Queen, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, and Malala get the most votes. Have we lost trust in traditional authorities, both religious and political, does it matter, and what takes their place? Where is the conscience of the nation in 2015?

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Faith and British Politics | Westminster Faith Debate

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Wednesday 11th March, 2015, 5:30-7:00pm Royal United Services Institute, 61 Whitehall, London, SW1A 2ET Where do we look for moral authority? A recent YouGov poll finds that the Queen, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, and Malala get the most votes.

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Reuters

The Queen's high moral authority is down largely to her ability to remain "silent", according to a leading pollster.

Peter Kellner, President of the YouGov polling organisation, told the latest Westminster Faith Debate in London that Britons look mostly to the Royal family for moral leadership. Just one in ten look to religion.

A recent YouGov poll found that more than a third of Britons believe the Queen provides the best moral leadership today. Slightly fewer, three in ten, said it was "William and Kate" who gave the best moral leadership. They had been asked to say which three or four people gave the best moral leadership.

Just 15 per cent chose the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby but even fewer, 8 per cent, chose Prime Minister David Cameron. The Prince of Wales also rated just 8 per cent, alongside Judi Dench and Caroline Lucas. Nobel Prize winner Malala, shot by the Taliban for going to school, pulled in 19 per cent for her strong moral leadership.

The meeting also heard that celebrity activists such as Russell Brand were regarded as moral authorities in modern Brtain.

Mr Kellner told the faith debate that the Queen's authority did not derive mainly from her longevity, although that helped, but from her silence. He suggested Prince Charles might learn from that. He said that personally, as an atheist, he looked to the UN Declaration of Human Rights and the ethical conventions embedded in the declaration.

He also said he would decouple ethics from religious sources of authority.

Professor Linda Woodhead, who chaired the faith debate, said it was "interesting" that women dominated the moral leadership landscape.

Religious commentator Clifford Longley said: "Women are naturally virtuous in a way that men are not." The "conscience" of a family was most likely to be the woman, he added. Longley raised the renewal of Trident as an important moral issue that was not being put before the electorate for debate. He said the job of religion was to "pump virtues into civil society".

Former Home Secretary and Labour Party politician Charles Clarke said many people had stopped listening to the Church because they had lost respect for some of the views being expressed. Referring to the Church of England's controversial pre-election document, he added: "I don't think many people gave a toss about the bishops' letter. I think the reason is the Church has lost a lot of authority to be able to talk on these moral questions."

Eliza Filby, author of the recent book God and Mrs Thatcher, said the work the Church does in communities is a success story but it was a challenge for the Church to make its voice heard.

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The Queen\'s high moral authority is because she knows when to be silent - YouGov President

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The Queen's high moral authority is down largely to her ability to remain "silent", according to a leading pollster. Peter Kellner, President of the YouGov polling organisation, told the latest Westminster Faith Debate in London that Britons look mostly to the Royal family for moral leadership. Just one in ten look to religion.

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http://www.thenational.scot/politics/15362549.Did_the_Queen_intentionally_wear_the_colours_of_the_EU_flag_/

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FOR the big events, the Royal Household will often spend days preparing the Queen 's outfit.

Her wardrobe for the opening of the London Olympics in 2012 was months in the planning.

Despite the rushed and slightly subdued nature of yesterday's State Opening of Parliament, much thought will undoubtedly have gone into what Her Majesty wore as she set out the Government legislative agenda, which was, unsurprisingly, dominated by Brexit.

So what to make of the blue hat with the yellow studs? Depending on how you looked, it could almost resemble the flag of the EU .

Certainly plenty of people watching thought exactly that.

"Queen delivers speech outlining Brexit plans wearing a hat that looks suspiciously like a EUROPEAN flag" bellowed the Daily Mail.

"Clearly the EU still inspires some in the UK" the European Parliament's chief Brexit negotiatior Guy Verhofstadt tweeted.

"Loving the Queen's EU bonnet...." said the Great British Bake Off's Sue Perkins.

"Ridiculous of course to suggest that Elizabeth Saxe-Coburg-Gotha or her husband Prince Philip of Greece might in any way be pro European" Twitter user Otto English wrote.

Last year the Queen was accused of being a secret Brexiteer, with The Sun claiming she had told Nick Clegg that the EU was heading in the wrong direction.

A complaint by the Royals to the Independent Press Standards Organisation was upheld. At the time a Buckingham Palace spokesman said: "The Queen remains politically neutral."

Yesterday's speech was the first time in 43 years that the Queen hasn't worn the Imperial State Crown at the opening of Parliament.

At 91, she can be forgiven not wanting to wearing the neck-straining 2.5lb crown and its 2901 diamonds.

But the reason given by Buckingham Palace was not age, or because it might seem indecent in this era of austerity, nor was it because the Queen was heading straight off to Royal Ascot after delivering the gracious address written for her by Theresa May.

It was, the Royal Household said, all down the unexpected clash with last Saturday's Trooping the Colour.

All the Queen's horses and all the Queen's men simply didn't have enough time to master two tricky ceremonial events so close together.

So Her Majesty arrived in a car and much of the tradition and regular pageantry was quietly dropped.

The Imperial State Crown was still there, driven in a separate car, and then held aloft by a state official.

One other change from the traditional was Prince Charles acting as his mother's consort.

Buckingham Palace said her husband, the 96-year-old Prince Philip was taken to hospital on Tuesday for "treatment of an infection arising from a pre-existing condition".

The palace added that he was in "good spirits".

The Duke of Edinburgh announced in May that he was to retire from royal duties this autumn. He was last seen with the Queen on Tuesday at the opening on Ascot.

Some tradition did survive though - the Government sent a whip to Buckingham Palace, where he was held hostage until the Queen returned from Parliament.

Another regular feature of the Queen's speech is Dennis Skinner's heckling of Black Rod, the official sent by the Queen to summon MPs.

"Get your skates on, the first race is half past two," he shouted.

The last time the Queen's Speech was quite so laid back was in March 1974 when Harold Wilson defeated Edward Heath in a snap election.

That was the first of two elections to be held that year.

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Did the Queen intentionally wear the colours of the EU flag?

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FOR the big events, the Royal Household will often spend days preparing the Queen 's outfit. Her wardrobe for the opening of the London Olympics in 2012 was months in the planning.

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Vogue October 2017

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Explore Queen Elizabeth's style in pictures. A look at the best looks from her coronation dress to her wedding gown and all the best dresses in between - see Queen Elizabeth's best fashion moments on Vogue.

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As Fashioning a Reign: 90 years of style from the Queen's wardrobe opens at Buckingham Palace, here is Justine Picardie's preview of the three part exhibition which began at Holyrood Palace in April.
As the longest-serving monarch in British history, the Queen has come to embody a number of apparently contradictory qualities: majesty and modesty; familiarity and mystery; grandeur and humility.

For all her reassuring consistency, she remains enigmatic, often silent, never revealing publicly what she really thinks about the momentous episodes that she has witnessed in her lifetime.

And throughout, she has been under constant scrutiny - the most famous woman in the world, the instantly recognisable outline of her face appearing on coins, banknotes, stamps and memorabilia; forever examined from near and afar.

As the Queen herself has observed, 'I have to be seen to be believed.' Thus her clothes take on a special significance as her armour and uniform, conveying a powerful visual message; they can speak louder than words.

On display: The Queen's most iconic outfits

And so it is that I have come to Buckingham Palace, just a few weeks before Her Majesty's 90th birthday, to see some of the most iconic garments from her wardrobe.

I am here with Caroline de Guitaut, senior curator of decorative arts at the Royal Collection, who has selected a remarkable array of outfits from the Queen's wardrobe that will be displayed in three exhibitions this year (at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle).

Several of the pieces that de Guitaut shows me have been chosen to represent the Queen's private self as a countrywoman, devoted to her horses and dogs. Here are two neatly tailored riding jackets - one in traditional brown tweed, the other in plain navy blue - and her beige jodhpurs, still in immaculate condition, made by a Royal Warrant holder, Bernard Weatherill of Savile Row, with a handwritten label inscribed 'Princess Elizabeth, 11th November, 1947'.

The waists are tiny, as is that of a kilt of Balmoral tartan, dating from the same era (it is also a reminder of her great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria, who designed the tartan with Prince Albert and established Balmoral Castle as a favoured retreat). Paired with the kilt is another tweed jacket, this one by Norman Hartnell, the Queen's long-standing couturier.

Matching outfits with her sister, Princess Margaret

Alongside these off-duty clothes are three more formal outfits created by Hartnell, who had first encountered Elizabeth as a young princess when she came to his salon in Mayfair in 1935 with her mother and younger sister, to be fitted for bridesmaids' dresses.

Queen's 90th birthday: 8 things you didn't know about Her Majesty 01:05

At the time, Elizabeth and Margaret wore matching outfits - not only as bridesmaids, but wherever they were seen in public or private.

Hartnell was to recall the glamour of their mother - then the Duchess of York - who arrived in a swathe of 'silver-grey georgette, clouded with the palest grey fox, and her jewels were dewdrop diam-onds and aquamarines. The young princesses, on each side of her as she led them by the hand, wore little blue jackets, silver buttoned, and tiny grey hats wreathed in blue forget-me-nots, making a symphony of silver and blue.'

A similar scheme is apparent in the crinoline evening gown designed for the Queen by Hartnell in 1962 - a pale, silvery, blue-grey silk faille, embroidered with an intricate pattern of feathers in white bugle beads, sequins, crystals and diamanté. 'The Queen wore this dress during the state visit of King Olav V of Norway to Scotland,' explains de Guitaut, as we admire it.

The Victorian aesthetic was intentional, as Hartnell revealed in his memoir, describing George VI's influence. After the abdication crisis, in the wake of Edward VIII's decision to marry the twice-divorced Wallis Simpson, the new king was keen to re-establish the steadiness that had characterised the reign of Queen Victoria.

If Simpson represented hard-edged modern chic - she was famed for her dresses by Schiaparelli and other Parisian couturiers - then George VI preferred his wife's and daughters' clothing to evoke a more traditional era. Hence his invitation to Hartnell to visit Buckingham Palace, 'to inspect some of the decorative pictures which portrayed many beautiful dresses of the Victorian period. His Majesty made it clear in his quiet way that I should attempt to capture this picturesque grace in the dresses I was to design for the Queen...'

Creating one of the world's most watched wedding gowns

The symbolic power of a royal gown was even more apparent in Hartnell's designs for Princess Elizabeth's wedding in 1947 and her Coronation in 1953. It was deemed that her wedding dress must be British; Hartnell duly sourced a suitable material from the Scottish firm of Winterthur near Dunfermline, 'and then the trouble started.'

Norman Hartnell on making the Queen's wedding dress

'I was told in confidence that certain circles were trying to stop the use of the Scottish satin on the grounds of patriotism; the silkworms, they said, were Italian, and possibly even Japanese! Was I so guilty of treason that I would deliberately use enemy silkworms?' Further investigation revealed that the worms were in fact Chinese - which was apparently acceptable.

The widespread interest in every detail of Princess Elizabeth's wedding was as intense as the attention focused on subsequent royal brides (including Diana, Princess of Wales, and the Duchess of Cambridge). To maintain secrecy, Hartnell had his workroom windows whitewashed and curtained with thick muslin, while his manager even slept at the couture salon to keep a constant guard on the dress.

And her Coronation gown

Six years later, Hartnell's design for the Coronation dress involved similarly detailed preparation and research, incorporating all the emblems of the United Kingdom: an English Tudor rose, Scottish thistle, Irish shamrock and a Welsh daffodil. Unfortunately for Hartnell, he was then instructed by the relevant authority - the Garter King of Arms - that the correct emblem for Wales was actually a leek. 'The leek, I agreed, was a most admirable vegetable, full of historic significance and doubtless of health-giving properties, but scarcely noted for its beauty.'

The Garter King of Arms, however, could not be persuaded to bend the rules and substitute a more graceful daffodil. '"No, Hartnell. You must have the leek," said the Garter, adamant.'

The loyal couturier confessed to feeling disheartened, but nevertheless followed his orders. 'And in the end, by using lovely silks and sprinkling it with the dew of diamonds, we were able to transform the earthy leek into a vision of Cinderella.'

Needless to say, there are no leeks on the pale primrose-yellow silk ensemble displayed at Buckingham Palace, designed by Hartnell for the Queen to wear at the investiture of the Prince of Wales at Caernarfon Castle in 1969.

A worldwide television audience of 500 million watched the ceremony, and the Queen's outfit was as practical as it was visually distinctive: a coat, embroidered with pearls at the neckline and hem, worn over a sleeveless tunic and matching shift dress of the same material.

The Queen's life on camera - in 90 seconds 01:33

'It's beautiful, and the colour is also instantly recognisable,' says de Guitaut. 'The Queen is one of the few people who can wear yellow. These clothes are stylish, but they also follow protocol - they have to perform a role.' Hence the discreet layers - to keep the Queen from feeling cold on an outdoors occasion - and the distinguishing colour, 'so that everyone in the audience could see her'.

The finishing touch is provided by a striking, Tudor-inspired hat designed by one of the Queen's favourite milliners, Simone Mirman, in the same silk as the rest of the outfit, and also embroidered with pearls and bugle beads.

Clothes that transcend fashion

The third Hartnell dress is equally evocative: a raw silk evening gown - its royal-blue skirt embellished with maple leaves made of silver beads and diamanté - worn by the Queen in 1967 when she visited Ottawa to mark the centennial celebrations of the Confederation of Canada.

It is a beautiful dress, but as with the rest of the Queen's wardrobe, it transcends fashion; indeed, it would look just as appropriate if worn today as it did nearly five decades ago.

This timeless quality is also apparent in the clothes designed for the Queen by Hardy Amies, her other key dressmaker from the 1950s onwards. As Amies observed in his memoir, 'Style is so much more satisfactory than chic. Style has heart and respects the past; chic, on the other hand, is ruthless and lives entirely for the present.'

The etiquette behind Her Majesty's hats

I am reminded of another of Amies's comments when de Guitaut shows me the most recent outfit in the collection - designed by the current royal dressmaker, Angela Kelly, for the Queen to wear to the wedding of her grandson Peter Phillips to Autumn Kelly in 2008.

Strict etiquette goes into making hats for The Queen

The dress and coat are in a matching pale blue and gold silk brocade, with a copper-coloured trimming, while the headpiece is adorned with a slim line of feathers - the perfect shape for the Queen, according to Amies, who declared 'a wide-brimmed hat would be undesirable for royalty. Hands must not be used to hold hats in a wind: they are for waving or holding bouquets. Nor must the face be obscured.'

Yet my favourite story relating to the Queen's wardrobe is of something that remained hidden: a lucky four-leaved clover embroidered into the cluster of shamrocks on her Coronation gown. 'I am not superstitious,' wrote Hartnell, who nevertheless confessed to making a secret addition, in the hope that she might 'touch this small omen of good fortune. This the Queen did as she finally tried on her sumptuous gown and gently caressed the spreading skirt.'

If this sounds like the stuff of fairy tales, then perhaps it is appropriate: there is something altogether enchanting about the Queen's clothes. But the magic is also mixed with reality.

For these garments have outlived many of those who made them; we can touch and see the material of legend, brought to life by the woman who wore them, as she evolved from young princess to reigning monarch, protected by a shield of gossamer silk and delicate embroidery, without ever revealing what might lie beneath...
Fashioning a Reign: 90 Years of Style from the Queen's Wardrobe is at the Palace of Holyroodhouse, April 21 to October 16; at Buckingham Palace, July 23 to October 2; and at Windsor Castle, September 17 to January 8, 2017

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/fashion/people/queen-elizabeth-style-through-the-ages/

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Inside the Queen's wardrobe: Behind-the-scenes at the Royal Collection's exhibition of immaculate outfits

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As Fashioning a Reign: 90 years of style from the Queen's wardrobe opens at Buckingham Palace, here is Justine Picardie's preview of the three part exhibition which began at Holyrood Palace in April. As the longest-serving monarch in British history, the Queen has come to embody a number of apparently contradictory qualities: majesty and modesty; familiarity and mystery; grandeur and humility.

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The Queen is well known for her fashion sense, almost always dressed in bright colours with her handbag in tow. Have you ever thought about the choices that go into picking just what outfit and when? Her wardrobe plays a larger part in her diplomacy then some may have ever noticed.

For example in May 2011, Queen Elizabeth made a historic trip to Dublin, Ireland to mend a shaky relationship. When she stepped off the plane she was dressed head to toe in emerald green- a nod to the emerald isle. While on the same trip she wore a white dress adorned with 2,091 hand-sewn silk shamrocks finished off with crystal Irish harp brooch that was created just for the state dinner.

Daniel Conway, a politics and international relations lecturer at the University of Westminster has studied the Queen's role and her diplomatic wardrobe. In an interview with CBC, he said: "It was a context where British power was rapidly declining ... and Britain wasn't sure it was going to have the same influence in the world,

"They had a young glamorous monarch, [and] I think they realised this was something that could project Britishness and British power in a way that Britain couldn't really do so itself,

"In the modern era, dress in particular, has been used by the British monarchy as part of British foreign policy."

Royal dressmakers, Sir Norman Hartnell and Hardy Amies were employed early on Queen Elizabeth's reign. Sir Norman Hartnell designed a dress for The Queen to attend a state dinner in Bangkok in 1972, the dress was made to match a yellow sash and insignia she was gifted by the Thai King in 1960 when he presented her with the country's highest order of chivalry.

When Queen Elizabeth became the first British monarch to go to China in 1986 she wore a dress covered in China's national flower for her dinner with leader Deng Xiaoping.

Another time was while meeting Pope John Paul II in 1980, she donned an Ian Thomas creation of a black silk-velvet and taffeta dress with a traditional black silk tulle veil keeping with the tradition of wearing black when in audience with the Pope at the Vatican.

In 1983, she met with the U.S President Reagan in California, she wore an ode in the form of California poppies as a thank-you to the United States for their help in the Falkland Island war the year before.

Her dress choices have even been the top news story for the day. When The Queen wore another one of Hartnell's creations, a green and white Maple Leaf dress to a state banquet in Ottawa, her outfit was headlining everywhere even though Opposition Leader Lester B. Pearson won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work during the Suez Crisis and Spain suffered a major flood on the same day.

The Queen mother was also very in tune with dressing for the occasion and the Duchess of Cambridge has taken note from Her Majesty with outfits to nod to her host country.

Many of The Queen's dresses are currently on display at her Scottish home, Holyrood as part of Fashioning a Reign: 90 Years of Style from The Queen's Wardrobe, a display of many of Queen Elizabeth's fashion choices as part of her 90th birthday celebrations.

So next time you see The Queen out and about it one of her signature outfits, why not see if you can find its role in diplomacy.

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How Her Majesty's wardrobe plays a role in diplomacy

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The Queen is well known for her fashion sense, almost always dressed in bright colours with her handbag in tow. Have you ever thought about the choices that go into picking just what outfit and when? Her wardrobe plays a larger part in her diplomacy then some may have ever noticed.

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You will never find Queen Elizabeth following a trend but, as our forensic analysis of the looks from the latest catwalks shows, she is certainly responsible for setting a few. As Her Majesty approaches her 90th birthday, it seems that her carefully considered, traditionally British and always jolly approach to dressing has proved highly influential on the AW16 collections which will shape what we wear next autumn.

Given that the Queen has been in the global spotlight for the majority of her adult life, it's hardly surprising that her unwavering sense of style has become iconic. As an article in Time magazine put it last year: "The Queen doesn't have to change to keep up with the times. If she just stays as she is, the times will circle back to her."

In her official duties, Her Majesty is known for choosing bright colours which she wears head-to-toe so that she can be seen from far away or picked out easily in a crowd. This way of dressing is often seen as tricky or overpowering for those of us without plaque-unveiling responsibilities.

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Here's proof that Queen Elizabeth was on every designer's new collection moodboard

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You will never find Queen Elizabeth following a trend but, as our forensic analysis of the looks from the latest catwalks shows, she is certainly responsible for setting a few. As Her Majesty approaches her 90th birthday, it seems that her carefully considered, traditionally British and always jolly approach to dressing has proved highly influential on the AW16 collections which will shape what we wear next autumn.

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Dame Vivienne Westwood's popularity knows no bounds. Her punk attitude is more alive now than in the movement's Seventies heyday and her outspoken, Union Jack waving Englishness (with a few added safety pins and tea stains), is undiminished. Cutting edge but classic, her collections are unflinchingly rooted in her interests and beliefs, whether it is human rights or classical fiction.

Westwood was born Vivienne Isabel Swire in Glossop, Derbyshire, on April 8, 1941

She began designing clothes in 1971 with the opening of her first shop, Let It Rock, at 430 King's Road. In 1974 it was renamed Sex

In 1976, with her then lover and business partner, Malcolm McLaren, they dressed the Sex Pistols

In 1981, Westwood showed her first seminal collection in London, entitled Pirate

In 1990, Westwood launched a menswear collection in Florence. She was named British Designer of the Year that year, as well as in 1991

In 1998 she won the Queen's Export Award

In January 2003 Westwood controversially sent men down her catwalk wearing fake breasts. The models for her autumn/winter 2003 menswear collection wore them underneath cashmere sweaters and polo necks.Westwood explained that, "the inspiration for the man with breasts was Fifties sweater boys."

In 2007 she was awarded the gong for Outstanding Achievement in Fashion Design at the British Fashion Awards - but she was late on to the stage to collect it since she'd popped out to go to the loo

Explaining the roots of her beliefs she said: "When I was a schoolgirl my history teacher, Mr. Scott, spoke with pride of civilisation and democracy. The hatred of arbitrary arrest by the lettres de cachet of the French monarchy caused the storming of the Bastille. We can only take democracy for granted if we insist on our liberty."

Westwood's son by McLaren, Joe Corre, is the founder of Agent Provocateur, while her other son, Ben, is an erotic photographer. In 2008 her mother Dora attended her latest book launch for Opus, an arts manifesto costing £1400 per copy.

In 2008 she put paid to rumours that she wasn't impressed withthe wardrobe of the first Sex and the City film. "I stayedthroughout the film, and was overjoyed to see Sarah Jessica in herbeautiful wedding dress," Westwood told BritishVogue,"Furthermore, I have been delighted to notice recentlyhow well young girls are dressing, and that they have clearly beeninspired by the film."

Pamela Anderson is Vivienne Westwood's long-time friend and signed a reported six figure deal to become the new face of Vivienne Westwood in 2008. In 2009 she graced the catwalk at Westwood's autumn/winter 2009-10 collection in London.

In 2010 she was honoured at a ceremony for the Prince Philip Designers Prize. Westwood received a special commendation for her contribution to design from HRH The Duke of Edinburgh.

Alongside her fashion range she launched a range of stationary in 2010 including notebooks and diaries in classic Westwood prints. She made her mark on the interiors world the same year with a selection of new table-cloth designs in support for eco charity Cool Earth. The designs were covered with bold, bright prints often with Westwood's trademark political polemics emblazoned across.

In 2011 she was named Britain's Greatest British Fashion Designer in a poll conducted by Greenall. Over 3000 people voted with the Westwood scooping 24 per cent of the national vote.

She dedicated her spring/summer2012 menswear show to the Olympics. Westwood made sure each catwalk look referred to the Games in some manner including T-shirts that came covered in printed torches, medals and statuesque Greek figures.

Vivienne Westwood and photographer Juergen Teller went to Africa in 2011 to work on her autumn/winter 2011-12 Ethical Fashion Africa collection. A programme which enlists thousands of local women to use their skills to produce bags for Westwood and earn a fair wage in return. "This project gives people control over their lives," she said. "Charity doesn't give control, it does the opposite, it makes people dependant."

In 2011 she joined the Occupy London anti-capitalist protesters outside St Paul's Cathedral. She has often outlined her concerns for climate change and during a talk at the V&A in 2009 Westwood said: "There is hardly anyone left now who believes in a better world."

Never shy of controversy, Westwood complained of the lack of style in society. "People have never looked so ugly as they do today, regarding their dress," she told journalists after her Red Label show in London. "We are so conformist, nobody is thinking. I'm a fashion designer and people think 'what do I know?' but I'm talking about all this disposable crap. So I'm saying buy less, choose well, make it last...in history people dressed much better than we do. If you saw Queen Elizabeth it would be amazing, she came from another planet. She was so attractive in what she was wearing."

To celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, she launched a new capsule collection inspired by gowns Queen Elizabeth had previously worn. The range, entitled the Red Carpet Capsule Collection, also paid homage to the British flag.

In 2012 Westwood criticised plans of a London council to ban charity Scope from basing its clothing banks on council-owned land. A keen supported of charity shops she told theEvening Standard:"Charity shops are part of the fabric of our great city, but this short-sighted approach is totally unfair and damages charities at the expense of a quick buck."

Vivienne Westwood credited London and its thriving culture scene as her biggest inspiration in a film for the Tate Britain's 'This Is Britain' campaign. "The great thing about London for me is the culture - the museums," the designer said in the film.

In 2012 Westwood triggered controversy when she created aT-shirt in support of Julian Assange. The T-shirts were given toher guests to wear front row at her spring/summer 2013 show. "I'm abig supporter of Julian Assange," Westwood toldReuters.

She selected the grand setting of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office to show her spring/summer 2013 Red Label collection. The choice of the venue was a result of Westwood's involvement in the government's GREAT campaign. The designer fronted an international campaign as part of the initiative, which celebrated excellence in the creative industries, while promoting Britain as the preeminent place to study, visit or invest.

In 2012 she partnered with The Woolmark Company to create aluxury 12-piece-collection made from the finest Australian merinowool. "When I first began as a fashion designer, well over 30 yearsago, I succeeded in re-introducing into fashion the idea ofknitwear, the English twinset," Westwood told BritishVogue. "Wool is one of the world's great natural fibres,famous for its versatility and comfort-warm in winter, cool insummer."

In January 2013 she helped rebrand the English National Ballet with a new campaign that shows the ballet dancers wearing her creations. "It's a dream come true to be able to collaborate with someone of such stature," said Tamara Rojo, the English National Ballet's artistic director. "Her designs capture the creativity and ambition of our dancers who, in turn, add drama and movement to the clothes."

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Dame Vivienne Westwood's popularity knows no bounds. Her punk attitude is more alive now than in the movement's Seventies heyday and her outspoken, Union Jack waving Englishness (with a few added safety pins and tea stains), is undiminished. Cutting edge but classic, her collections are unflinchingly rooted in her interests and beliefs, whether it is human rights or classical fiction.

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Vivienne Westwood The Red Carpet Collection by Wonderland

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The latest Red Carpet Capsule Collection - now in stores - styled and shot by Wonderland Magazine

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Dame Vivienne Westwood's popularity knows no bounds. Her punk attitude is more alive now than in the movement's Seventies heyday and her outspoken, Union Jack waving Englishness (with a few added safety pins and tea stains), is undiminished. Cutting edge but classic, her collections are unflinchingly rooted in her interests and beliefs, whether it is human rights or classical fiction.

Westwood was born Vivienne Isabel Swire in Glossop, Derbyshire, on April 8, 1941

She began designing clothes in 1971 with the opening of her first shop, Let It Rock, at 430 King's Road. In 1974 it was renamed Sex

In 1976, with her then lover and business partner, Malcolm McLaren, they dressed the Sex Pistols

In 1981, Westwood showed her first seminal collection in London, entitled Pirate

In 1990, Westwood launched a menswear collection in Florence. She was named British Designer of the Year that year, as well as in 1991

In 1998 she won the Queen's Export Award

In January 2003 Westwood controversially sent men down her catwalk wearing fake breasts. The models for her autumn/winter 2003 menswear collection wore them underneath cashmere sweaters and polo necks.Westwood explained that, "the inspiration for the man with breasts was Fifties sweater boys."

In 2007 she was awarded the gong for Outstanding Achievement in Fashion Design at the British Fashion Awards - but she was late on to the stage to collect it since she'd popped out to go to the loo

Explaining the roots of her beliefs she said: "When I was a schoolgirl my history teacher, Mr. Scott, spoke with pride of civilisation and democracy. The hatred of arbitrary arrest by the lettres de cachet of the French monarchy caused the storming of the Bastille. We can only take democracy for granted if we insist on our liberty."

Westwood's son by McLaren, Joe Corre, is the founder of Agent Provocateur, while her other son, Ben, is an erotic photographer. In 2008 her mother Dora attended her latest book launch for Opus, an arts manifesto costing £1400 per copy.

In 2008 she put paid to rumours that she wasn't impressed withthe wardrobe of the first Sex and the City film. "I stayedthroughout the film, and was overjoyed to see Sarah Jessica in herbeautiful wedding dress," Westwood told BritishVogue,"Furthermore, I have been delighted to notice recentlyhow well young girls are dressing, and that they have clearly beeninspired by the film."

Pamela Anderson is Vivienne Westwood's long-time friend and signed a reported six figure deal to become the new face of Vivienne Westwood in 2008. In 2009 she graced the catwalk at Westwood's autumn/winter 2009-10 collection in London.

In 2010 she was honoured at a ceremony for the Prince Philip Designers Prize. Westwood received a special commendation for her contribution to design from HRH The Duke of Edinburgh.

Alongside her fashion range she launched a range of stationary in 2010 including notebooks and diaries in classic Westwood prints. She made her mark on the interiors world the same year with a selection of new table-cloth designs in support for eco charity Cool Earth. The designs were covered with bold, bright prints often with Westwood's trademark political polemics emblazoned across.

In 2011 she was named Britain's Greatest British Fashion Designer in a poll conducted by Greenall. Over 3000 people voted with the Westwood scooping 24 per cent of the national vote.

She dedicated her spring/summer2012 menswear show to the Olympics. Westwood made sure each catwalk look referred to the Games in some manner including T-shirts that came covered in printed torches, medals and statuesque Greek figures.

Vivienne Westwood and photographer Juergen Teller went to Africa in 2011 to work on her autumn/winter 2011-12 Ethical Fashion Africa collection. A programme which enlists thousands of local women to use their skills to produce bags for Westwood and earn a fair wage in return. "This project gives people control over their lives," she said. "Charity doesn't give control, it does the opposite, it makes people dependant."

In 2011 she joined the Occupy London anti-capitalist protesters outside St Paul's Cathedral. She has often outlined her concerns for climate change and during a talk at the V&A in 2009 Westwood said: "There is hardly anyone left now who believes in a better world."

Never shy of controversy, Westwood complained of the lack of style in society. "People have never looked so ugly as they do today, regarding their dress," she told journalists after her Red Label show in London. "We are so conformist, nobody is thinking. I'm a fashion designer and people think 'what do I know?' but I'm talking about all this disposable crap. So I'm saying buy less, choose well, make it last...in history people dressed much better than we do. If you saw Queen Elizabeth it would be amazing, she came from another planet. She was so attractive in what she was wearing."

To celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, she launched a new capsule collection inspired by gowns Queen Elizabeth had previously worn. The range, entitled the Red Carpet Capsule Collection, also paid homage to the British flag.

In 2012 Westwood criticised plans of a London council to ban charity Scope from basing its clothing banks on council-owned land. A keen supported of charity shops she told theEvening Standard:"Charity shops are part of the fabric of our great city, but this short-sighted approach is totally unfair and damages charities at the expense of a quick buck."

Vivienne Westwood credited London and its thriving culture scene as her biggest inspiration in a film for the Tate Britain's 'This Is Britain' campaign. "The great thing about London for me is the culture - the museums," the designer said in the film.

In 2012 Westwood triggered controversy when she created aT-shirt in support of Julian Assange. The T-shirts were given toher guests to wear front row at her spring/summer 2013 show. "I'm abig supporter of Julian Assange," Westwood toldReuters.

She selected the grand setting of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office to show her spring/summer 2013 Red Label collection. The choice of the venue was a result of Westwood's involvement in the government's GREAT campaign. The designer fronted an international campaign as part of the initiative, which celebrated excellence in the creative industries, while promoting Britain as the preeminent place to study, visit or invest.

In 2012 she partnered with The Woolmark Company to create aluxury 12-piece-collection made from the finest Australian merinowool. "When I first began as a fashion designer, well over 30 yearsago, I succeeded in re-introducing into fashion the idea ofknitwear, the English twinset," Westwood told BritishVogue. "Wool is one of the world's great natural fibres,famous for its versatility and comfort-warm in winter, cool insummer."

In January 2013 she helped rebrand the English National Ballet with a new campaign that shows the ballet dancers wearing her creations. "It's a dream come true to be able to collaborate with someone of such stature," said Tamara Rojo, the English National Ballet's artistic director. "Her designs capture the creativity and ambition of our dancers who, in turn, add drama and movement to the clothes."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Dame Vivienne Westwood's popularity knows no bounds. Her punk attitude is more alive now than in the movement's Seventies heyday and her outspoken, Union Jack waving Englishness (with a few added safety pins and tea stains), is undiminished. Cutting edge but classic, her collections are unflinchingly rooted in her interests and beliefs, whether it is human rights or classical fiction.

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On 9 September 2015, Queen Elizabeth II will become the longest-serving monarch in British history. And in 63 years of dressing for the public eye, she has never put a patent-court-shod foot wrong. Here, we celebrate Her Majesty, style icon

From pretty smocked dresses to buttoned-up tweed coats, Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret spent their childhood dressed in matching outfits that were traditional, practical and impeccably tailored. Their velvet-collared jackets, shiny Mary Janes and sweet cotton dresses would set a template for formal dressing that has endured until today.

But it's their off-duty clothes that provide a real insight into the warm family life of the little princesses. At home at Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park, they cuddled their beloved dogs wearing neat woollen knits and matching kilts, gardened in blazers, tweed skirts and hardy leather brogues and played piano duets in identical floral print dresses with frilled lace collars.

In 1936, Elizabeth's uncle Edward VIII abdicated, dramatically changing her future - at 10 years old, she was heir to the throne.

As a teenager, her increasingly grown-up wardrobe included suits and dresses tailored by royal couturier Madame Handley-Seymour, as well as thrifty wartime hand-me-downs including the Norman Hartnell crinoline gown that the 19-year-old princess wore for Cecil Beaton's portrait in 1945.

When Norman Hartnell was commissioned to make the Queen's coronation dress in October 1952, he already had his own ideas of what embroideries he could include: lilies, roses, marguerites, the stars and moon, the sky, the earth, the sun among them.

But the Queen insisted all the floral symbols of Great Britain and the Commonwealth had to be incorporated; English roses, Welsh leeks, Irish shamrocks, Scottish thistles and Canadian maple leaves sat alongside emblems from Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Pakistan, India and Ceylon.

Eight months and eight designs later, the triumphant gown was everything both Hartnell and the Queen could have wished for: ornate, majestic and heavy with symbolism. At the age of 27, the Queen already had a genius for dressing diplomatically.

During the following six decades, the Queen has never made a sartorial slip. Never showy or ostentatious, but always instantly recognisable with her colourful, clean-cut coats, architectural hats, pearls and jersey gloves and those much-loved sturdy shoes and bags; the royal wardrobe might give a nod to the times, but always rises above them.

This is a working wardrobe with a unique set of demands placed upon it. It must be regal, of course, and timeless; the Queen must be visible in a vast crowd yet perfectly comfortable in changeable climates and, sometimes, in extreme conditions. Her clothes mustn't crease and hats must stay in place. Always.

The Queen has wowed on foreign tours with her nods to national colours or emblems - from the dramatic ivory gown that Hartnell made for a dinner in Lahore in 1961 through to the dazzling green outfit that Her Majesty wore to touch down in Dublin on her landmark visit to Ireland in 2011.

The early decades of her reign were dominated by hourglass silk gowns for night, such as the show-stopping, New Look-inspired ivory duchesse satin and black velvet gown that Hartnell made for the young Queen in 1952, or the kingfisher-blue silk and lace dress with matching jacket he created for her for Princess Margaret's wedding in 1960. For day, there were more subdued pretty dresses worn with white Rayne sandals and neat little hats; Hardy Amies introduced vibrant colours and clean shapes to the Queen's daywear.

From zingy violet and hot pink to lime and sunshine yellow, there is no colour that clashes with Her Majesty's colouring - the only one she avoids is beige, which does not allow her to stand out in a crowd.

Yet despite the glamour of the Queen's wardrobe (and it doesn't get more glamorous than State occasions with full regalia, a stupendous tiara and a parure of fabulous jewels) her Majesty is famously thrifty; as a princess, when austerity lingered across the land, the Queen would have her mother's clothes reworked into new outfits.

For 2012's Diamond Jubilee concert at Buckingham Palace, the Queen's richly appliquéd gold dress was made using fabric that had been at the Palace since 1961; a similarly lustrous silver dress worn in Slovenia in 2008 was also made from fabric that had been lying around the Palace for 20 years. And yet those sculptural hats are more dazzling than ever, the tailoring more clean-cut and sumptuous in its details. After 63 years on the throne, the ultimate working wardrobe has never been as triumphant as it is today.

Gowns and tiaras are all well and good, but it's Elizabeth II's more casual country style that has had far-reaching fashion influence. Macs, scarves, quilted jackets and tweed - all have made it to the catwalk, by way of Balmoral. Whether she is riding her favourite Fell pony through the grounds of Windsor Castle or walking the corgis at Balmoral, the Queen's off-duty wardrobe is as familiar and unchanging as her formalwear.

From quilted jackets and weatherproof macs to tweed skirts, kilts and cosy knits, her thoroughly British country style has influenced designers from Dolce & Gabbana (who once created an entire collection based on the look) to Dame Vivienne Westwood. Sturdy brown loafers or wellies are a must for rugged country walks or family picnics, and she is rarely seen without a colourful silk scarf (worn in lieu of a hat for riding) neatly knotted in an understated bow.

The mystery of what goes inside the Queen's handbag (mints, a lipstick, sweeteners, glasses and lucky charms seems to be the consensus) is almost as enduring as her devotion to timeless, bespoke and classically chic Launer bags. Her Majesty has carried the West Midlands- made design since the 1960s and although she has favoured black patent in the past, she has more recently branched out with different sizes and finishes.

Her bags are supplied with a slightly longer handle (more pragmatic for the endless hand- shaking) and are designed to be as lightweight as possible. Although the bags are a key part of the Queen's wardrobe, couturiers have bemoaned their sturdy, boxy shape - Hardy Amies was vocal in his hatred of them, as he thought they ruined the colourful dresses and tailoring he created for her. But the decades with Amies and co being long gone, the bag endures - an indelible part of the royal working wardrobe.

In 1950 when Eddie Rayne, the Royal I family's shoemaker of choice, was on a trip to New York, a journalist plied him with martinis and managed to find out the Queen's diminutive shoe size. Despite this blip, Rayne shoes remained a key part of the Royal wardrobe for five decades.

From 1899, the firm made elegant shoes for theatrical productions and later for Hollywood stars such as Liz Taylor and Ava Gardner. During the early years of her reign, the Queen favoured voguish peep-toe platforms in white suede or leather for day and in colours for evening (in the early 1950s, she was ordering 20-30 pairs a year), but it's a no- nonsense court shoe in calf leather or black patent that would become as iconic as her Launer bags.

With a practical heel of 2 1⁄4 inches and an insole for added comfort, the Royal shoes are "walked in" by Palace staff and sent back to be repaired. In 2003, Rayne ceased trading (it has recently been relaunched) and the Palace secured the Queen's last pairs from the liquidators. They also tracked down one of the Royal shoemakers, David Hyatt, who had moved to Anello & Davide - where he continues to make the Queen's favourite shoes today.

Perhaps the most recognisable of all the Queen's jewellery, the ornate State Diadem (above) has 1,333 diamonds as well as pearls, silver and gold and was made in 1820 for the coronation of George IV. It was a favourite of Queen Victoria, and was used for Elizabeth's coronation. She has worn it for every state opening of Parliament since 1952.

The elegant Queen Mary's Fringe (above) was originally a necklace given to Queen Mary as a wedding gift by Queen Victoria in 1893. The stones were then used to create a tiara by Garrard in 1919. It was worn by both the Queen and Princess Anne for their wedding days.

The Grand Duchess Vladimir tiara (above) was smuggled out of Russia during the Revolution. It was inherited by the Grand Duchess' daughter, Princess Nicholas of Greece, and then later sold to Queen Mary and inherited by Elizabeth. The Queen last wore this tiara with stunning cabochon emeralds (in place of the pearls) for an Irish state banquet at Windsor in 2014.

Another favourite, the elegant, Russian-style Queen Alexandra Kokoshnik tiara (above) has 488 brilliants and can also be worn as a necklace. It was originally a gift to Queen Alexandra to mark her silver wedding anniversary, and was later passed down to Queen Mary. It was bequeathed to the Elizabeth in 1953.

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On 9 September 2015, Queen Elizabeth II will become the longest-serving monarch in British history. And in 63 years of dressing for the public eye, she has never put a patent-court-shod foot wrong. Here, we celebrate Her Majesty, style icon From pretty smocked dresses to buttoned-up tweed coats, Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret spent their childhood dressed in matching outfits that were traditional, practical and impeccably tailored.

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Incorporated Society of London Fashion Designers

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London Fashion Designers 1900-1950 | Explore 20th Century London

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Although Paris dressmakers still set the pace in 1900, their counterparts in London were beginning to challenge French supremacy. 'Lucile' or Lady Duff-Gordon, was the first British woman to achieve an international reputation as a fashion designer. She created clothes that were softly coloured and intensely decorative.

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Maybe because of its relative seclusion away from London's traditional cultural centres of Trafalgar Square or South Kensington, and despite the fact that its location in trendy Bermondsey Street is benefitting from a considerable spike in esteem owing to new and popular restaurants, boutiques and art galleries that have recently settled in this corner of South London, the Fashion and Textile Museum hasn't always been considered a destination in itself. However, when I paid a visit on a cold and rainy autumn afternoon, the museum galleries, shop and cafe seemed busier than ever. The reason for this was the exhibition ' Hartnell to Amies: Couture by Royal Appointment ', a display of stunning dresses, jewellery, accessories, shoes, photographs and drawings by British designers and photographers who raised the public role of private couture commissions for a large part of twentieth-century Britain and whose talent, decades later, have attracted crowds to learn about their influence in British fashion history.

Featuring over 50 British couture gowns, as well as hats and jewellery rarely seen in public before, ' Hartnell to Amies' was curated by Dennis Nothdruft and Michael Pick with the intention to celebrate London couture and explore how the Queen's patronage of British designers helped to establish London as an international fashion centre after World War II. Whilst English tailors have been renowned for their craft since the eighteenth century, there was little British couture until Norman Hartnell came to the fore with the opening of his store in Mayfair's Bruton Street on St George's Day in 1923 and started designing gowns for royal and aristocratic customers. Famous for designing the Queen's wedding dress in 1947 and Coronation Dress of 1953, Hartnell opened a store in Paris (where he also showed his creations) and sold in large quantities in New York, thus inaugurating an era of British high fashion that set the standard for generations to come.

The exhibition begins with the opening of Norman Hartnell's first salon in 1923 and explores the importance of British high society ' Bright Young Things' group, before showcasing the advent of couturier Hardy Amies and milliner Frederick Fox. It explores Hartnell's long career, including his landmark art-moderne House of 1935, war-time Utility designs and his famous fashions of the 1950s and 1960s designed for royalty and actresses (including elegant eveningwear gowns embellished by Hartnell's in-house embroiderers, examples of which can be found in framed fabrics dotted throughout the exhibition).

Hardy Amies, whose career began as manager of women's sports clothes label Lachasse in 1934 (before becoming its designer in 1935), later garnered a reputation for its tailored suits and for being in tune with international sartorial trends, namely Christian Dior's New Look. He founded his own couture house in 1945 in a bombed Savile Row and secured not only a solid reputation but also large orders in important department stores in New York and Chicago. In the 1950s, royals and actresses started ordering from him, and so did Queen Elizabeth II for the next five decades. Amies also became a successful menswear designer in 1959 with the first recorded men's runway show.

' Hartnell to Amies' also highlights the milliner's role in London couture through the work of Australia-born designer Frederick Fox, whose most famous designs include the hats he created for Queen Elizabeth II, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, and many international celebrities. In addition, dresses conceived by designers affiliated to the Incorporated Society of London Fashion Designers (set up in 1942 to support and promote the creative work of people like Hartnell, Amies, Charles Creed and others during wartime) are also on display. The exhibition is also accompanied by a display of Norman Parkinson's photographs.

' Hartnell to Amies: Couture by Royal Appointment' is on until 23 February 2013 at the Fashion and Textile Museum at 83 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3XF. The exhibition is accompanied by a series of lectures and workshops. For more information, visit www.ftmlondon.org.

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Incorporated Society of London Fashion Designers

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'Hartnell to Amies: Couture by Royal Appointment': Learning from British Couture Lessons in South London

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Maybe because of its relative seclusion away from London's traditional cultural centres of Trafalgar Square or South Kensington, and despite the fact that its location in trendy Bermondsey Street is benefitting from a considerable spike in esteem owing to new and popular restaurants, boutiques and art galleries that have recently settled in this corner of South London, the Fashion and Textile Museum hasn't always been considered a destination in itself.

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Monarchs such as Victoria and Elizabeth I are remembered as icons in a period of change. Their fashions were synonymous with the era of their reign. As a new and young monarch in post-war Britain, Queen Elizabeth II became the ruler of a country undergoing political, social and sartorial change and her style has been emblematic of the many changes and eras she has reigned through.

Never before had fashion been so prevalent and whilst of course no one expected her Royal Highness to step out in a pair of flares and Mary Quant mini in the Sixties, Elizabeth II has remained a stylish and sophisticated icon of British fashion throughout her life. She worked with fashion pioneers such as Norman Hartwell and Hardy Amies, as well as inspiring the likes of Dolce and Gabbana to model their autumn/winter 2008 collection around her.

Captured around the world and through the lens of everyone from Cecil Beaton to Annie Leibovitz, Elizabeth's style is individual to her and endlessly classic. Despite her utter dedication to professionalism and her role as monarch, the Queen has always managed to have a little fun with a wardrobe that has also managed to stay way clear of any form of seasonal disasters.

From the military feminist overalls of her Auxillary Territorial Service uniform in 1945 to her rather daring safari pant suit, there are but a few occasions that she has strayed from her trusted fashion formula. Bold colours and perfect day coats worn with simple black patent slip-ons by Anello & Davide of Kensington as well as playful, albeit priceless, accessories and a luxurious classic Launer handbag are the staples of the Royal wardrobe. Not many people can claim their their style has remained relevant for nine decades.

The Royal Palaces understand the importance of the Queen's style more than anyone as they open Buckingham Palace to the public and with it an exhibition of her majesty's most prized items of clothing including her Coronation and wedding gowns by Sir Norman Hartnell.

As the Queen celebrates her official 90th birthday, IBTimes UK looks back on her most fabulous fashion moments.

More about the Queen at 90

Queen Elizabeth II: 90 years in 90 photographs

Queen's 90th birthday: When is it and what celebrations are taking place around the UK?

Kate Middleton, Prince William and Prince Harry to host dinner for President Barack Obama

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The Queen at 90: A royal history told through fashion

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Monarchs such as Victoria and Elizabeth I are remembered as icons in a period of change. Their fashions were synonymous with the era of their reign. As a new and young monarch in post-war Britain, Queen Elizabeth II became the ruler of a country undergoing political, social and sartorial change and her style has been emblematic of the many changes and eras she has reigned through.

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The Queen is well known for her fashion sense, almost always dressed in bright colours with her handbag in tow. Have you ever thought about the choices that go into picking just what outfit and when? Her wardrobe plays a larger part in her diplomacy then some may have ever noticed.

For example in May 2011, Queen Elizabeth made a historic trip to Dublin, Ireland to mend a shaky relationship. When she stepped off the plane she was dressed head to toe in emerald green- a nod to the emerald isle. While on the same trip she wore a white dress adorned with 2,091 hand-sewn silk shamrocks finished off with crystal Irish harp brooch that was created just for the state dinner.

Daniel Conway, a politics and international relations lecturer at the University of Westminster has studied the Queen's role and her diplomatic wardrobe. In an interview with CBC, he said: "It was a context where British power was rapidly declining ... and Britain wasn't sure it was going to have the same influence in the world,

"They had a young glamorous monarch, [and] I think they realised this was something that could project Britishness and British power in a way that Britain couldn't really do so itself,

"In the modern era, dress in particular, has been used by the British monarchy as part of British foreign policy."

Royal dressmakers, Sir Norman Hartnell and Hardy Amies were employed early on Queen Elizabeth's reign. Sir Norman Hartnell designed a dress for The Queen to attend a state dinner in Bangkok in 1972, the dress was made to match a yellow sash and insignia she was gifted by the Thai King in 1960 when he presented her with the country's highest order of chivalry.

When Queen Elizabeth became the first British monarch to go to China in 1986 she wore a dress covered in China's national flower for her dinner with leader Deng Xiaoping.

Another time was while meeting Pope John Paul II in 1980, she donned an Ian Thomas creation of a black silk-velvet and taffeta dress with a traditional black silk tulle veil keeping with the tradition of wearing black when in audience with the Pope at the Vatican.

In 1983, she met with the U.S President Reagan in California, she wore an ode in the form of California poppies as a thank-you to the United States for their help in the Falkland Island war the year before.

Her dress choices have even been the top news story for the day. When The Queen wore another one of Hartnell's creations, a green and white Maple Leaf dress to a state banquet in Ottawa, her outfit was headlining everywhere even though Opposition Leader Lester B. Pearson won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work during the Suez Crisis and Spain suffered a major flood on the same day.

The Queen mother was also very in tune with dressing for the occasion and the Duchess of Cambridge has taken note from Her Majesty with outfits to nod to her host country.

Many of The Queen's dresses are currently on display at her Scottish home, Holyrood as part of Fashioning a Reign: 90 Years of Style from The Queen's Wardrobe, a display of many of Queen Elizabeth's fashion choices as part of her 90th birthday celebrations.

So next time you see The Queen out and about it one of her signature outfits, why not see if you can find its role in diplomacy.

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How Her Majesty's wardrobe plays a role in diplomacy

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The Queen is well known for her fashion sense, almost always dressed in bright colours with her handbag in tow. Have you ever thought about the choices that go into picking just what outfit and when? Her wardrobe plays a larger part in her diplomacy then some may have ever noticed.

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We are told this is now a 'knowledge economy'. Strange, then, that there are so few recent educational buildings of note. An expansion of universities has not led to much enlightened architectural patronage. Rather the opposite, in fact. The university visual trope remains those dogged dreaming spires. And London's skyline is punctuated not by grand monuments to learning but by the swaggering, leering one-liners of the global plutocracy.

These are thoughts that come to mind on the occasion of Essex University's 50th birthday, a much more interesting anniversary than it first (rather bleakly) sounds. It is the subject of an engaged and engaging booklet, Something Fierce, and an on-campus exhibition curated by Jules Lubbock, Essex's emeritus professor of art history.

Lubbock is an inspirational teacher and a contrarian of genius. I know: in an earlier life for both of us, he taught me. I fondly remember a lecture about Fra Angelico where he read explicatory passages from a book about cybernetic theory. This refusal to acknowledge disciplinary boundaries was a founding principle of Essex.

So, too, was it a principle of John Henry, later Cardinal, Newman. In his 1852 book of lectures, talks and articles, The Idea of a University, Newman argued for an academic community arranged on non-denominational lines and with no specialisations other than the noble 'perfection of the intellect'. He wanted to teach not narrow subjects but strategies for thinking, analysis and discrimination. Helpful, one imagines, in writing today's all-important code. Additionally, Newman believed that a university should have a soul. Essex has soul in spades, if not quite the sort Newman had in mind.

It was very much the creation of an extraordinary individual. Albert Sloman had intended to do PPE at Oxford, but was diverted to Spanish by the egregious Maurice Bowra. In 1953, aged a mere 32, Sloman, with a fine record as a second world war airman, took up the Gilmour Chair of Spanish at Liverpool University. Here he succeeded Edgar Allison Peers who, under the pseudonym 'Bruce Truscot', gave the world an unforgettable term in his 1943 fantasy polemic about academic principles, Redbrick University. Architecture inspired the title: Liverpool University's heart (and soul) is Alfred Waterhouse's magnificently shiny redbrick Victoria Building of 1892.

Sloman wanted to redefine not just the university curriculum, but the architectural character of the university too. Essex was conceived in contrast to Liverpool and the other sprawling metropolitan redbrick universities of the 19th century. It was to be uncompromisingly modern and sited on an out-of-town greenfield site, in this case picturesque Wivenhoe Park near Colchester, which Constable once painted.

Oxbridge stairs were replicated in tower-blocks, rather as Le Corbusier said he was building 'vertical garden cities'. The academic body, staff and students alike, was committed (at least by Sloman) to the unity of knowledge: specialisation occurred only at post-graduate level. Sloman, an authority on Spanish mysticism, could dismantle an aircraft engine. When it came to the interdisciplinary, the style was the man.

The designer of Essex's buildings was Kenneth Capon of the Architects' Co-Partnership, a firm whose very name hints at high-minded collectivism. Indeed, it was a take on the much larger US firm the Architects' Collaborative, headed by Walter Gropius, founder of Bauhaus, whose motto was 'Art and Technology: a new unity'. An early proposal for the Essex campus was made of Lego.

Sloman's and Capon's vision was to create a replica MIT, a factory-cathedral producing the educated brainpower to fuel economic growth. That the early history of Essex comprised serial and well-publicised sit-ins and lockouts by stoned malcontents does not mean that vision lacked poetry and grandeur.

Not every Essex building is, by current aesthetic criteria, a delight; indeed, it was the intention of Sloman and Capon to create 'Something Fierce', a designed environment that was actively stimulating. In the days before high-rise was discredited, Capon had unsuccessfully proposed four high-rise towers for Churchill College, Cambridge: 'a spiky verticality of pinnacles against an open sky', he called it. That vision was, at least in part, realised in Essex. But along with the towers, built of structural brick, there were bold squares and striking colonnades. It was not, in Capon's words, 'shaggy and soft', but it was powerful and principled.

In 1963 Winston Churchill was an Essex MP and became an unlikely, but welcome, donor to and supporter of this radical institution. He once said we form our buildings and then our buildings form us. Never was this more true than of universities.

There is something heroic about Essex and its successors at Kent, Sussex and East Anglia. They have their absurdities: Kent was rumoured to have been designed as a prison in Venezuela, but rejected by the authorities on humanitarian grounds. Sussex was Basil Spence channelling Le Corbusier in Brighton. East Anglia had Denys Lasdun doing slightly bonkers Formgebung in Norwich.

But each had energy, optimism and enthusiasm: Hardy Amies designed Essex's academic robes! You look in vain for energy, optimism and enthusiasm - let alone style - in universities today.

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We are told this is now a 'knowledge economy'. Strange, then, that there are so few recent educational buildings of note. An expansion of universities has not led to much enlightened architectural patronage. Rather the opposite, in fact. The university visual trope remains those dogged dreaming spires.

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One of the most popular era's for clothing and styling with our customers is the 1940's. In particular, it is the design and quality of clothes that came about as a result of the 'make do and mend', or as Vogue preferred to describe it "you must skimp to be chic" war years period that produced a range of styles and designs that still generates a passion amongst vintage collectors and fashion designers of today.

Driven by the wartime economy, and government rationing, the new female silhouette produced a slim shape created by an economy of cut, nipped in waist and narrow skirts. Vogue described the look in 1942 as "sharp cold and even bold". Jackets were single breasted, short, often unlined to save on material, and without cuffs or patch pockets to comply with the "no fabric on fabric" guidance. Even the number of buttons were restricted to three or less. Skirts had a no nonsense look often with a front and back pleat to again minimise the amount of fabric required.

Driven by the wartime economy, and government rationing, the new female silhouette produced a slim shape created by an economy
Due to the lack of materials and new fabrics to make fashion garments, magazines promoted the recycling of garments or reworking of other fabric items to create clothing. Noted examples are a pillow case made into summer shorts or wedding dresses from parachute fabric or bleached blackout material.

Although these were austere years and materials were in short supply the tailoring and double stitching during this period was magnificent because, as you might expect, the public demanded that any clothing that was produced had to be not only fit for purpose, but made to last for several seasons.

The Government wanted to ensure a fair distribution of what limited new clothing that was being produced and so it introduced the CC41 label in 1941. The label was designed by Reginald Shipp and looks like two round cheeses with a small wedge taken out of each. The two Cs standing for Clothing Control. It was the clothing version of rationing that had been introduced for food and could only be purchased with coupons and additional money.

There was an initial annual allowance of 66 coupons which reduced to 36 coupons per person in 1945. A short jacket or wool dress would cost seven coupons. Clothing which was worthy of the CC41 label had to be both well made and conform to the government strict guidelines which even regulated the length of skirt and the total yardage of material allowed for a garment.

In Britain, the Board of Trade worked with a number of leading designers to produce the kind of fashions that fitted the framework of the CC41 label. The group included famous designers such as Norman Hartnell, Edward Molyneux, Bianca Mosca and Hardy Amies who famously once said "The urge to make love is perhaps the biggest incentive to dress well".
This group of designers designed a range of 34 Utility designs all bearing the CC 41 label. The collection contained four basic items ; a coat, suit, afternoon dress and suit dress for the office. These items were sold in stores such as Marks and Spencer and although required a substantial number of precious coupons were still cheaper than any clothing which did not bear the CC41 label. The Government continued issuing ration books until 1949 and the ultimate demise of rationing did not take place until 1952.

Vintage to Vogue has stocked a great variety of CC41 clothing including men's collarless shirts, pin stripe de mob suits, woollen underwear, ladies jackets, suits, skirts, and an apron. Currently in the shop are these wonderful men's leather gloves retailed by Marks and Spencer plus a pin stripe suit, so why not pop in and have a look at this iconic war time label.

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One of the most popular era's for clothing and styling with our customers is the 1940's. In particular, it is the design and quality of clothes that came about as a result of the 'make do and mend', or as Vogue preferred to describe it "you must skimp to be chic" war years period that produced a range of styles and designs that still generates a passion amongst vintage collectors and fashion designers of today.

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Queens Bag

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Her Majesty the Queen has never yielded to fashion's whims. As royal designer Sir Norman Hartnell said rather sternly to The New York Times in 1953: "The Queen and the Queen Mother do not want to be fashion setters. That is left to other people with less important work to do." The implication being that she is above all that sort of thing.

Maybe not, if the Queen's recent appearance on the front row at London Fashion Week is anything to go by. She was there to present the inaugral Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design to designer Richard Quinn, and as she presented it, announced the award as her "legacy" to British fashion.

And in her own inimitable way, the Queen's has been a strong and consistent force in fashion over the decades. Her signature style originated at the start of her reign, and she has steadfastly refused to deviate - so no regrettable '70s prints or ill-considered '80s frills and flounces. The Queen's style is constant and intrinsic to her identity - and although it may look effortless, it subtly sends out all the required messages. It says: unwavering authority, tact and diplomacy, and when the occasion demands it, knock-out, opulent elegance.

In her book Luella's Guide To English Style, Luella Bartley lists some tongue-in-cheek Upper Class Rules of dressing: "Nothing should look new; Impractical fashion victims will catch their death of cold; If you have to try you have lost; Tradition is all that matters; The country is where it's at." The Queen's uniform represents these codes. It's her look and she's sticking with it - and it speaks volumes.

The Queen's sartorial choices frequently set the tone. For the Obamas' visit to Windsor Castle for her 90th birthday, for instance, the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh were filmed arriving to meet their guests in the grounds of the estate - with the Duke himself at the wheel of the Range Rover. The Queen sported a light blue skirt suit - with her trademark, no-nonsense headscarf, knotted pragmatically under the chin. The understated mood was set - informal, friendly, familiar.

The headscarf says unflashy, weather-proof, countryside, practical - and it has been a royal signature look since the 1940s when a young Princess Elizabeth was photographed with her sister Princess Margaret at a royal horse show, both sporting floral scarves. The look has also been adopted by the likes of Jackie Kennedy and Audrey Hepburn, and even taken on as a catwalk look in recent years by designers such as Dolce & Gabbana. Indeed, Richard Quinn, the winner of the Queen's new award, even featured the headscarf in his show. In it the Queen is not just the Queen but the traditional, no-nonsense English countrywoman and grandmother, with dogs at her feet and a copy of the Racing Post tucked under her arm. That there is a touch of the 'Brenda' (Private Eye's working-class nickname for the monarch) about the look only adds to its charm.
'Always appropriate'
At Balmoral, the Queen goes even more off-duty in her look. From the 1950s it has remained unchanged - a tweed jacket or knitted twin-set, and a pleated Balmoral-tartan skirt. The tartan, with its granite grey, black and red hues, is personal to the royals and was created by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert after they acquired the Scottish estate. This unchanging attire of the Queen's sends a subliminal message, not just about her character but about her class - after all, in certain circles, change, newness, trends and ostentation are somehow rather gauche, indicators of a kind of arriviste mentality.

The subtle code of 'U and Non-U' explored by Nancy Mitford in the 1950s points to the many complex indicators in English society that separate the upper and the non-upper classes. Although most of these codes now feel outdated and snobby, the notion that flashiness is not quite 'the thing' persists in aristocratic circles. The pitch-perfect, on-message countryside dress code is a big part of the monarch's sartorial story.

"The Queen is always appropriate. What appeals is the Englishness of it, a kind of classic, timeless elegance," says Caroline de Guitaut, Senior Curator at the Royal Collection, who curated Fashioning a Reign, that coincided with the Queen's 90th birthday year. The exhibition was "about memories" de Guitaut tells BBC Culture. "The outfits spanned the majority of the 20th Century and into the 21st Century, with many of the big occasions that were part of the Queen's life and our lives."

As the most photographed and filmed woman in history and the longest reigning monarch, the Queen has been a focal point for mass communication as it has evolved, from its early days with the first colour photographs and newsreels, to the arrival of television and the internet. At the coronation in 1953, the Queen's extraordinary gown, created by Hartnell, was embellished with complex symbols and heraldic emblems of the British Isles and the Commonwealth, including an intricate pattern of Welsh leeks, meticulously embroidered on the dress.

It's worth noting what a fantastically glamorous figure the young, 20-something Queen cut, and just what an impact her youthful, attractive image made on the national morale and psyche in the early days of her reign. For a country emerging from wartime austerity, the young Elizabeth was a figure of hope and modernity. The fact that she came to the throne during the heyday of British couture worked in her favour, and although she may have not set out to create trends, she was certainly much imitated. There was even a certain adventurousness about some of her tastes, according to de Guitaut: "Some of her hats from the 1950s and '60s have been really quite experimental and challenging."

In the 1950s the Queen was shown incessantly on newsreeld in her Hardy Amies creations ("Reserved, restrained elegance", as de Guitaut puts it) and Hartnell designs ("More showy and flamboyant.") It was Hartnell who created the Queen's stunningly glamorous day dresses of that era, with nipped-in waists and full skirts. And in 1960, for her sister Princess Margaret's wedding, she sported an immaculate aqua-blue silk taffeta gown with matching bolero jacket and gloves. The net hat was embellished with two blue roses to symbolise Margaret's second name.
Power dressing
The subliminal language of the Queen's diplomatic working wardrobe worn on state visits abroad has been similarly thought through, with each outfit incorporating a nod to diplomacy in the shape of an embroidered symbol, insignia or colour scheme, designed to pay a compliment to the host country. On one visit to Australia the Queen wore a dress embroidered with wattle, the national flower of the country; she wore a dress embellished with mayflowers in 1957 on a visit to Nova Scotia; in 1983 her dress was decorated with Californian poppies for a visit to the west coast of the US; closer to home, at the annual Balmoral Ghillies Ball in the late 1960s, the Queen wore an oyster ball dress with tartan sash. Then there is protocol to consider - the Queen has visited the Pope at the Vatican seven times, and has each time worn black, complete with a veil, as any female member of the royal family is required to do.

The royal wardrobe is now largely created by Angela Kelley in the Buckingham Palace workrooms, and the silhouette is a version of the column shift dresses the Queen first wore in the 1960s. The head-to-toe, colour-blocked daywear and matching hats that the monarch favours for her public engagements have become her personal brand. It is an instantly recognisable style.

"It's a dialogue between designer and Queen, and in a way the Queen's clothes set her apart from us," says de Guitaut. "Because if she's going somewhere we need to see her, otherwise it negates the point of her being there. People want her to stand out. So the format of her dressing has followed a constant path - the day dress and jacket or coat suit and a hat, and the obligatory accessories. You don't see pattern much. You see a flash of solid, vivid colour with the hat matching the outfit, and the shape of the hat is recognisable."

There are rules that are always adhered to - the two-inch heel, the hemline below the knee, the hem weighed down to avoid undignified wardrobe mishaps in windy conditions. The hats are small brimmed and tall (it is rare to see the Queen without any headgear - headscarf, hat or tiara is worn - unless she is indoors). The colours are bold, some might say difficult, pastels - lemon yellow or coral - and the silhouettes are tailored and suity. But it works - so much so, in fact, that the style has become a kind of paradigm for female power dressing, and has been adapted and borrowed over the decades by the likes of Margaret Thatcher, Angela Merkel , Nicola Sturgeon and Hillary Clinton. The look sends a message of power - it says poise, stature, not to be messed with.

Equally iconic is the Queen's handbag, perhaps the most familiar item in her wardrobe. The bags are created by British brand Launer, and she is said to own 200 of them, all with elongated straps to allow for the necessary hand shaking. There has long been speculation about the bag's contents. There is always a folded £5 note for the church collection on Sundays, some commentators have claimed, and a lipstick and mirror. And a mobile phone, suggest others - to call her grandchildren. The Queen has been said to use her bag to communicate subtly with her staff - if she places her bag on the table at a dinner, for instance, it discreetly semaphores the message that she would like the event to come to an end. In a recent formal family photo, one of the Queen's small great-granddaughters clutches the large handbag proudly, as if to emphasise - and slightly lampoon - its near-mythic, talismanic status.

When the occasion demands it - for evening or a high state occasion - the Queen has always emerged triumphant in a fully regal ensemble. Her elegant beaded gowns, white fox-fur capes and glittering jewellery complete with tiara are a signature grand combination. Alexander McQueen, Saint Laurent, Gucci and Valentino have all recently incorporated a regal touch in their collections. This, and the Queen's recent appearance on fashion's front row would seem to suggest that the royal nonagenarian's ingenious sartorial messaging is still working its magic.
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Her Majesty the Queen has never yielded to fashion's whims. As royal designer Sir Norman Hartnell said rather sternly to The New York Times in 1953: "The Queen and the Queen Mother do not want to be fashion setters. That is left to other people with less important work to do."

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McDonald's new uniform... and some blasts from the past | Features | LondonlovesBusiness.com

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As Maccy D's unveils its new, fully recyclable, uniform today as part of its campaign to turn itself green, we've taken a trip back through the uniform wardrobes of time to remember some other gems...

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Ahead of London Collections: Men, the British Fashion Council commissioned the V&A to write a report on men's fashion, which uncovers London as a trend-setting capital since 1528.

BY Keren Protheroe | 11 June 2013

As London gears up for its biannual showcase of British menswear brands, the V&A has delved into the fashion archives to dig up the sartorial history of the capital.

READ: London grows while Milan groans

As London Collections: Men is about unmasking the cultural landscape that menswear brands build upon for their fashion lines, it seems timely that the V&A should uncover the rich heritage of British fashion, from Charles II's creation of the three-piece suit to the Duke of Wellington's namesake rubber boot.

Joining those global trends that originate in Britain are timeless pieces such as the brogue, the trench coat and bowler hat; and lesser known British staples, the bondage trouser and floral tie.

SEE: London Collections: Men autumn/winter 2013 live blog

To read the V&A's comprehensive history of menswear trends, and just how they came into fashionable fruition, read on.

To see the 10 iconic styles British menswear gave the world in pictures, click here .

London: Home of Menswear The History and Heritage

In its more than 300 year history British menswear has been a well-source of style and innovation. Its spectrum of achievement has provided the clothes and the attitude to dress every sort of gentleman. Kings, aristocrats, rebels and bohemians; all have fulfilled their sartorial destinies in the showrooms and fitting rooms of London's tailors and retailers. This legacy of excellence continues to resonate across the globe. Its influence can be seen today on city streets, catwalks and stylish men the world over.

The origins of the three-piece suit
London has been a cultural hub and a centre of luxury trade since the sixteenth century. When Henry VIII granted a Royal Charter to the Clothworkers Company in 1528 it joined a group of prestigious merchant companies which represented London's community of mercers, drapers, haberdashers and tailors.

In the 1660s Paternoster Row, in the area behind St Paul's in the City of London, housed the mercers, tailors, silkmen and lacemen who supplied the richly ornamented clothes of London's wealthy political classes and aristocratic elite. The diarist Samuel Pepys was the son of a tailor and a discerning and frequent customer of London's mercers. In 1666 he recorded that he had bought himself a 'velvett for a coat, and Camelott (camlet) for a cloak' in Paternoster Row.

The earliest origins of the three-piece tailored suit can be traced to the same year. It was Pepys who recorded Charles II's adoption of 'the new fashion' which was intended to replace the male uniform of doublet and breeches with a new combination of tunic, breeches and vest. It was described by Pepys as 'a long Cassocke close to the body, of black cloth, and pinked with white silk under it, and a coat over it, and the legs ruffled with black riband like a pigeon's leg'. Fellow diarist John Evelyn commended the King for his rejection of the French mode which he noted had been 'hitherto obtain'd to our great expense and reproach.'

IN PICTURES: 10 menswear icons Britain gave the world

Life at the Royal Court determined fashionable taste during this period. Tailors made clothing for men at all levels of society but only those at the highest levels could afford the luxury textiles and fine trimmings which characterised court dress. Sumptuary laws in the sixteenth century determined that the use of velvet for gowns and coats should be limited to those with £200 or more per year. In the1600s silk was only available as an expensive import, a factor which maintained the dress distinctions of those at the top of society. The sartorial excesses of the Restoration Court attracted moral censure. Charles's choice of cloth (wool) for his new 'vest' can be seen as an early gesture of restraint in the history of the English suit and a royal endorsement of the English woollen textile industry.

At the end of the seventeenth century Huguenot immigration into Spitalfields and Bethnal Green triggered the development of the English silk weaving industry. James Leman and Anna Maria Garthwaite were notable Spitalfields designers; Garthwaite's botanically-influenced design gave a peculiarly English slant to the designs of London silk. Portraits painted in the early eighteenth century show waistcoats of embroidered or woven silk providing a decorative focus in a style of more relaxed tailoring. Sir Godfrey Kneller's portraits of members of London's Kit-cat club show how the formalities of court dress were being rejected by an increasingly powerful political class. Kneller's portrait of Charles Mohun, ca.1707, shows his rich brocade silk waistcoat contrasted with simple linen and worn with a collarless, loosely cut, velvet coat which has voluminous sleeves and evenly spaced silver buttons. Although made of rich materials, the simple lines of Mohun's clothing illustrate a further move towards decorative restraint.

By the mid-eighteenth century knee-length waistcoats, often made of silk, were a common form of fashionable display for wealthy gentlemen. The market for such fashionable goods was supplied by London's new West End following its development as a high class residential and shopping area around St James Fields from the 1660s.

Town and Country
Commerce, rural pursuits and the development of London's shopping districts all influenced English tailoring between1750 and 1830. A suit of waistcoat, breeches and coat, usually but not always in the same fabric, was the basic form of male dress, yet influences from military and equestrian clothing also informed the style and cut of gentlemen's clothing. Portraiture and printed sources of the period document a shift in cultural hegemony from the aristocracy at Court to the landed gentry and mercantile middle classes. As early as 1726 Cèsar de Saussaure remarked:

Englishmen are usually very plainly dressed, they scarcely ever wear gold on their clothes; they wear little coats called 'frocks', without facings and without pleats... You will see rich merchants and gentlemen thus dressed and sometimes even noblemen of high rank.

A painting of Richard Arkwright, by the artist Joseph Wright of Derby, portrays the northern industrialist wearing a 'suit of dittos' made of the same-coloured cloth across coat, breeches and waistcoat. Many of Wright's subjects were leaders in the world of science and industry who lived in Britain's centres of manufacturing rather than fashion. The rationalization of men's dress in the eighteenth century ran concurrent with the increasing professionalisation of commerce and manufacturing which fuelled Britain's economy. By 1700 London was already the largest city in Western Europe and by the end of the century its shopping and leisure areas formed a backdrop to fashionable display and consumption. Formal dress in the 1780s was worn for visiting friends for tea, walking in the park or shopping. It comprised of a cloth dress coat and matching waistcoat, often decorated with embroidery or military-style frogging (braiding).

IN PICTURES: 10 menswear icons Britain gave the world

Functionality informed the style and cut of outdoor sports clothing. Thick wool fabrics had a sculptural quality which allowed closeness of fitting on even the most utilitarian garment. By the early nineteenth century the equestrian riding coat, cut high under the arm for ease of movement, had developed stylistically into a tailcoat with a double-breasted row of metal buttons, a high collar and a steeply cut-away front. In this new form the tailcoat crossed the divide between country sportswear and urban fashion; it was adopted by a set of self-consciously fashionable, young male consumers who were taking advantage of the new leisure opportunities provided by London's parks and shopping.

Tailcoats were worn with buff coloured breeches, riding boots and one of the many fashionable interpretations of an intricately tied cravat. Their wide revers (turned-back collars) and simplicity even influenced women's tailoring in England and France. The 'redingote' became a prominent style of riding habit worn by aristocratic women. In its most exaggerated form, the English tailcoat defied the authority of French style leadership when it informed the flamboyant dress of Paris's decadent Incroyables. A reputation for fine tailoring was at the heart of the Anglomania which swept Paris at the end of the eighteenth century.

Traditionally in Britain the aristocracy had led public taste, yet the style leadership of Britain's Hanoverian monarchy would emerge only the beginning of the nineteenth century under the influence of the Prince Regent. Such was his reputation for dress that following his ascension to the throne in 1820 he wore a kilt on a state visit to Scotland and tartan became a fabric of fashion.

The Prince was powerfully influenced by a man outside the ranks of the aristocracy, George (Beau) Brummell. Brummell's contribution to the history of British menswear lies in an approach to dress which has become synonymous with the notion of the English dandy. Brummell's restrained and perfectly observed sartorial code advocated a simplified form of tailcoat which he wore with long 'pantaloons', in direct precedent of the modern day suit. His fashionability demanded the highest standards of cleanliness, the most expensive and highest quality tailoring, and accessories which he sourced in Mayfair's shopping streets.

By the early nineteenth century Bond Street was an exclusive thoroughfare, home to tailors, jewellers, hatters, perfumiers. The Burlington Arcade opened in 1819 and Regent Street's sweeping façade was completed in 1825. Many tailors and bootmakers were located in The Strand with the most exclusive and renowned working in the streets of St James's to the north of Piccadilly. John Weston of Old Bond Street and Meyer of Cork Street are both names which have been associated with Brummell. Although traditionally silk had been the most costly, and therefore the most exclusive sort of cloth, the dense mouldability of woollen cloth gave it a superior edge when used in tailoring which demanded absolute perfection of fit. By the turn of the nineteenth century London's tailors' skill of working with the subtlety of wool cemented their reputation internationally as the finest tailors in the world.

IN PICTURES: 10 menswear icons Britain gave the world

So prevalent was the self-conscious dressing of the men who employed London's tailoring talent, that Pierce Egan's Life in London of 1821 satirized the sartorial pretensions of London's dandies in illustrations which caricatured the relationship between fictional Regent Street tailor Richard Primefit and his precocious young clients. Yet Brummell's significance lay in his ability to mobilise personal style in order to make fashion out of an essentially rural form of clothing. In doing so he elevated functional, understated design through attention to detail, cloth, cut and fit. Christopher Breward has written of Brummell:

No other sartorial philosophy has come close to wielding such influence on either the day-to-day process of dressing or the more rarified consideration of dress as an idea... [his] unsettling style has sustained a dandified mode of living for almost two hundred years, inspiring, subverting and critiquing urban modes and manners with surprising consequences for the character and direction of modern British fashion.

The Gentleman and his Tailor
During Queen Victoria's reign Britain was the wealthiest country in the world and patterns of work and property ownership increasingly stratified British society into discrete social classes. The London Season structured the social engagements of aristocratic society and created employment for London's tailors, but Britain's reputation for military tailoring was also a significant force in the development of Savile Row.

Clothing the military at the end of the eighteenth century forged the reputations of several tailoring firms whose names are now synonymous with London's most famous tailoring street. James Gieve worked in Portsmouth for the firm which tailored Lord Nelson's and Captain Hardy's uniforms at the Battle of Trafalgar. Military cap maker Thomas Hawkes held Royal Warrants from King George III. By the time Gieves and Hawkes united on Savile Row in the 1970s their individual reputations had secured high profile commissions and Royal Warrants from across Europe. Military tailoring and Royal commissions were also important to the firm of Henry Poole & Co which, following a commission from Queen Victoria to design a new style of court dress, opened its first showroom in Savile Row in 1846.

A reputation for strident respectability has given men's tailoring in the nineteenth century a reputation for sober uniformity. Despite this, fashion historians have argued that the bespoke system of tailoring allowed men to experiment with new forms of clothing and to explore a range of masculinities through dress. Stylistic development in London tailoring followed the three-piece conventions of the previous century. Decorative waistcoats offered opportunity for self-expression, as did novelty cravat pins and selective use of stripes and checks. Appropriateness in dress was annotated in editions of The Gentleman's Magazine of Fashion and in the publications of Benjamin Read. Read was a London tailor who recognised the value of depicting the tailoring details of new fashions in dress set against a backdrop of the city's fashionable landmarks and streets. The double-breasted frock coat, with its high buttoning and military shaping, remained the hallmark of respectability throughout the nineteenth century. From the 1860s the lounge coat, originally worn only for sports and leisure, became more acceptable as a garment for informal public occasions.

IN PICTURES: 10 menswear icons Britain gave the world

Sports clothing was strongly associated with Victorian masculinity and this allowed it to be an area of experimentation without fear of the taint of effeminacy or accusation of inappropriate preoccupation with personal appearance. The Norfolk Jacket was adapted from military clothing in the 1860s to become a standard shooting costume. Often made in Harris Tweed or homespun cloth it was worn with matching knickerbockers. An 1888 edition of the Tailor and Cutter suggested it was especially suited for bicycling, business and fishing.

The 'Coke' or bowler hat has become synonymous with the look of the London City gent. It was created in 1850 by London's oldest and most prestigious hatter, James Lock & Co, as working wear to protect the heads of Norfolk farmer William Coke's gamekeepers. The Coke hat's rural and lower-class status changed only after it became associated with the dress of British aristocracy at the turn of the century. The Coke was worn by Edward VII and later popularised by the Edward, Prince of Wales.

Descriptions of Poole's showrooms in the 1880 describe a lavish and immersive environment furnished with mahogany tables, piled high with dark-coloured cloths. It had palatial fitting rooms furnished in gold and satin. Luxury was also becoming available in the new department stores being built on Regent Street and Piccadilly. The expansion of Liberty & Co on Regent Street catered to London's most artistic clientele. It providing smoking jackets, decorative accessories and oriental silk pyjamas made from imported Indian silks or fabrics printed in Liberty's own printworks at Merton in south London.

By the end of the nineteenth century London was a global city in both its population and its vision. Its tailoring industries, including those in Savile Row, relied heavily of talents of a skilled immigrant Jewish workforce which operated out of the East End producing goods to sell in the luxurious outlets of the West End. Its manufacturers and retailers worked to meet the fashionable public's enthusiasm for goods which exploited the colours and patterns of fabrics imported from the Empire.

Edwardians to New Edwardians
We ourselves now realise that the traditional British jacket, rather long in the skirt with a vent or vents at the back, is an admirable foil to narrow trousers. It is a style eminently suitable to the big-boned Englishman. It looks well in the beautifully balanced checks which only our weavers in Yorkshire and Scotland understand how to plan in such a way that the traditional is never obscured by the fantastic.

The First World War dismantled a golden period of Edwardian refinement but the democratisation of fashion in the interwar years created an increasingly visible London menswear industry. The relaxation of styles and the opening of new menswear outfitters injected an adventurous glamour into shopping. New forms of clothing were introduced and marketed as essential components in the pursuit of an idealised leisured lifestyle. Savile Row continued to serve the country's most newsworthy elite, including Winston Churchill, who was a regular customer, and more discreetly its overseas royal commissions.

Thomas Burberry's innovation of waterproof twill-weave gabardine gave his company a competitive edge in the early twentieth century. Burberry's first London store opened in 1891 on Haymarket, the busy thoroughfare leading to Piccadilly. By the 1910s Burberry's outdoor wear was clothing Britain's early expeditions to Antarctica and the South Pole. In 1901 the firm was commissioned by the War Office to design its officers' uniforms, a charge which would develop in 1914 to create its most iconic product, the Burberry trench coat.

IN PICTURES: 10 menswear icons Britain gave the world

Beyond heroic association with the battlefields of Flanders, the Burberry trench coat represents a peculiarly British modern sensibility. Traditional craft values of quality workmanship and robust materials combine in a garment whose stylistic associations have varyingly been military, county and high fashion.

After the First World War Royalty became an international advert for English tailoring as the Prince of Wales became the first cosmopolitan English monarch. The Prince's easy elegance found expression in a more relaxed style of tailoring. His ability to effortlessly combine British plaids and tweeds, often in clashing spots and stripes, in stylish sporting attire made him an ambassador for the British traditional textile industry.

Royalty's sanction of Britain's regional cloths and clothes has been intrinsic to its long patronage of bespoke tailoring. Prince of Wales check is eponymous to Edward VII, and Prince Albert borrowed on tartan's rural authenticity when wearing a kilt in recreation of traditional Highland dress at Balmoral. The modern 'brogue', a term referring to the process of punching holes in the leather upper, originated in rural Scotland at the end of the eighteenth century. In similar transition to the Coke hat, when the Prince of Wales wore brogues on his golfing trips to Scotland their rural associations crossed into urban fashion. In the sometimes outlandish sartorial experiments of the 1920s - which culminated in Oxford Bags in 1924 - the Prince's ability to elegantly co-ordinate Fair Isle and Argyle knitwear with tweed and homespun plaid, bore testimony to his Brummellian restraint. The Prince bought his shirts from Turnbull and Asser on Jermyn Street and his shoes from John Lobb at 6 St James Street.

Beyond the rarefied, bespoke world of royalty, menswear ready-to-wear retailing was modernising between the wars. Austin Reed introduced 'The New Tailoring' at his Regent Street menswear department store in 1926 and opened its first international outlet on the transatlantic liner RMS Aquitania in 1929. Simpson's of Piccadilly, with it DAKS range of tailoring and sportswear, opened in 1936. These firms, amongst others, responded to the democratised desire for stylish and well-cut fashion. After the War, Savile Row also modernised. The arrival of Hardy Amies, best known as the Queen's couturier, in 1945 introduced the notion of fashion and challenged the overt masculinity of the street. In addition to serving his bespoke customers Amies designed collections for the Leeds firm Hepworths. The prototypes of their 'made to measure' suits were often cut by Amies' neighbour, Norton & Sons, at 16 Savile Row.

By 1951 The Ambassador magazine was promoting English fashion abroad by evoking a nostalgic sense of Britishness and by framing the practice of bespoke tailoring as able to transcend the forces of mechanisation. In an article titled, 'This Casual Elegance', its author noted:

There is an idea that the well-dressed Englishman is the epitome of studied disarray... This is an inversion of the truth. It is not a planned disorder but an unconscious elegance... While mass production methods have forced the cobbler from his traditional squat, the bespoke tailor sits today as he always has.

By the 1950s a bohemian London coexisted with the still authoritative voice of the conservative establishment. Ex-guardsman and inveterate dandy Bunny Roger employed the precision skills of Savile Row to recreate decorative waistcoats and the slimline silhouette of its early-century tailoring. Yet, Roger's neo-Edwardianism sought to the preserve the distance between nineteenth century codes of class and behaviour and the socially destabilising forces of modern democratised shopping. In London's less prestigious districts Teddy Boys were a new class of dandy asserting their influence by paying local tailors up to four weeks' wages to appropriate the neo-Edwardian codes of Savile Row; their 'stovepipe' trousers, velvet collared coats and reputations for street violence made them insubordinate arbiters of style.

Street style
Greater democratisation of fashion in the second half of the twentieth century made London into a fashion city. The development of British street-style and subcultural taste changed the look and the social rules of menswear. From the 1960s key streets in Chelsea and the West End developed new and dynamic retailing strategies which targeted a generation of young male consumers.

Of all London's historic fashion districts none has retained its temporal resonance as much as Carnaby Street. Between 1963 and 1970, John Stephen, Lord John, Take 6, and I Was Lord Kitchener's Valet were names synonymous with a style and attitude in modern menswear which has become emblematic of 1960s sub-cultural exuberance. Carnaby Street's evolution from a drab and inconsequential Soho backwater to Swinging London's colourful and entrepreneurially assertive 'peacock alley' has undoubtedly played its role in the mythologisation of 1960s London. Yet the style leadership and social change played out in its boutiques and street life, and the ambition of its key protagonists, cemented Carnaby Street's reputation as an internationally recognised icon of English style.

The Glaswegian John Stephen's influence on the rise of the street has been ascribed to his talent for sharp styling, innovative retailing and recognition of the prevailing mood which rejected stereotypical masculinities in clothing. Opening his first shop at 5 Carnaby Street in 1956, within a decade he owned more than ten others including Mod Male, Domino Male and Gear Street all selling Stephen's flamboyant take on traditional men's tailoring to an audience for whom novelty and detail were key. The exacting sartorial aspirations of London's Mods were met by Stephen, who introduced hipster trousers and slim-cut shirts manufactured in limited production with high, soft, buttoned or tabbed collars. Decorative fabrics in bright or pastel colours were promoted to be worn with wide lapelled velvet frock coats and kipper ties. Throughout the decade the tailoring talent in Soho's upstairs workrooms were able to provide short runs of suit jackets and coats in traditional suitings, plaids and wide pinstripes, individualised and embellished with trimmings, lining, buttons and embroidery freely available from wholesalers nearby.

IN PICTURES: 10 menswear icons Britain gave the world

John Stephen and Michael Fish can perhaps both lay claim to the introduction of the tailored floral shirt and tie. When Jermyn Street shirt-maker, Turnbull & Asser, employed Fish to extend their classic lines into more flamboyant and youthful territory he created vibrant designs in quality tailored shirts and kipper ties. The exuberant florals found in the haberdashery department at Liberty & Co were also catalytic in this flowering of gender-defying pastoral expression. Liberty & Co's William Poole and Bernard Neville exploited the firm's richly decorative archive to create a range of modern fabrics in a luridly-colourful print-on-print celebration of 1930s florals and art-nouveau swirls.

Alistair O'Neil has written that 'Carnaby Street became synonymous with a masculine form of colourful peacockery not seen since the early nineteenth century, and made a spectacle of men being self-conscious in their consumption of fashion.' Yet it was not the only London street with a reputation for selling distinctive clothing which pushed the boundaries of masculine convention. Rupert Lycett-Green opened Blades in Dover Street in 1962, and Tommy Nutter arrived on Savile Row in 1968. Both combined fine detail and precision tailoring with a receptive approach to fashion and this marked their exceptional contributions to London tailoring in the 1960s and 1970s. Further west, on Portobello Road, I Was Lord Kitchener's Valet sold Edwardian militaria and sharply cut suits alongside Union Jack shirts and kaftans as popular trends moved away from flamboyant derivatives of Western tailoring towards ethnic and hippy styles.

The post-war prosperity and optimism which fuelled entrepreneurialism in 1960s Carnaby Street dissolved in the economic uncertainties of the 1970s. As the promise of long-term unemployment radicalised a generation of youth, dispossession exploded into the DIY aesthetic of punk which, between 1974 and 1978, created an 'anti-fashion' assault on the recognised notions of good taste. In 1976 the shop at 430 King's Road was renamed Seditionaries by its owners Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood. Their collection of that year took the fetish-wear sold in their first shop Sex and subverted is meanings further in a new collection which included cloth bondage trousers with bum flaps, straps and zips, striped mohair jumpers and t-shirts with confrontational slogans. The Seditionaries collection quickly cemented McLaren's and Westwood's position as style leaders who epitomised the antagonistic spirit and style of English punk. McLaren's and Westwood's involvement in the radical sub-cultural activity which defined youth-culture in the 1980s was largely realised through their style-influence on London's music and club scene. Their first catwalk collection, 'Pirates' in 1981, combined barbed colourful prints with flounced shirts and tricorn hats in a display of swash-buckling histrionics which played out at street level in the New Romantic movement. Musicians and designers who further challenged orthodox masculinities in dress came together at the Blitz nightclub in Covent Garden. Culture Club, Spandau Ballet, Bodymap and Stephen Jones all shaped the look of British fashion in the 1980s.

Westwood has continued to work reflexively with fashion history by appropriating its symbols and allegiances and even revisiting her own contributions from the days of Seditionaries. Finely tailored bondage trousers in traditional British checks have featured in her later collections. In Harris Tweed (1987), Time Machine (1988), and Anglomania (1993) Westwood has borrowed the materials and meanings associated with English tailoring to offer a celebration of its heritage but also to expose what Rebecca Arnold has called 'the lie of a coherent single definition of Englishness' in which English tailoring and style assumes a solely aristocratic heritage. Paul Smith arrived in Covent Garden in 1979. He is another designer closely associated with London who playfully subverts the meanings and associations of Englishness in his clothing and in the 'gentlemen's outfitter' design of his shop in Covent Garden's Floral Street.

IN PICTURES: 10 menswear icons Britain gave the world

In 2013 London continues to be a fashion centre for British menswear. Just as the area around St James's was a hub of fashionable display and consumption in the early nineteenth century, so today the streets around Savile Row and Jermyn Street continue to offer bespoke and high-quality ready-made menswear and accessories. In recent years east of the City in the area around Shoreditch High Street, a culture of small-scale production and retail has transformed London's historical clothing manufacturing districts into a fashion centre notable for its migrant influence, cultural dynamism and menswear retailers. London's cosmopolitanism has been intrinsic to its international reputation. Across the world it is known for its innovative retailing and hybrid sense of style; a vivid expression of its rich fashion heritage.

Commissioned by the British Fashion Council and Victoria and Albert Museum

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Ahead of London Collections: Men, the British Fashion Council commissioned the V&A to write a report on men's fashion, which uncovers London as a trend-setting capital since 1528. BY Keren Protheroe | 11 June 2013 As London gears up for its biannual showcase of British menswear brands, the V&A has delved into the fashion archives to dig up the sartorial history of the capital.

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Looking every bit the queen her American cousins had been hoping to see, Britain's Elizabeth II put on her pearl-and-diamond tiara and matching jewels tonight to reign at a dinner given for her by President Reagan.

"I knew before we came that we had exported many of our traditions to the United States," the queen told a glittering black-tie crowd in a toast after dinner. "I had not realized before that weather was one of them."

With Prince Philip and Nancy Reagan looking on from a head table that included the British Foreign Secretary Francis Pym and Secretary of State George Shultz, the queen assured her hosts that her visit had been "spectacular and has fulfilled a long-standing ambition on my part to visit California and the West Coast. What better time than when the president is a Californian?"

Earlier, the queen got a rain check for a return visit after some of her California schedule was washed out this week.

"I've already told them I hope they'll come back," First Lady Nancy Reagan told her press secretary, Sheila Tate. "We'll give them a real rain check."

President Reagan, in his toast to the British monarch, reminded his guests that San Francisco had been the setting for the founding of the United Nations.

"Unhappily, subsequent events have continued to put our values and ideals to test," he said. "We have seen continued war, terrorism and human oppression in too many quarters of the globe.

"We are challenged to restrain and reduce the destructive power of nuclear weapons; yet we must maintain our strength in the face of the enormous military buildup of our adversaries."

The president and first lady welcomed the queen and Prince Philip to the handsome M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in Golden Gate Park shortly after 8 p.m., while three-quarters of a mile away 5,000 to 6,000 demonstrators were protesting everything from British rule in Northern Ireland and American involvement in El Salvador to unemployment, problems of the elderly and other social ills.

Although signs appeared bearing such slogans as, "Ireland for the Irish," and protesting the English presence in the Falkland Islands, the majority of the signs were aimed at President Reagan.

But earlier today, at a welcoming reception for the queen, Seamus Gibney, president of Irish Northern Aid, stood up to shout, "Stop the torture," just as actress and singer Mary Martin was about to entertain. "I was so excited when I came on stage and then that man was hollering and I lost all my nerve," said Martin tonight. "Then when they all stood up, my nerve came back."

Tonight, the Reagans and the royal couple posed for photographs, and only when the photographers finished did the queen finally smile. She wore a champagne-colored taffetta gown with ecru-and-gold sleeves trimmed with bows. It was a Hardy Amies design. Her tiara was one of 20 she reportedly owns.

Nancy Reagan wore an emerald green, silk satin crepe, with dolman sleeves and embroidered with crystal mirrors. The dress was by Galanos, and a crystal necklace by Tess Sholom added a glittering accent.

The dinner was in the Hearst Court but guests first assembled for cocktails in the Asian Art Museum at the de Young, where guests were asked not to smoke and those ordering wine had no choice but white, lest the carpet be damaged. In keeping with Washington practices, there was an exclusive VIP reception where Cabinet officers, senior White House aides and Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker were kept apart from the large, second-tier reception.

Prominent Californians were among the 260 guests, including Gov. George Deukmejian, Republican Sen. Pete Wilson and the queen's hosts earlier in the day on her outing to Silicon Valley, Stanford University President Donald Kennedy and the head of the Hewlett-Packard electronics firm, David Packard. On behalf of the president, Packard presented a computer to the queen when she visited his Cupertino operation. He said she could keep track of her race horses on it, and there were doubtless items involving her properties that could go into it.

"You explained those chips to them very well," Tobin Armstrong congratulated him. Packard smiled and said the royal couple was so intrigued by the computer demonstrated for them, "we had a hard time getting them away from it."

San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein said she would not attempt to discuss the problems in Northern Ireland with the queen, contrary to what she told Irish supporters earlier . "I don't believe it's appropriate and I don't intend to do anything to violate protocol," she said.

In the Dining With the Queen Sweepstakes--other than the Reagans and their official party, who as hosts are ineligible to play--Walter and Lee Annenberg probably win. Their inclusion on tonight's guest list bring their grand total for the week to three dinners and one luncheon. Pete Wilson is a close runnerup. He attended the queen's shipboard dinner in San Diego, the 20th Century-Fox dinner in Hollywood and was the ranking member of the Senate here tonight, with Alan Cranston, the senior senator from California, nowhere to be seen.

Some of the others included John Chancellor, Alistair Cooke, Joe DiMaggio, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., David Frost, Ted Graber, Billy Graham, Ted Koppel, Willie Mays, Joe Montana, cartoonist Charles Schulz, and 49ers' coach Bill Walsh.

Regional politics were in evidence on the guest list with the inclusion of Robert Naylor, minority leader of the state Assembly. "I finally one-upped Willie Brown speaker of the Assembly . He's not allowing me to escort the queen tomorrow when she comes to the capitol," said Naylor.

In her toast at tonight's dinner, the queen declared that Britain is "deeply grateful for the unstinting contribution of the United States to the maintenance of the western alliance . . .

"From time to time friendships must be publicly reaffirmed. My visit has given me the opportunity to reaffirm the ideals which we share and the affection that exists between our people . . ."

The event was an Official Dinner rather than a State Dinner. The White House quoted the State Department's Office of Protocol as defining a State Dinner as one when affairs of state are being conducted between the United States and its visitors. "She is not here conducting the business of state," said Tate. "There are no talks being held in conjunction with her visit."

On Friday, the queen plans to reciprocate with a shipboard dinner honoring the Reagans on their 31st wedding anniversary.

"What more could you ask for on your 31st anniversary than to spend it with Queen Elizabeth aboard the royal yacht?" Mrs. Reagan told Tate.

She told her press secretary she slept "wonderfully" the one night--Tuesday--she was aboard the royal yacht Britannia at the invitation of the queen. She said she didn't hear any of the storm that raged around the yacht berthed in Long Beach Harbor. On Wednesday morning, Mrs. Reagan toured the yacht and had coffee with the crew. "It was so clean you could have eaten off the engine room's floor," she told Tate.

Today the queen was saluted at a spectacular performance in Davies Symphony Hall at San Francisco's Civic Center. Mayor Feinstein presided, but eight of the 11 San Francisco supervisors stayed away to protest the $2 million the visit is costing the city.

"You said you did not come to conquer territory," Feinstein told Elizabeth, a reference to the queen's speech in Los Angeles about how Sir Francis Drake had proclaimed California a possession of another Queen Elizabeth. "We're delighted you came to conquer hearts, and I think you will do just that." The salute featured a cast of thousands, from Mary Martin and Tony Bennett to the University of California Marching Band, the San Francisco Youth Symphony, a Chinese girls' drum and bell corps and the cast of "Beach Blanket Babylon."

Prince Philip kept time to one song by tapping his fingertips together, and when Bennett sang "I Left My Heart in San Francisco," Philip seemed to be mouthing the words. The queen's first lip-parting smile came when a performer wore onstage a huge hat that brimmed with British landmarks, including the Tower of London, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace and photographs of the royal family. Of that part of the program the prince told Steve Silver, producer of "Beach Blanket Babylon, "If that thing had fallen off, it would have been an international incident."

Before tonight's dinner, the queen's official taster checked out the five-course meal of lobster terrine with golden caviar, consomme of pheasant, quenelles of goose liver, loin of veal with morel and with balsam sauce and a dessert called Aurora Pacifica, created especially for the occasion by German-born chef Norbert Brandt, who is 29. The State Department is picking up the dinner tab, estimated by food experts at $70 a plate. Other production expenses are being underwritten by San Francisco firms and individuals, according to the White House. The guest list is more than two times the size of a comparable White House dinner.

Singers from the San Francisco Opera and members of the San Francisco Symphony, under the baton of Andrew Meltzer, entertained following dinner.

The following were invited to last night's official dinner given by President and Mrs. Reagan for Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip:

Francis Pym, British foreign secretary, and Mrs. Pym

Sir Oliver Wright, ambassador of Great Britain to the United States, and Lady Wright

The Duchess of Grafton, mistress of the robes

Lady Susan Hussey, lady-in-waiting

Sir Philip Moore

Robert Fellowes, assistant private secretary to Queen Elizabeth II

Michael Shea, press secretary to Queen Elizabeth II

Surgeon Captain Norman Blacklock, medical officer to Queen Elizabeth II

Sir Peter Ashmore, master of the household

Rear Adm. Paul Greening, flag officer royal yachts

Air Vice Marshal John Severne, captain of the queen's flight

Consul General and Mrs. John Beaven

Kurt Herbert Adler, general director emeritus, San Francisco Opera, and Nancy Adler

John David Alexander, American secretary, Rhodes Scholarship Trust, and Catherine Alexander

Walter H. Annenberg, former U.S. ambassador to Great Britain, and Leonore Annenberg, former chief of protocol

Samuel H. Armacost, president, Bank of America, and Mary Jane Armacost

Anne Armstrong, former U.S. ambassador to Great Britain, and Tobin Armstrong

Sen. Howard H. Baker Jr. (R-Tenn.) and Joy Baker.

James A. Baker III, chief of staff and assistant to the president, and Susan Baker.

Stephen D. Bechtel Jr., chairman, Bechtel Group Inc., and Mrs. Bechtel

Richard Beeston, London Daily Telegraph

Paul Berg, Stanford professor and Nobel Prize winner, and Mildred Berg

Benjamin F. Biaggini, chairman, Southern Pacific Co., and Anne Biaggini

Shirley Temple Black, former chief of protocol, and Charles Alden Black

Roger Boas, chief administrative officer, City and County of San Francisco, and Nancy Boas

Richard Burt, assistant secretary of state for European affairs

Philip Caldwell, chairman, Ford Motor Co., and Betsey Caldwell

W. Glenn Campbell and Rita Ricardo Campbell, Hoover Institution, Stanford University

John W. Chancellor, NBC News, and Barbara Chancellor

Sherman and Jean Chickering, San Francisco

Thomas W. Chinn, Chinese Cultural Society, and Daisy Chinn

William P. Clark, assistant to the president for national security affairs, and Joan Clark

Alistair and Jane Cooke

Amory and Phoebe Cooke, Woodside, Calif.

Sheldon and Betty Cooper, San Francisco

Malcolm and Martha Cravens, San Francisco

Vincent and Elizabeth Cullinan, San Francisco

Rene Yvon d'Argence, director and chief curator, Asian Art Museum of San Francisco and the Avery Brundage Collection, and Mrs. d'Argence

Louise Davies, Woodside, Calif.

Michael K. Deaver, deputy chief of staff and assistant to the president, and Carolyn Deaver

George Deukmejian, governor of California, and Gloria Deukmejian

Joe DiMaggio

Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Mary Lee Fairbanks

Dianne Feinstein, mayor of San Francisco, and Richard Blum

Alan C. Furth, president, Southern Pacific Co., and Mrs. Furth

R. Gwin and Ann Follis, San Francisco

Charles Arleigh Foster Jr., Foundation for Teaching Economics, and Hannah Foster

Milton Friedman, professor and Nobel Prize winner, and Rose Friedman

David Frost

Russel Gallaway Jr. and Mrs. Gallaway, Sacramento

John and Henrietta Geer, Sacramento

Gordon Getty, director, Getty Oil, and Ann Getty

Richard N. Goldman, former president, Jewish Community Federation, and Rhoda Goldman

Charles and Margaret Gould, Hillsborough

Ted Graber

The Rev. Billy Graham and Ruth Graham

Walter A. Haas Jr., chairman, executive committee, Levi Strauss and Co., and Evelyn Haas

Prentis Cobb Hale, chairman, executive committee, American Retail Federation, and Denise Hale

Richard and Charlotte Ham, San Francisco

Mrs. Homer Hargrave and Paul Maginot, Templeton, Calif.

Ralph Harris, Reuters, and Ena Harris

Jessica Hart, trustee, H.M. de Young Memorial Museum

James D. Hart, chairman, Pacific Regional Marshall Scholarship Committee, and director, Bancroft Library, University of California, and daughter Carol Field

James R. Harvey, president, Transamerica Corp., and Charlene Harvey

Catherine Campbell Hearst, Beverly Hills

Randolph A. Hearst, chairman, Hearst Corp., and Maria Hearst

Alander and Maria Hogland, San Francisco

Jaquelin Hume, president, Ampco Foods Inc., and Betty Hume

George F. Jewett Jr., vice chairman, Potlatch Corp., and Lucille Jewett

Steven P. Jobs, chairman, Apple Computer Inc.

Natalia Makarova and Edward Karkar

Raymond Kassar, president Atari Inc.

George M. Keller, chairman, Standard Oil Co. of California, and Adelaide Keller

Donald Kennedy, president, Stanford University, and Barbara Kennedy

Robert Kerr, Santa Rosa

Leonard Kingsley, chairman, San Francisco Fine Arts Museums, and Sue Kingsley

Gorham and Diana Knowles, San Francisco

Ted Koppel, ABC News, and Grace Anne Koppel

Woodward Kingman, executive vice president, Crocker National Bank

Laurence William Lane Jr., publisher, Lane Publishing Co., and Donna Jean Lane

Edison Lewis, San Francisco

The Rev. John Joseph Loschiavo, president, University of San Francisco

John J. Louis Jr., U.S. ambassador to Great Britain, and Josephine Louis

George and Marcia Lucas

Henry Lucas Jr., chairman, New Coalition for Economic and Social Change, and Cerella Lucas

Robert A. Lurie, owner, San Francisco Giants, and Connie Lurie

Milton Marks, California state senator, and Mrs. Marks

Richard Madden, chairman, Potlatch Corp., and Joan Madden

Cyril Magnin, chief of protocol emeritus, City and County of San Francisco

Peter A. Magowan, chairman, Safeway Stores Inc., and Jill Magowan

Cornell C. Maier, chairman, Kaiser Aluminum and Chemical Corp.

Charlotte Mailliard, deputy chief of protocol, City and County of San Francisco

Francis A. Martin Jr. and Nini Martin, Hillsborough

Mary Martin and grandson Preston Hagman

Willie and Mae Mays

Peter and Alletta McBean, Hillsborough

John McCone, former director, Central Intelligence Agency, and Theiline McCone

Terence A. McEwen, general director, San Francisco Opera

Trudy McDonald, Republican National Committeewoman for California

Peter McKay, The Daily Mail

James and Anne McWilliams, San Francisco

Edwin Meese III, counselor to the president, and Ursula Meese

Richard K. Miller, president, San Francisco Opera, and Ann Miller

Joe Montana, San Francisco 49ers, and Cass Montana

Joseph A. Moore Jr., Moore Dry Dock Co., and Mrs. Moore

Gloria Morgan

Robert and Kay Naylor, Menlo Park

Wendy Nelder, president, San Francisco Board of Supervisors

Enid Nemy, The New York Times, and S. Ralph Cohen

John Osman, BBC

David Packard, chairman, Hewlett-Packard Co., and Lucile Packard

Sir Yue-Kong Pao, World-Wide Shipping Group, Hong Kong

John Place, chairman, Crocker National Corp., and Catherine Place

David Pleydell-Bouverie, Glen Ellen, Calif., cousin of Queen Elizabeth II

The Most Rev. John R. Quinn, archbishop of San Francisco

Donald Regan, secretary of the Treasury, and Ann Regan

Carl E. Reichardt, president, Wells Fargo Bank, and Patricia Reichardt

Dr. William Y. Rial, president, American Medical Association, and Constance Rial

Frank K. Richardson, associate justice of the California Supreme Court, and Mrs. Richardson

Paul F. Romberg, president, San Francisco State University, and Mrs. Romberg

Selwa Roosevelt, chief of protocol, and Archibald B. Roosevelt Jr.

Charles and Jean Schulz

William A. Seavey, president, English Speaking Union, San Francisco branch, and Mrs. Seavey

John and Kathy Seigle, Foster City, Calif.

J. Gary Shansby, chief executive officer, Shaklee Corp., and Barbara Shansby

George Shultz, secretary of state, and Helena Shultz

Steve Silver, producer

Mrs. William L. Stewart III and John C. Peters, Corte Madera, Calif.

John Suchet, Independent Television News

Walter H. Sullivan Jr. and Dagmar Sullivan, San Francisco

Edwin W. Thomas Jr., regional administrator, GSA, and Gretchen Thomas

Henry and Madelyne Trione, Santa Rosa

Bill Walsh, coach, San Francisco 49ers, and Geri Walsh

Dean A. Watkins, chairman, Watkins-Johnson Co. Inc., and Bessie Watkins

Caspar Weinberger, secretary of defense, and Jane Weinberger

Ian McKibbin White, director, de Young Memorial Museum, and Florence White

Brayton Wilbur Jr., president, San Francisco Symphony, and Judith Wilbur, president, Asian Art Museum

Lionel J. Wilson, mayor of Oakland, and Dorothy Wilson

Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.)

Rep. Ed Zschau (R-Calif.) and Jo Zschau

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San Francisco Board of Supervisors Enid Nemy

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University of San Francisco John J. Louis Jr.

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Gloria Deukmejian Joe DiMaggio Douglas Fairbanks Jr.

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County of San Francisco Peter A. Magowan

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Independent Television News Walter H. Sullivan Jr.

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Tobin Armstrong Sen. Howard H. Baker Jr.

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Charlene Harvey Catherine Campbell Hearst

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County of San Francisco Francis A. Martin Jr.

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Crocker National Bank Laurence William Lane Jr.

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San Francisco Charles Arleigh Foster Jr.

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New Coalition for Economic and Social Change

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Rose Friedman David Frost Russel Gallaway Jr.

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Pacific Regional Marshall Scholarship Committee

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Looking every bit the queen her American cousins had been hoping to see, Britain's Elizabeth II put on her pearl-and-diamond tiara and matching jewels tonight to reign at a dinner given for her by President Reagan.

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The British Fashion Council promotes leading British fashion designers in a global market. Its events and initiatives support and strengthen the UK's reputation for developing design excellence.

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Dresses worn by The Queen for two of the most significant occasions in Her Majesty's life will be seen together for the first time ever at the Summer Opening of the State Rooms at Buckingham Palace (23 July to 2 October 2016).

The wedding dress worn by Princess Elizabeth for her marriage to The Duke of Edinburgh on 20 November 1947, and The Queen's Coronation dress, both designed by the great British couturier Sir Norman Hartnell (1901-1979), will be part of the special exhibition Fashioning a Reign: 90 Years of Style from The Queen's Wardrobe.

Constituting the largest display of The Queen's dress ever mounted, Fashioning a Reign charts important events in The Queen's life and the nation's history through Her Majesty's wardrobe, encompassing themes such as State occasions, international tours and family celebrations. The Queen's support of British couture and millinery will be highlighted through outfits created for a world stage by renowned designers, including Hartnell, Hardy Amies and Ian Thomas.

When commissioned to design Princes Elizabeth's wedding dress, Sir Norman Hartnell set out to produce 'the most beautiful dress I had so far made'. His magnificent creation is in ivory silk and decorated with crystals and 10,000 seed pearls. The gown incorporates a 15 foot (4.6m) star-patterned train, woven in Braintree in Essex, inspired by the famous Renaissance painting of Primavera by Botticelli, symbolising rebirth and growth after the war. In 1947 Britain was still subject to rationing, so Princess Elizabeth collected clothing coupons to pay for the dress.

Hartnell, who had worked for the Royal Family since 1938, was subsequently commissioned to design the dress worn by The Queen for her Coronation at Westminster Abbey on 2 June 1953. He created a gown in the finest white duchesse satin, richly embroidered in a lattice-work effect with an iconographic scheme of national and Commonwealth floral emblems in gold and silver thread and pastel-coloured silks, encrusted with seed pearls, sequins and crystals. Unknown to The Queen, Hartnell added an extra four-leaf shamrock on the left side of the skirt for good luck, so that Her Majesty's hand could rest upon it during the ceremony.

The exhibition at Buckingham Palace is one of three separate special displays taking place in celebration of The Queen's 90th birthday across each of Her Majesty's official residences during 2016. A total of around 150 outfits will be shown, and the content of each exhibition has been selected to have particular association with the location. At the Palace of Holyroodhouse the use of tartan in royal dress is explored, while at Windsor Castle magnificent evening gowns worn on official occasions will be contrasted with Princess Elizabeth's fancy-dress costumes from wartime family pantomimes at the Castle.
The three exhibitions Fashioning a Reign: 90 Years of Style from The Queen's Wardrobe are at the Palace of Holyroodhouse from 21 April to 16 October 2016, the Summer Opening of the State Rooms at Buckingham Palace from 23 July to 2 October 2016, and at Windsor Castle from 17 September 2016 to 8 January 2017.

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The Queens wedding and Coronation dresses to be displayed together for the first time to mark Her Majestys 90th birthday

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Dresses worn by The Queen for two of the most significant occasions in Her Majestys life will be seen together for the first time ever at the Summer Opening of the State Rooms at Buckingham Palace (23 July to 2 October 2016).The wedding dress worn by Princess Elizabeth for her marriage to The D

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Royal Collection Trust celebrates The Queen's 90th birthday with special exhibitions

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In celebration of The Queen's 90th birthday, three special exhibitions, Fashioning a Reign: 90 Years of Style from The Queen's Wardrobe, will be staged across each of Her Majesty's official residences during 2016.

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London, England (CNN) -- Her outfits don't send royal fashion watchers into a frenzy like those of the Duchess of Cambridge or Princess Diana before her, but Queen Elizabeth II has developed a signature style that has withstood the test of time.

Her attire over the last 60 years has reflected the sovereign as a British symbol of refined, regal elegance. The looks she has worn have steadily evolved into her trademark -- monochromatic color with matching coat and hat.

Not one to wear sombre, muted hues like black or beige, the queen has always had a preference for vivid blues, intense greens and dazzling purples in a variety of dramatic shades.

Over the past six decades, Her Majesty has employed the talents of several British designers.

One of her first designers was Norman Hartnell, who worked for her in the 1940s and created many of the full-skirted evening silk dresses she wore to various events as a glamorous young princess.

As a newly crowned queen in the early 1950s, she chose Savile Row tailor Hardy Amies to create elegant evening gowns for her waspish 23-inch (58cm) waist. He was granted the coveted Royal Warrant in 1955. Amies once famously declared: "I do not dress the queen. The queen dresses herself. We supply her with her clothes -- there is a difference."

Two decades later the queen chose a young designer, Ian Thomas, to soften her look with "flowing chiffon dresses," according to the British Monarchy website.

Couture designer Karl-Ludwig Rehse started making outfits for Her Majesty in 1988 and the queen still wears his designs. He also dressed the late Queen Mother and describes the queen's clothes as a work uniform.

He told CNN: "They have to be comfortable in as much as when the queen puts on the clothes she wants to forget about them.

"You have to take into account the different countries and the different climates in which they'll be worn. The queen always makes sure that she follows the tradition."

While most people would be hard pressed to imagine what they will be wearing the next day, the queen's wardrobe is planned out months in advance, says Rehse.

"It's not the case that the queen is going somewhere next week and thinks 'What am I going to wear?' Sometimes it is six months, 12 months or longer."
See a map of Royal London A very VIP patron
One person who is currently in the queen's fashion inner circle is couturier and wedding dress designer Stewart Parvin. He first started making royal outfits in 2000 and recalls the secretive selection process that took place before he started working for the queen.

"At first I wasn't told who it was for," Parvin told CNN.

"It was, 'Could you design for someone who is a really prominent person in the public eye and wants a very chic image?' I thought it was going to be a politician or a tycoon's wife. I put together a packet of sketches but it wasn't until they were chosen I knew who they were for."

"She is someone who is very interested in her clothes. She always has an opinion on it and she has a very informed opinion and she knows when it's right and she knows when it's wrong," said Parvin, who designs two couture collections a year and was in 2007 awarded the Royal Warrant -- given to designers who have worked with the queen for five years or more.
An ensemble fit for a queen
Both Parvin and Rehse told CNN the queen is very involved in the design process, culminating with fittings at Buckingham Palace.

"Sometimes I choose the fabric and then propose ideas for them, as I would do for any client," said Parvin. "I put together a scheme, maybe four designs for one fabric combination, then she would look at them and either choose a design straight away or suggest some changes."

Rehse says the queen asks him to come up with two or three different alternatives for a particular fabric she likes before settling on a final design.

"I do get a lot of input from the queen," said Rehse. "The pressure is there but I take great joy out of it and it's very rewarding to see Her Majesty wearing my clothes in public."

In addition to warrant-holding royal designers, Her Majesty also has a senior dresser and personal assistant, Angela Kelly.

The daughter of a Liverpool dockworker, dressmaker Kelly originally joined the royal household as a maid before working her way up to her current position. She established the first ever in-house couturier and has gone on to design outfits for some of the most enviable royal events including last year's wedding of Prince William to Kate Middleton.

Known to have a close relationship with the queen, it has been noted by some royal observers that Kelly has slipped into the vacancies left by the deaths of the queen's sister and mother. Kelly and her team use old and new fabrics when designing for the queen using material given to her from when she was a princess, according to the Buckingham Palace website.
Hats off to Her Majesty!
Milliner Philip Somerville received a royal warrant following 12 years working for the queen. Now, when the queen steps out she's usually wearing a Somerville creation.

"You have to realize that you are never sure when Her Majesty will wear (a particular hat)," he said. "It depends on the weather on many occasions. You are also creating something that has to be very wearable and must be in colors that suit her. She must be noticed in a crowd."

After 33 years in the business, Somerville stepped down as the queen's hatter handing the business over to Dillon Wallwork.

"I've been here for some time now and we've always had a Philip Somerville look which is very clean, understated and elegant," said Wallwork.

Creating a hat fit for a queen is not without its pressures, Wallwork says.

"You know you are under a certain pressure because of the press and what people are going to say," he said. "You know she is going to be looked at. There are certain styles that you can and can't do but within those limits there's lots that you can do. It's quite a challenge but the queen can be quite adventurous."

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Royal style: Why Elizabeth II is the queen of color

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London, England (CNN) -- Her outfits don't send royal fashion watchers into a frenzy like those of the Duchess of Cambridge or Princess Diana before her, but Queen Elizabeth II has developed a signature style that has withstood the test of time.

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Couture by Royal Appointment

If you love vintage couture then this is one London exhibition not to be missed.

The Hartnell to Amies exhibition at the Fashion and Textile Museum in Bermondsey is a retrospective of London couture created by Norman Hartnell, Hardy Amies and milliner Frederick Fox. It showcases a range of works by these iconic designers who stole the fashion hearts of both British Royalty and socialites and who, with the Queen's patronage, managed to re-establish Britain as an international fashion centre after WWII.

Up until the 1920s it was the Parisian designers who reigned supreme, but Hartnell was hot on their polished heels when he opened his first London salon in 1923.

Highlights of his earlier designs on display are:

The exhibition is on until 23 Feb 2013 so you have plenty of time to see it. More details can be found on www.ftmlondon.org/exhibitions/

Images © Norman Parkinson Limited/Courtesy Norman Parkinson Archive.
Karen Grace studied Personal Styling at the London College of Fashion and is a registered affiliate member of the Federation of Image Professionals International. You can read more of Karen's fashion advice at:
For personal shopping and styling services you can reach her via frumpy to funky on contact@frumpytofunky.com and 07787 800 390.

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Federation of Image Professionals International

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Hartnell to Amies: Couture by Royal Appointment - Eclipse Magazine

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If you love vintage couture then this is one London exhibition not to be missed. The Hartnell to Amies exhibition at the Fashion and Textile Museum in Bermondsey is a retrospective of London couture created by Norman Hartnell, Hardy Amies and milliner Frederick Fox.

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British Pathe, the world's leading multimedia resource with a history stretching back over a century. The finest and most comprehensive archive of fabulous footage and stunning stills.

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Celebrating the 'breathtaking elegance' of London couture fashion in the postwar years

Norman Hartnell and models in Vogue, 1953, Photograph by Norman Parkinson

The show explores how the Queen's patronage of ground-breaking British designers helped to put London on the international fashion map after the Second World War.

There will be pieces on show from the designers-by-royal-appointment Norman Hartnell, Hardy Amies, and Frederick Fox. Photographs of the designers and their work by Norman Parkinson are also on display.

The show also highlights the milliner's role in London couture through the work of Australian-born designer Frederick Fox, who created hats for Queen Elizabeth, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, and many celebrities worldwide.

The exhibition ends with a discussion of the design house in the current fashion industry and the resurgence of British heritage brands, traditional tailoring and dressmaking.

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HARTNELL to AMIES: Couture by Royal Appointment

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Celebrating the 'breathtaking elegance' of London couture fashion in the postwar years Norman Hartnell and models in Vogue, 1953, Photograph by Norman Parkinson The show explores how the Queen's patronage of ground-breaking British designers helped to put London on the international fashion map after the Second World War.

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used his knitwear

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Born: 6 November, 1922, in Senta, Yugoslavia. Died: 17 April, 2014, in the Borders, aged 91

BERNAT Klein lived a life so infused with the joy of colour it was utterly infectious. His belief that colours are as important in our world as words - and capable of instantly engendering a kaleidoscopic range of emotions - transformed the Scottish textile industry, put it on the international catwalk and left a vibrant archive that still inspires generations later.

Exhilarated by the hues of nature that surrounded him and influenced by the pointillists' Impressionist painting technique using countless small dots, he could deconstruct the colours from an image and conjure them up again in glorious designs, many of them jewel-bright. But he also recognised the need for a more muted palette, often reflecting the trees, lichen and landscape of the Borders, which he made his home for more than 60 years.

His career spanned a panoply of creations from chainstore scarves to knitwear, fabric for Chanel and Dior, furnishings and carpets, all with his distinctive hallmark of harmony - a world away from the atmosphere in which he started his working life, briefly recruited by the British Ministry of Information during the war.

A Serbian Jew, he was born in Senta, near Yugoslavia's border with Hungary, into a family who worked in the wholesale textile business and, growing up surrounded by cloth, he spent many hours dreaming about becoming a textile designer and running a mill of his own.

Educated initially by a private tutor and then at a local school, at 13 he was sent by his parents, Lipot and Serena, to a Yeshiva, a Jewish Orthodox school, in Czechoslovakia. Two years later, as war threatened Europe, he went to study with a leading rabbi in Jerusalem where, in 1940, he began attending the Bezalel School of Art and Craft. It was here, after studying art initially, that he learned to weave, spending two years in its newly-established textile department.

Meanwhile Germany and the Axis forces invaded Yugoslavia and in 1944 his parents and many of his extended family were sent to Auschwitz. His father survived, his mother did not.

Around this time he sat the London Matriculation examinations in Jerusalem and worked for the British Ministry of Information in Cairo and Jerusalem, monitoring and translating broadcasts from Europe. Not particularly proficient in English, he turned out not to be particularly good at listening in and, bored by the job, was relieved when his duties came to an end after a few short months.

In 1945 he sailed for England on the SS Franconia, the ship used as headquarters for Churchill during the Yalta conference, and moved to Leeds University to study textile design. He never returned to Senta and went back to Yugoslavia only once, to visit relatives in Belgrade.

Awarded a Diploma in Textiles in 1948, he worked for about nine months as a designer of materials for ties, handkerchiefs and ladies dresses with Tootal Broadhurst Lee in Bolton. The following year he came north to Edinburgh to design ladies' coat and skirt fabrics for Munrospun. He moved to the Borders in 1950, the same year he became a naturalised British citizen, when the design department relocated to Galashiels. Whilst studying at Leeds he had met his future wife, Margaret Soper, at a ball and they married in 1951, setting up home in Galashiels. But by 1952 he had left Munrospun and established his own company, Colourcraft. Using £500 borrowed from a friend he rented space in a rat-infested weaving shed and began producing rugs and furnishing fabrics. He tried selling them through Liberty's and Heal's department store in London but real success eluded him.

However all that changed over the next decade when he began using a professional agent in London who secured large orders for lambswool scarves from Littlewoods, Woolworth, British Home Stores and Marks & Spencer. Business boomed and he contracted out production to other local mills, diversifying into colour woven fabrics for womenswear and menswear.

A key influence at this time was a visit to an Impressionist art exhibition at the Tate Gallery in the mid-Fifties. He was inspired by George Seurat's pointillist work and dreamed of producing cloth that, by combining many different colours, would blaze or shimmer. "Then the eye could either add them all up together and so enjoy the fun of their varied subtlety amounting to a clear hard fact," he said, "or it could see them merging in their multitude to remain an amorphous, cloudy hint of tints, of softness and endless possibilities."

Klein, who later succeeded in incorporating into his work the Impressionist feel he had so admired, went on to buy Netherdale Mill in Galashiels where he relocated Colourcraft, increased the staff to 150 and operated about 40 looms. The Sixties saw him take up oil painting, which would also influence the colours of his textiles and he developed ranges of space-dyed worsted suiting and mohair tweed couture fabrics. In 1962 Robert Sinclair Tobacco Company Ltd became a majority shareholder boosting the firm's reach. Renamed Bernat Klein Ltd and with a PR officer appointed, his tweeds excited the fashionistas of the day, were lauded in the US and featured in Chanel's spring 1963 collection. That year a range of Bernat Klein knitting yarns was launched, along with colour co-ordinated skirt and suit fabrics, and the autumn '63 collections of designers including Balmain, Cardin, Dior, St Laurent and Hardy Amies all used his light, sumptuous mohair tweeds.

He was appointed design consultant for Bond Worth Carpets, opened a showroom in London, created a velvet ribbon tweed and developed a colour chart, based on analysis of a woman's eye colour, so that she could choose a wardrobe best suited to enhanced her colouring.

Klein went on to acquire the Gibson & Lumgair mill in Selkirk, opened an office in Paris and wrote the book Eye For Colour. Princess Margaret and then husband Lord Snowden were regularly seen wearing his fabrics. However, in 1966, a business manager was appointed to work alongside Klein who, rather than have his artistic vision compromised, decided to sell his shares and resign from the company.

He then set up a new enterprise, Bernat Klein Design Consultants Ltd, which he ran from his home at High Sunderland and over the next quarter of a century he collaborated with numerous companies in Britain and Scandinavia producing designs for rugs, carpets and fabrics and opening shops in Edinburgh and London.

He was made a CBE in 1973, awarded the design medal by the Textile Institute in 1977 and appointed an honorary fellow of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland in 1980. He was also a commissioner on the Royal Fine Art Commission in Edinburgh and received an honorary doctorate from Heriot-Watt University, whose school of textiles and design is housed in one of his former mills. The university has a collection of his textiles and an archive of around 200 pieces is also held by the National Museums of Scotland.

Klein, awarded a Scottish Style Award in 2007, continued painting up until the week before he died, still obsessed with the passion for colour that defined his life and work. Widowed in 2008, he is survived by children Jonathan, Gillian and Shelley, and three grandchildren.

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Obituary: Bernat Klein CBE, textile designer, artist and colourist

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Born: 6 November, 1922, in Senta, Yugoslavia. Died: 17 April, 2014, in the Borders, aged 91 BERNAT Klein lived a life so infused with the joy of colour it was utterly infectious.

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Photograph of Queen Elizabeth II standing in the White Drawing Room, Buckingham Palace. The Queen wears the Grand Duchess Vladimir tiara and faces three-quarters right.

Beaton first photographed The Queen in 1942, ten years before her accession. This was one of the final images that he took of her, and it was released to mark Her Majesty's forty-third birthday in 1969. The photograph was taken in the White Drawing Room at Buckingham Palace. The Queen wears a turquoise gown by Hardy Amies, which had been designed for the State Visit to Germany in 1965, and the Vladimir Tiara. When recalling this particular photographic session with The Queen, Beaton noted in his diary that 'Everywhere were sparkling possibilities.'

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Cecil Beaton (1904-80) - HM Queen Elizabeth II (b. 1926)

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Photograph of Queen Elizabeth II standing in the White Drawing Room, Buckingham Palace. The Queen wears the Grand Duchess Vladimir tiara and faces three-quarters right.Beaton first photographed The Queen in 1942, ten years before her accession. This was one of the final images that he took of her, and it was released to mark Her Majesty's forty-third birthday in 1969.

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The British couturier Hardy Amies is best known as Queen Elizabeth II's longest-serving dressmaker. Supported by a highly skilled team in the workrooms at Savile Row, Amies dressed the queen and a small clientele of aristocratic and wealthy women for half a century. His men's wear and international licensee business had a lower profile but were crucial to the financial viability of the company. The licensee business benefited from Amies's position as dressmaker to the queen and from his staff's expertise, but its success ensured the survival of the couture house.

Early Life

Edwin Hardy Amies was born in London on 17 July 1909. Although he had some knowledge of dressmaking through his mother's work as a saleswoman for Miss Gray, Ltd., a London court dressmaker, it was not his chosen career. He wanted to be a journalist and on the advice of the editor of the Daily Express went to work in Europe to learn French and German. Back in Britain in 1931 he joined W. and T. Avery, selling industrial weighing machines and hoping to be posted to Germany, but dressmaking was clearly his destiny. A chance letter describing a dress worn by Miss Gray led to the offer of a job as designer at Lachasse, a sportswear shop owned by Miss Gray's husband, Fred Shingleton. In late 1933, Amies was invited by Mr. and Mrs. Shingleton (Miss Gray) to join their party at a dance given in aid of the Middlesex Hospital. At Christmas 1933, Amies wrote a letter to Mlle. Louise Probet-Piolat (Aunt Louie), a friend of his mother, describing the dress worn by Mrs. Shingleton at the dance. Aunt Louie in turn wrote to Mrs. Shingleton, reporting "how vivid she found my description." Mrs Shingleton threw the letter across the table to her husband and said, "You ought to get that boy into the business in Digby Morton's place" (Amies 1954, pp. 52-53). Undeterred by his complete ignorance of practical dressmaking, Amies boldly grabbed the opportunity.

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Lachasse and the War

Lachasse was set up in 1928 as an offshoot of Fred Shingleton's company Gray and Paulette, Ltd. The firm specialized in custom-made daywear designed for members of the British upper classes, who divided their time between London and the country. When Amies joined in 1934 he replaced the Irish designer Digby Morton, whom he credited with transforming the classic country tweed suit "into an intricately cut and carefully designed garment that was so fashionable that it could be worn with confidence at the Ritz" (Amies 1954, p. 54). Following Morton, Amies concentrated on producing stylish, feminine, tailored clothes. The year 1937 was a turning point. The April edition of British Vogue featured a Lachasse suit, and Amies made his first sales to U.S. buyers, in London for King George VI's coronation. Vogue praised Amies's facility with pattern and color but noted the comparatively static silhouette of his suits, which now incorporated the slightly low waist that became characteristic of his cut. This slowly evolving line was, in fact, exactly what Amies's customers wanted. They were looking for clothes that were in tune with fashion but that would blend with their existing wardrobe, that were smart but not ostentatious, and that were well cut, immaculately fitted, and hard wearing. Amies catered to this particularly English approach to dressing throughout his career. His customers at Lachasse included the society hostess Mrs. Ernest Guinness and the actress Virginia Cherrill.

By 1939 sales at Lachasse had doubled but Amies's appeals to design in his own name were rebuffed. Restless and frustrated, he saw World War II as an escape. He joined the Intelligence Corps, transferring in 1941 to the Belgian section of the Special Operations Executive, where he rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel. Amies designed throughout the war, contributing to government-backed export collections and, after resigning from Lachasse, selling through the London house of Worth. He was a founding member of the Incorporated Society of London Fashion Designers and served as the society's chairman from 1959 to 1960.

Savile Row

After demobilization, Amies set up his own house in November 1945 at 14 Savile Row, in the heart of London's tailoring district. Staff from Lachasse, Worth, and Miss Gray joined him, bringing their clients and skills and enabling Amies to establish a reputation for all-around excellence. Although nearly forty, he was considered young in couture terms. Amies played on this, promoting himself and his house as vigorous, youthful, and progressive. In 1950 he was among the first London couturiers to set up a boutique line aimed at export buyers, selected provincial retail buyers, and the general public. Within two years the new business was half the size of the couture business.

In 1950 Amies received his first order from the future Queen Elizabeth II. In 1955 he successfully applied for the coveted royal warrant, which he held until his death. Norman Hartnell was still the queen's premier dressmaker but Amies's position at the top of his profession was secure. Designing for the queen gave him international standing, attracted prestigious clients, and guaranteed his own personal acceptability in the highest echelons of society. He later designed for Princess Michael of Kent and Diana Princess Of Wales.

"I understand and admire the Englishwoman's attitude to dress ...just as our great country houses always look lived in and not [like] museums, so do our ladies refuse to look like fashion plates" (Amies 1954, p. 239).

Men's Wear

Amies entered the men's wear market in 1959, when he designed a range of silk ties for Michelson's. During the 1950s the preference of young adult men for more informal, body-conscious clothes and the popularity of American and Italian styles persuaded British manufacturers to reformulate their image and product. Hepworths, a middle-market multiple tailoring group, approached Amies. His first collection for Hepworths in 1961 was designed "to make the customer feel younger and richer than they were, and more attractive" (Amies 1984, p. 68). His designs were never cutting edge but formulated to attract a broad customer base. By 1964 the annual sales of his men's wear was about £15 million, compared with £0.75 million for women's wear. His collaboration with Hepworths led to a string of licensee agreements selling men's wear and some women's wear across the globe from the United States and Canada to Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Taiwan, and Korea. As Amies dedicated more time to the licensee business, the women's wear design was taken over by his codirector, Ken Fleetwood (d. 1996). Amies sold Hardy Amies, Ltd., to Debenhams in 1973 to develop a ready-to-wear business but bought the company back in 1980.

Hardy Amies was appointed a Commander of the Victorian Order (CVO) in 1977 and honored with a knighthood in 1989. He was elected a Royal Designer for Industry in 1964. He received the Harper's Bazaar Award in 1962, the Sunday Times Special Award in 1965, and the British Fashion Council Hall of Fame award in 1989. He sold Hardy Amies, Ltd., to the Luxury Brands Group in 2001. Amies died on 5 March 2003.

See also Diana Princess of Wales; Haute Couture; Savile Row; Travel Clothing; Tweed.

Bibliography

Hardy Amies. Just So Far. London: Collins, 1954. Detailed account of the first ten years of the house of Hardy Amies, and considers London fashion in relation to Paris.

--. Still Here: An Autobiography. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1984. Covers Amies's involvement in menswear and the development of his licensee business and his work for Queen Elizabeth II.

--. The Englishman's Suit: A Personal View of Its History, Its Place in the World Today, Its Future, and the Accessories Which Support It. London: Quartet, 1994. Describes the evolution of the suit and Amies's taste in menswear.

Cohn, Nik. Today There Are No Gentlemen: The Changes in Englishmen's Clothes since the War. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971.

Ehrman, Edwina. "The Spirit of English Style: Hardy Amies, Royal Dressmaker and International Businessman." In The Englishness of English Dress. Edited by Christopher Breward, Becky Conekin, and Caroline Cox. Oxford: Berg, 2002. Considers how Englishness informed Amies's style and how he used his association with Englishness as a marketing tool.

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The British couturier Hardy Amies is best known as Queen Elizabeth II's longest-serving dressmaker. Supported by a highly skilled team in the workrooms at Savile Row, Amies dressed the queen and a small clientele of aristocratic and wealthy women for half a century.

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I've been meaning to write a blog post on this topic ever since The FitzOsbornes in Exile was first published in North America (that is, two years ago, which says something about my blogging habits). I don't want to give away any plot spoilers to those who haven't read the book, but let's just say that it's set in the late 1930s, in England, and that at least one male character is gay. A surprising number of readers seemed to assume that any well-brought-up young lady of this time and place would have been shocked, horrified and outraged at the very idea of homosexuality, and that all gay men were shunned by Society and were in constant danger of being carted off to prison, à la Oscar Wilde. So, there were a number of comments from readers about how 'implausible' it was that Sophie and Veronica, the two young ladies at the centre of the story, would be so accepting of their gay male relative.

Now, it's true that any kind of sexual activity between men was illegal in England between 1885 and 1967, but it's also true that these laws were applied very selectively. In general, rich, aristocratic men were free to do whatever they liked. Yes, Oscar Wilde was convicted of "gross indecency", but that was an unusual case because he started the whole thing off (by bringing a libel action against his boyfriend's belligerent father, when what the father was saying about Wilde was mostly true). Anyway, that case was in 1895, forty-two years before the events of The FitzOsbornes in Exile. Consider current attitudes to gay issues, and compare this to how most people thought in the early 1970s, and you'll see that things can change significantly in forty-two years. The fact is that in the 1930s and 1940s, there were quite a lot of popular, important and influential same-sex-attracted men who were part of English Society. Here are some of them.

First, the obvious ones. In the world of theatre and music, the most famous were probably Ivor Novello, Noël Coward and Benjamin Britten. There was also stage designer Oliver Messel, who was closely associated with the British royals and designed Princess Margaret's Caribbean house. Norman Hartnell and Hardy Amies held Royal Warrants to design frocks for various British royals (Hardy Amies also happened to be a Special Operations Executive agent who worked with the Belgian resistance during the war), while the crème de la crème of Society queued up to be photographed by Cecil Beaton.

Meanwhile, the Bloomsbury set was not, strictly speaking, part of respectable Society, but it was influential and included writer Lytton Strachey, economist John Maynard Keynes and artist Duncan Grant.

Those with connections to Oxford included Maurice Bowra (Warden of Wadham College, later Vice-Chancellor of the university and awarded a knighthood), Brian Howard (poet, journalist, supposedly an inspiration for the character of Anthony Blanche in Brideshead Revisited) and Harold Acton (writer, also supposedly a model for Anthony Blanche). Other famous same-sex-attracted male writers were Siegfried Sassoon, Raymond Mortimer and E.M. Forster.

Then there were a whole lot of aristocrats who didn't do much, but were certainly accepted in Society, starting with Prince George (brother of King Edward VIII and King George VI), whose male lovers were rumoured to have included his cousin Louis Ferdinand, Prince of Prussia, Noël Coward and Anthony Blunt (art historian, cousin to the Queen, Communist spy). There was also Stephen Tennant, who "spent most of his life in bed" and supposedly inspired the character of Cedric in Love In A Cold Climate. However, I think my favourite aristocrat would have to be Gavin Henderson, 2nd Baron Faringdon: "Described by David Cargill as a 'roaring pansy', Henderson was known for his effeminate demeanour, once opening a speech in the House of Lords with the words 'My dears' instead of 'My Lords.'"

What is more interesting to me is the number of gay men in positions of real political power, either in the House of Commons or the diplomatic services. For example, Oliver Baldwin, son of Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, had a long career in politics, first as a Labour MP, then as Parliamentary Secretary to the Secretary for War. When he was appointed Governor of the Leeward Islands, a British colony in the Caribbean, he took his partner, John Boyle, with him. Other politicians included Henry 'Chips' Channon, Harold Nicolson, Tom Driberg and Robert Boothby. It's true that these men did not always receive unconditional positive regard from their family and colleagues. For example, Oliver Baldwin never became a government minister, despite his experience and political connections. He was also recalled from the position of Governor after three years (although this was more because he supported socialism and anti-colonial attitudes in the islands than because the white colonials were scandalised by his relationship with John Boyle - and Oliver's parents did eventually come to accept his partner as almost a son-in-law).

Some of these men had long, happy, unconventional marriages with women (for example, Harold Nicolson's marriage to Vita Sackville-West); some entered into brief or unhappy marriages in an attempt to placate their families and produce an heir; others were 'confirmed bachelors'. Some of them were definitely gay, others were probably bisexual, and very few of them were 'out' in the public sense that we mean now. But all of these men participated in Society, and other people in Society knew about them and accepted them to varying degrees - which isn't so different from the way things are now.

So I think Sophie and Veronica's attitudes in The FitzOsbornes in Exile are entirely plausible - especially as neither of them is particularly religious, and Veronica makes a habit of rebelling against conservative values. And I also think Veronica would have loved a chance to debate Marxism with Oliver Baldwin.

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Same-Sex-Attracted Gentlemen in English Society in the 1930s and 1940s

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I've been meaning to write a blog post on this topic ever since The FitzOsbornes in Exile was first published in North America (that is, two years ago, which says something about my blogging habits).

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About The Secret War | The Secret War | Yesterday Channel

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The Secret War uncovers acts of courage, ruthlessness, double dealing and betrayal in WWII

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The world's first ever supersonic passenger flight took off 40 years ago today. At 11.40am on Wednesday 21 January 1976, two Concorde aircraft took to the skies simultaneously, one from Paris and the other from London, heading to Rio de Janeiro and Bahrain respectively. This was the first time that air passengers could board a craft that broke through the sound barrier. The flight was the culmination of a 14-year project hatched by England and France, which saw more than 50,000 technicians, designers and engineers come together to create the 1,350mph plane. Concorde's maiden flight was seven years earlier, when French pilot Andre Turcat took the jet on a 27-minute flight. After a fatal crash in 1999 and subsequent safety concerns, the aircraft took its very last flight on October 24 2003. These pictures show Concorde through the ages.

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Concorde's First Supersonic Passenger Flight Happened 40 Years Ago

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At 11.40am on Wednesday 21 January 1976, two Concorde aircraft took to the skies simultaneously, one from Paris and the other from London, heading to Rio de Janeiro and Bahrain respectively. Concorde's maiden flight was seven years earlier, when French pilot Andre Turcat took the jet on a 27-minute flight.

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A new exhibition is to show how Queen Elizabeth transformed British fashion.

The 'Hartnell to Amies: Couture by Royal Appointment' show will showcase designs by royal couturiers Norman Hartnell and Hardy Amies and the effect the monarch's outfits at historic events has shaped the style landscape.

Over 150 garments, including ballgowns, cocktail dresses and ready-to-wear designs worn by British high society - often taking its lead from the monarch - will go on display in the exhibition at London's Fashion and Textile Museum.

Hartnell - who opened his first haute couture boutique in Mayfair, London, in 1923 - attracted many fans after his creations became popular with Elizabeth, the late Queen Mother and her daughters, Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret.

He was responsible for designing the queen's wedding dress in 1947 and her Coronation gown - which was embroidered with gold and silver thread, seed pearls and crystals - in 1953.

Exhibition highlights include several previously unseen watercolour sketches of his designs for the Coronation dress, a sketch of the "first cocktail dress for HRH Princess Elizabeth now HM the Queen" which was a black dress embroidered with white beads from 1947 and samples of Hartnell's embroidery from dresses worn by the queen for overseas state visits during the 1950s and 1960s.

Amies began his fashion career in the 1930s at the London tailors, Lachasse, and he first designed for the queen in the early 1950s.

Amies - who designed for the monarch up until a year before his death in 2003 and also designed for Diana, Princess of Wales - was responsible for transforming her daytime wardrobe tailored coats, dresses and jackets and created the outfit she wore for her first ever televised Christmas message in 1957.

Michael Pick, a biographer of Hartnell and Amies and guest curator of the exhibition, insists the exhibition shows the queen, now 86, was a "fashion leader" after she took the throne on February 6, 1952, and was a style inspiration to British women.

He told the Daily Telegraph newspaper: "After the Second World War, society still went to Paris for their clothes, but the queen gave confidence to British women to buy British designers.

"As a young, beautiful and photogenic woman in the 1950s and 1960s, she was a fashion leader and her circle and the wider public wanted to look like her. The consummate skills of Hartnell and Amies helped to re-assert Britain's reputation as an international centre for fashion."

'Hartnell to Amies: Couture by Royal Appointment' exhibition runs at the Fashion and Textile Museum from November 16 to February 23, 2013.

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Exhibition to Show How Queen Elizabeth Transformed Fashion

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A new exhibition is to show how Queen Elizabeth transformed British fashion. The 'Hartnell to Amies: Couture by Royal Appointment' show will showcase designs by royal couturiers Norman Hartnell and Hardy Amies and the effect the monarch's outfits at historic events has shaped the style landscape.

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We may have performed poorly at the World Cup, Andy Murray fell short again and our bankers have got us in to a financial mess - but we do have something to celebrate.

Britain is revered the world over for its creativity and its cool.

We know how to make great music, we know how to design, we "do art" well, our galleries, museums, our film makers, actors, our TV programmes, our architects and now even our chefs are revered worldwide.

Britain has become the world's focal point for cultural tourism, and now it's not just our historic buildings and quaint countryside that brings people in but our renowned youth culture.

It manifests itself in clubs, rock venues, markets, music festivals and districts like Hoxton in London and the Northern Quarter in Manchester which are re-generating once downtrodden areas of towns and cities.

All this has not happened overnight - it's a century since the Bloomsbury set started to define a modern creative view of culture.

In the three decades up to the "youthquake" that was the 1950s, our fashion designers created the timeless 1920s "flapper" style that Kate Moss and crew regularly return to, and Charlie Chaplin was the most famous actor and filmmaker in the world.

Through the austerity of the 30s and 40s, from the utilitarian timeless furniture of Robin Day to the timeless tailoring of Sir Hardy Amies and the films of Alfred Hitchcock, Britain's stature as having its finger firmly on the contemporary cultural zeitgeist was being established.

If the 50s gave us a national boost through pop culture (the pictures of my mum in the uber cool Brubeck's coffee bar in Morecambe, yes Morecambe, where she met Lonnie Donegan, Georgie Fame, Cliff Richard et al prove a point of how youth culture wasn't just metropolitan) then the 60s made us number one in the world's cultural hit parade.

Mods, The Who, Carnaby Street, Casino Royale, Mary Quant, Twiggy, Pattie Boyd, David Bailey, the Beatles, Sandie Shaw, Sir Peter Blake, The Mini (and "the mini"), Biba, Anita Pallenberg, The Rolling Stones, Blow Up - Britain gave the world "counterculture".

I was lucky enough to spend my youth immersed in the myriad of 70s youth culture movements that cemented Britain as the pre-eminent modern-day creative nation. My first concert was David Bowie's Aladdin Sane tour at King George's hall in Blackburn in '73. I went out, got my hair "feathered", bought a tight-fitting canary yellow T-shirt from Clobber and the album from Ames Record Bar in the Arndale Centre.

The rest of my decade reads like a template for how the rest of the world's cool youth started to see Britain as a cultural barometer. From Roxy Music, to Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren's style-led Punk movement, to the Blitz Kids and the New Romantics, to the post-punk angst of Joy Division.

The likes of Kurt Cobain and so many US artists have regularly stated that they have worshipped at the altar of British youth culture.

During the 80s our dance music culminated in the acid house and rave scenes and made Britain the world's dance music hub.

Out of this youthquake have come world names in art, design, and cinema, producing the likes of Damien Hirst, Tracey Emin, John Galliano, Alexander McQueen, Stella McCartney, Damon Albarn, Mike Leigh and dozens more. The fashion houses of Paris, the Italian car brands, New York ad agencies are all stocked with British design talent and our design colleges are now considered the best in the world and hotspots for recruitment. Fifty per cent of the world's TV formats are devised here, we lead the way in computer games design and our architects are now "Starchitects" who work across the world.

And the future looks very rosy indeed with bands like The XX, Wild Beasts, Chapel Club, Rox and of course Florence and The Machine, new stars like Carey Mulligan, and the Top Shop-sponsored New Gen designers in London Fashion Week.

So this is why Lord March, Gerardine Hemingway MBE and me have launched a festival, Vintage at Goodwood, that celebrates Britain's rich 20th century creative genius and its future. The Festival of Britain in 1951 attracted 10.4 million paying customers to a mass celebration of British design and ingenuity.

It seems incredible that it has taken us more than half a century to put on a modern-day interpretation, especially as almost 60,000 young people study the "creative industries"

The value to the economy is becoming widely recognized too, with over two million people employed in 157,000 businesses, in a sector that is growing at double the pace of the nation and contributing £17billion to the UK's balance of payments .

And then there is the even more important contribution creativity brings to our lives ..happiness, fun, enjoyment of life and stimulation!

Unlike chocolate and alcohol this really is something that makes us happy!

To book visit www.vintageatgoodwood.com.

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Cool Britannia: Wayne Hemingway on why Britain is the coolest and most creative place in the world

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We may have performed poorly at the World Cup, Andy Murray fell short again and our bankers have got us in to a financial mess - but we do have something to celebrate. Britain is revered the world over for its creativity and its cool.

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When Sindy was launched in the autumn of 1963 with an exciting wardrobe of fashionable clothes, no-one could have predicted that over the next thirty or so years she would become one of Britain's best-selling teenage dolls. Accompanied by her boyfriend Paul and her kid sister Patch, Sindy was supplied with ever-changing fashions designed by, amonst others, Mary Quant, Hardy Amies, the Emanuels and mor recently Vivienne Westwood. This 300 page book with over 400 colour illustrations is packed with detailed year by year dscriptions of all the changes made to Sindy herself and her marvellous wardrobe which forms a veritable gallery of British fashions in minature.

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When Sindy was launched in the autumn of 1963 with an exciting wardrobe of fashionable clothes, no-one could have predicted that over the next thirty or so years she would become one of Britain's best-selling teenage dolls.

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Sir Hardy Amies, the Savile Row designer and self-described snob who for decades clothed Queen Elizabeth II and many of the women in Britain's aristocracy, died today. He was 93.

Sir Hardy, known for his immaculate style and elegant manners, died at his country home in Langford, in the Cotswolds, northwest of London, said Tim Maltin, managing director of Hardy Amies Ltd. Mr. Maltin said Sir Hardy suffered a heart attack in his sleep.

''His great wish was that his house should continue,'' Mr. Maltin said, confirming that it would.

Sir Hardy rose from a modest background -- his father was a government worker, his mother worked for a West End dressmaker -- to become sole proprietor of a business worth more than $352 million and to move effortlessly among the titled.

''The queen was very sad to hear of Sir Hardy's death,'' Buckingham Palace said. ''He contributed to her wardrobe over many years.''

While some criticized the queen's style as dowdy, her couturier derided much modern fashion as designed for magazine covers and advertisements, and said the queen's dresses suited her.

''She feels that being terribly chic is not friendly to her audience,'' Sir Hardy told The Associated Press in 1999. ''She doesn't want to dazzle people.''

Sir Hardy began working for the couture house Lachasse in the early 1930's, and by the end of the decade he was designing the whole collection. He served in the Intelligence Corps during World War II, then returned to London to open his own fashion business on Savile Row.

In 1951, Elizabeth, then a 25-year-old princess, asked him to provide some clothing for her tour to Canada.

He became the queen's official dressmaker in 1955 and clothed her for 38 years, until his 80th birthday, when his companion, Ken Fleetwood, took over the job. Mr. Fleetwood died in 1996 and Sir Hardy left no immediate survivors.

He designed dozens of new royal outfits each year, making clever, fluid tailoring his signature. His style was restrained and conservative, following the maxim that ''day clothes must look equally as good at Salisbury station and the Ritz bar.''

His clients, he said, were ''the wives of the men of status'' who frequented both country and town.

Sir Hardy knew what he did not like -- flashy, revealing garb. ''I hate strapless bodices, for example, because any man looking at one thinks, 'How does she keep the thing up?' '' he said.

Sir Hardy, who also designed menswear, counted among his customers the queen's cousin Princess Michael of Kent, Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, and the actor Richard Burton's widow, Sally.

He continued working after he stepped down as the queen's clothier, selling his company to the British-based Luxury Brands Group in 2001 but remaining active as its life president until his death. The company still dresses the queen.

He was knighted in 1989 and said he was proud to call himself a snob because ''it means that I treasure high standards.''

''Now, it doesn't mean to say that you're unkind to the lower orders,'' he said. ''Being a snob simply means that I think the top is the best.''

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Sir Hardy Amies, 93, the 'Snob' Who Long Clothed the Queen

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Sir Hardy Amies, the Savile Row designer and self-described snob who for decades clothed Queen Elizabeth II and many of the women in Britain's aristocracy, died today. He was 93. Sir Hardy, known for his immaculate style and elegant manners, died at his country home in Langford, in the Cotswolds, northwest of London, said Tim Maltin, managing director of Hardy Amies Ltd.

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"Fashion Rules: Restyled," an exhibition featuring a dress display worn by the women from the Royal family will end on January 3, 2017, at the Kensington Palace, London. It's your last opportunity to check out the artworks at this show.

This display of dress from the collections of HM The Queen, Princess Margaret and Diana, Princess of Wales gives the viewer a glimpse into the era-defining style choices of these three royal women. From the 'New Look' glamour of Princess Margaret in the 1950s, the elegance of HM The Queen in the 1970s, and the tailored drama of outfits created for Diana, Princess of Wales in the early 1990s, the display explores how these women reinvented fashion 'rules' set by their predecessors in an individualistic and unique style. The display gives us a look at the Queen's younger sister, Princess Margaret who experimented with fashion and in the 1950s patronized the Paris couturiers to create a distinctive high-glamour silhouette. This was in contrast to the richly decorated wardrobe created for HM The Queen in the 1970s by British couture stalwart Hardy Amies, which reflected a century-long tradition of elegant dresses made of the finest silk, satin and delicately woven chiffon. The 1990s saw a shift towards a more slim-line, tailored look, with dresses from this period a result of collaboration with key designers such as Bruce Oldfield and Catherine Walker to craft a sleek signature look that was adopted by Diana, Princess of Wales.
The exhibition is on view at the Kensington Palace, Kensington Gardens, London W8 4PX, UK. For details, visit: http://www.hrp.org.uk Click on the slideshow for a sneak peek of the exhibition.

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Last Chance: Royal Fashion at Kensington Palace | Artinfo

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"Fashion Rules: Restyled," an exhibition featuring a dress display worn by the women from the Royal family will end on January 3, 2017, at the Kensington Palace, London. It's your last opportunity to check out the artworks at this show.

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Incorporated Society of London Fashion Designers

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Norman Parkinson Ltd/Courtesy Norman Parkinson Archive www.normanparkinson.com Tullie House Museum & Art Gallery Trust

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Hartnell to Amies: Couture by Royal Appointment | Tullie House Museum & Art Gallery

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Exhibition took place 26 October 2013 - 26 January 2014 in the Art Gallery. Gowns, daywear, suits and accessories worn by some of the most glamorous women in Britain.

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When it comes to wedding traditions, the white wedding dress is perhaps the most universally recognisable symbol of marriage. It has a history dating back to the 18th century and it remains the classic look today. The Victoria and Albert Museum's recent major exhibition reveals its fascinating history - and shows that many bridal fashions today are based on designs our grandmothers wore

London's Victoria and Albert Museum began collecting examples of wedding attire in 1900, and its fascinating archive reveals that, while fashions in what we wear to get married may appear to change, many elements we think of as contemporary appear in some of its earliest dresses.

In the 18 th century aristocratic and wealthy brides favoured silver, white or a combination of the two - but then these were also popular colours in typical day dress for these sectors of society. In the 19 th and early 20 th centuries, a white wedding dress was strictly for the well-to-do and most wedding dresses were worn again - usually for Sunday best. Fortunately for fashion historians and archivists, even then some brides chose to preserve them because of their significance.

It is only in the 20 th century that the white wedding dress began to be adopted as a universal wedding costume and its popularity has spread over time

It is only in the 20 th century that the white wedding dress began to be adopted as a universal wedding constume and its popularity has spread over time - fuelled in part by the globalisation of fashion trends. It is the period from 1914 onwards where we see most parallels with today's wedding fashion. Initially, bridal styles followed evening rather than daywear styles, especially during the interwar period (1918-39). In the 1920s, metallic lamés, lace, gold and shell pink fabrics added glamour to dresses, while the classic white satin dress became popular during the uncertain economic years of the 1930s. We also began to see adjustments to the hemline of dresses. Some designs were kneelength during the jazz and flapper years and they also followed the fashionable boyish silhouette of flattened chest and slim hips. In the 1930s - in keeping with tough economic times - the focus was on plain and more practical styles that could be adapted (for instance dyed after the wedding).

Society weddings were a perennial source of fascination. The 1933 wedding of the Duchess of Argyll brought traffic to a standstill outside Brompton Oratory, as people jostled with photographers in a bid to see the bride and her nine attendants. The sheath gown created for her by the young couture designer Norman Hartnell (who would later design for the Royal Family) included a twelve-foot train for maximum impact in the aisle. Trimmings included cutwork orange flowers embellished with pearls and bugle beads.

At the end of the 1930s, there was a distinct change of silhouette. Leg-of-mutton sleeves, pinched waists and a flaring basque - as seen in a wonderful and rare V&A sketch by the House of Paquin - conjure up theatrical glamour that was the hallmark of this period. Wartime meant brides had to be imaginative and practical. While some brides married in suits, a more romantic survivor of this era featured in the exhibition is made of lightweight upholstery fabric dotted with yellow flowers - an innovative solution to the problem of finding enough white fabric in an era of rationing.

Post-war fashion - along with wedding fashion - was hugely influenced by Christian Dior's 1947 debut fashion show, which launched what became known as the 'New Look'. Cost and materials remained an issue in the post-war years in Britain - Hardy Amies' 1953 design looks every inch the 1950s shape, with its nipped in waist and full skirt, but it was created for Britain's Cotton Board to show the glamorous potential of this everyday fabric. Leading London couturiers, such as Amies, Hartnell and John Cavanagh, earned their living and reputation designing for society, but they also reached out to brides on more modest budgets - and many brides made their own dresses, often to patterns created by top designers such as Cavanagh.

There was a distinct return to fairytale styles in the 1980s, while the 1990s revitalised the links between wedding gowns and catwalk fashion. Today, the white wedding dress remains the most popular choice. As Edwina Ehrman, author of The Wedding Dress - the book published in association with the exhibition - puts it: "Women who have worn white for their weddings talk about its romantic, fairy-tale appeal and talismanic qualities, but above all of how it miraculously transformed them into a bride".

Adapted from The Wedding Dress by Edwina Ehrman (V&A Publishing), a book that accompanied a major exhibition 'Wedding Dresses 1775-2014', held at the Victoria & Albert Museum in 2014-15. All images courtesy of Victoria and Albert Museum. vam.ac.uk

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The story of the white wedding dress - Absolutely Weddings

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When it comes to wedding traditions, the white wedding dress is perhaps the most universally recognisable symbol of marriage. It has a history dating back to the 18th century and it remains the classic look today. The Victoria and Albert Museum's recent major exhibition reveals its fascinating history - and shows that many bridal fashions [...]

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Britain Magazine | The official magazine of Visit Britain | Best of British History, Royal Family,Travel and Culture

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A new exhibit opens today at Kensington Palace, which lets you see dresses worn by some of our favourite members of the Royal Family, including the Queen, Princess Margaret and Princess Diana.

Ever wondered how members of the Royal Family decide what to wear at official occasions? We'll give you a clue: little is left to chance.

Fashion Rules: Restyled at Kensington Palace is a reworking of the popular Fashion Rules exhibition and promises to take visitors even further into the wardrobes of HM The Queen, Princess Margaret and Princess Diana - from the 'New Look' glamour of Princess Margaret in the 1950s when her style was so influential that one magazine declared: "What she wears is news", to the glamour of the Queen in the 1970s and the dramatic but no less stylish outfits worn by Princess Diana in the 1990s.

The exhibition will explore how each of the women navigated the fashion rules dictated by their royal duties, while introducing their own spins on fashions and setting new trends in the process.

Many of the dresses have been selected from a collection that incorporates thousands of pieces worn by members of the Royal Family throughout history, including a hunting jacket worn by King Charles I, which are kept in temperature controlled conditions behind the scenes at Kensington Palace, although some come from private collections.

Included in this exhibition is the beaded dress that the Queen chose to wear in the 1977 Silver Jubilee photograph (above) that was used on numerous souvenir articles before being appropriated by the Sex Pistols on the cover of God Save the Queen and by Andy Warhol for his series of screen prints Reigning Queens in 1985.

The exhibition also includes fascinating illustrations that show the design process between couturiers and the royal ladies in question, proving that every outfit was carefully planned.

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Fashion Rules Restyled at Kensington Palace

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Ever wondered how members of the Royal Family decide what to wear at official occasions? We'll give you a clue: little is left to chance.

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Sir Hardy Amies, the Savile Row designer and self-described snob who for decades clothed Queen Elizabeth II and much of Britain's female aristocracy, died Wednesday. He was 93.

Amies, known for his immaculate style and elegant manners, died at his country home in Langford, in the Cotswolds, northwest of London, said Tim Maltin, managing director of Hardy Amies Ltd. He said Amies suffered a heart attack in his sleep.

Born in London, Amies rose from a modest background -- his father was a government worker; his mother worked for a West End dressmaker -- to become sole proprietor of a business worth more than $350 million and to move effortlessly among the titled.

"The queen was very sad to hear of Sir Hardy's death," a statement from Buckingham Palace said. "He contributed to her wardrobe over many years."

While some criticized the monarch's style as dowdy, her couturier derided much modern fashion as designed for magazine covers and ads, and said the queen's dresses suited her.

"She feels that being terribly chic is not friendly to her audience," Amies said in 1999. "She doesn't want to dazzle people."

Amies began working for the couture house Lachasse in the early 1930s, and by decade's end, he was designing the firm's whole collection. He served in the Intelligence Corps during World War II, then returned to London to open his own fashion business on Savile Row.

In 1951, Elizabeth, then a 25-year-old princess, asked him to provide some clothing for her royal tour of Canada. He became the queen's official dressmaker in 1955 and clothed her for 38 years, until his 80th birthday, when his longtime companion, Ken Fleetwood, took over the job.

Amies designed dozens of royal outfits each year, making clever, fluid tailoring his signature.

His style was restrained and conservative, following the maxim that "day clothes must look equally as good at Salisbury station and the Ritz bar." His clients, he said, were "the wives of the men of status" who frequented country and town.

Amies knew what he didn't like: flashy, revealing garb.

"I hate strapless bodices, for example, because any man looking at one thinks, 'How ... does she keep the thing up?' " he said. "Nobody has ever been elegant in a strapless dress because it implies that you're making your bust work for you.... Overexposure of the body is not chic."

Amies, who also designed menswear, counted among his customers the queen's cousin Princess Michael of Kent, Duchess of York Sarah Ferguson and actor Richard Burton's widow, Sally.

Amies continued working after he stepped down as the queen's clothier, selling his company to the British-based Luxury Brands Group in 2001 but remaining active as its life president until his death. The company still dresses the queen.

He was knighted in 1989 and said he was proud to call himself a snob.

"Now, it doesn't mean to say that you're unkind to the lower orders," he said. "Being a snob simply means that I think the top is the best."

Amies had no survivors. Fleetwood died in 1996.

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Hardy Amies, 93; Fashion Designer for Queen Elizabeth

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Sir Hardy Amies, the Savile Row designer and self-described snob who for decades clothed Queen Elizabeth II and much of Britain's female aristocracy, died Wednesday. He was 93. Amies, known for his immaculate style and elegant manners, died at his country home in Langford, in the Cotswolds, northwest of London, said Tim Maltin, managing director of Hardy Amies Ltd.

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Emerging in the mid 1950s in Britain and late 1950s in America, pop art reached its peak in the 1960s. It began as a revolt against the dominant approaches to art and culture and traditional views on what art should be. Young artists felt that what they were taught at art school and what they saw in museums did not have anything to do with their lives or the things they saw around them every day. Instead they turned to sources such as Hollywood movies, advertising, product packaging, pop music and comic books for their imagery.

In 1957 pop artist Richard Hamilton listed the 'characteristics of pop art' in a letter to his friends the architects Peter and Alison Smithson:

Pop Art is: Popular (designed for a mass audience), Transient (short-term solution), Expendable (easily forgotten), Low cost, Mass produced, Young (aimed at youth), Witty, Sexy, Gimmicky, Glamorous, Big business

Modernist critics were horrified by the pop artists' use of such 'low' subject matter and by their apparently uncritical treatment of it. In fact pop both took art into new areas of subject matter and developed new ways of presenting it in art and can be seen as one of the first manifestations of postmodernism.

American pop vs. British pop

Although they were inspired by similar subject matter, British pop is often seen as distinctive from American pop.

Early pop art in Britain was fuelled by American popular culture viewed from a distance, while the American artists were inspired by what they saw and experienced living within that culture.

In the United States, pop style was a return to representational art (art that depicted the visual world in a recognisable way) and the use of hard edges and distinct forms after the painterly looseness of abstract expressionism. By using impersonal, mundane imagery, pop artists also wanted to move away from the emphasis on personal feelings and personal symbolism that characterised abstract expressionism.

In Britain, the movement was more academic in its approach. While employing irony and parody, it focused more on what American popular imagery represented, and its power in manipulating people's lifestyles. The 1950s art group The Independent Group (IG ), is regarded as the precursor to the British Pop art movement.

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Emerging in the mid 1950s in Britain and late 1950s in America, pop art reached its peak in the 1960s. It began as a revolt against the dominant approaches to art and culture and traditional views on what art should be.

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Mary Evans Picture Library - Diamond Jubilee Newsletter

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This special e-newsletter finds us in patriotic mood as the country prepares to celebrate the Queen's Diamond Jubilee this June. Only Queen Victoria, the present Queen's great-great grandmother, has ruled Britain longer, making this an historic event unlikely to be witnessed again in our lifetimes.

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The History of Sindy - Britains Top Teenage Doll By Colette Mansell. When...

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The Metropolitan Museum of Art, i.e. The Met Museum

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Hardy Amies

Designer; born July 17, 1909, died March 5, 2003.

Dressmaker by appointment to the Queen, Sir Hardy Amies was a doyen of elegance and good taste. Beautifully mannered, charming, and, above all, loyal, he helped fashion the Queen's public image with a royal wardrobe for all occasions. In his private life, Sir Hardy made little secret of his sexual preferences. ''I always knew I would never have children,'' he once said. Brought up in the London suburb of Wembley, he was the son of a local government surveyor and a Bond Street seamstress. After leaving school in 1926, he spent four years learning French and German, living and working abroad. When he returned to Britain, he entered the world of dressmaking. By 1934, at the age of 25, he was running the couture house of Lachasse in London. In the Second World War, Amies joined the Intelligence Corps as a private and by the end of the war had been promoted to lieutenant colonel. With victory

came commercial success through the establishment of his own fashion house on Savile Row by early 1946. In 1951, Princess Elizabeth asked him to design some day clothes for her first royal tour. Thus began a long collaboration between the House of Hardy Amies and a sovereign whose gratitude was demonstrated in 1989 when the couturier

was knighted.

Eric Jacobs

Journalist; born January 22, 1936, died February 28, 2003.

Jacobs wrote a widely acclaimed biography of Kingsley Amis and then had a famous falling-out with the latter's novelist son Martin. The literary quarrel concerned Jacobs's publication of diaries he had kept of conversations with Kingsley during the writing of the biography and their subsequent close friendship. Born and brought up in Glasgow, where his father was an eminent surgeon, Jacobs began his journalistic career as as a reporter on the Glasgow Herald. He joined the paper before his older brother Raymond who went on to become the paper's distinguished golf correspondent for more than 30 years. Eric however headed for London where he spent time with the Guardian, the Sunday Times, and Today before deciding to freelance. He is survived by his former wife and two children.

Geoff Brown

Journalist.

Geoff Brown, the former Scottish Television correspondent who has died aged 42, was one of the most familiar faces of the station as he reported on all of the major stories of the day, including the tragedies at Piper Alpha, Lockerbie, and Dunblane. As a Scotland Today regular he patrolled the home affairs brief before becoming the station's crime correspondent and eventually chief reporter. The promotions were in recognition of an outstanding broadcast talent. He started off as a print journalist with the Alloa Advertiser after studying journalism at Napier College in Edinburgh. He was destined for a broadcasting career which started at Radio Forth and then at Radio Scotland. He joined Scottish Television in June 1987.

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In memoriam Brief lives: those we have lost in the past seven days

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Hardy Amies Designer; born July 17, 1909, died March 5, 2003. Dressmaker by appointment to the Queen, Sir Hardy Amies was a doyen of elegance and good taste. Beautifully mannered, charming, and, above all, loyal, he helped fashion the Queen's public image with a royal wardrobe for all occasions.

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Royal couturier Sir Hardy Amies' museum and archive recently opened to the public at number 14 Savile Row. Housed within two elegant showrooms above the firm's existing tailoring business, the museum exhibits some fine examples of Amies' glamorous dress and suit designs - primarily in shades of the designer's signature brown hue.

Amies' 1939 'Made In England' lapel seemed ironically non-British in its audacity - and a precursor to the patriotic, iconic English attitude seen today in the work of designers such as ginger-headed loon Vivienne Westwood. Queen Elizabeth's 1955 Royal warrant sealed Amies' reputation internationally although the label's design submissions for Princess Diana's 1981 wedding dress were unsuccessful. Rightly so, as the chic French museum attendant remarked - would you really want your wedding dress designed by your mother-in-law's couturier?

The museum included many of Amies' personal effects and photographs in addition to sketches produced as costume designer for Stanley Kubrick's film 2001 A Space Odyssey. The archive also featured an amazing collection of leather-bound Vogue issues dating back to the '30s, situated in the Hollywood-style rouge velvet padded alcove overlooking the building's grand staircase where clients rested between fittings.

Amies' total aesthetic code extended to wallpaper design, whose bold graphic style apparently (and unfortunately) never made the production line. The Museum provides a nostalgic view into a far more glamorous era upstairs, while the modern men's tailoring concern downstairs continues to keep alive bespoke Savile Row traditions with your basic suit a snip at just £3500. Dandies, you know it makes sense.

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Royal couturier Sir Hardy Amies' museum and archive recently opened to the public at number 14 Savile Row. Housed within two elegant showrooms above the firm's existing tailoring business, the museum exhibits some fine examples of Amies' glamorous dress and suit designs - primarily in shades of the designer's signature brown hue.

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Britain Magazine | The official magazine of Visit Britain | Best of British History, Royal Family,Travel and Culture

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Exhibition of garments from the collections of The Queen, Princess Margaret and Diana, Princess of Wales displayed at Kensington Palace.

Fashion is a powerful force, with even the royal family bowing to its rule. A fabulously glamourous new exhibition at Kensington Palace charts the sartorial choices of three of the most stylish female royals - and how their dress reflected the vogue of the period.

The elegantly tailored waistlines of The Queen's dresses of the 1950s, the chic short hemlines and jewel-like colours of Princess Margaret's wardrobe of the 1960s and 1970s, and the punches packed by the bold, embellished pieces worn by Diana, Princess of Wales in the 1980s make Fashion Rules a true adventure into royal style.

Photography and film footage will be shown alongside the 21 dresses, resulting in a nostalgic look back at royal fashion from the last six decades. There are a number of quirky facts that younger visitors might find interesting, such as the need for formal royal clothes of the 1950s to be created in pale colours that would stand out on black and white film.

For the show to be held within Kensington Palace is more than fitting, especially as it was once home to both Princess Margaret and Princess Diana.

"The exhibition completes the story of 20th century monarchy at Kensington Palace," says Cassie Davies-Strodder, curator of Fashion Rules. "The Palace is a magical setting to celebrate these modern royal women in their fashion heyday, providing a rare opportunity to get up close to these wonderful dresses and be transported to the times in which they were worn."
The exhibition will run for the next two years. Passes are included in admission price to Kensington Palace.
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Fashion is a powerful force, with even the royal family bowing to its rule. A fabulously glamourous new exhibition at Kensington Palace charts the sartorial choices of three of the most stylish female royals - and how their dress reflected the vogue of the period.

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on Hardy Amies

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British designer

Born: Edwin Hardy Amies in London, 17 July 1909. Education: Studied at Brentwood School to 1927. Career: School teacher, Antibes, 1927; office assistant, Bendorf, Germany, 1928-30; trainee, W. & T. Avery Ltd., Birmingham, England, 1930-34; managing designer, Lachasse, 1934, managing director, 1935-39; served in the British Army Intelligence Corps, 1939-45; lieutenant colonel; head of Special Forces Commission to Belgium, 1944; designed for Worth and for the British government Utility Scheme during the war; established own couture business, Hardy Amies Ltd., 1946; introduced ready-made line, 1950; dressmaker by appointment for HM Queen Elizabeth II, England, from 1955; added menswear, 1959; firm owned by Debenhams, 1973-81, repurchased by Amies, 1981; also designed menswear for Hepworths, from 1961; vice-chairman, 1954-56, and chairman, 1959-60, Incorporated Society of London Fashion Designers. Exhibitions: Court Couture 1992 , exhibition at Kensington Palace, London. Awards: Named Officier de l'Ordre de la Couronne, Belgium, 1946; Royal Warrant awarded, 1955; Harper's Bazaar award, 1962; Caswell-Massey International award, 1962, 1964, 1968; Ambassador Magazine award, 1964; the Sunday Times special award, London, 1965; Commander of the Royal Victorian Order, 1977; Personnalité de l'Année (Haute Couture), Paris, 1986; British Fashion Council Hall of Fame award, 1989; Knight Commander of the Victorian Order, 1989. Address: Hardy Amies Ltd., 14 Savile Row, London W1X 2JN, England.

Books

Here Lived..., Cambridge, 1948.

Just So Far, London, 1954.

The ABC of Men's Fashion, London, 1964.

Still Here, London, 1984.

The Englishman's Suit, London, 1994.

Articles

"A Century of Fashion," in the RSA Journal (London), March 1989.

On AMIES:

Books

Lambert, Eleanor, World of Fashion: People, Places, Resources, New York and London, 1976.

McDowell, Colin, A Hundred Years of Royal Style, London, 1985.

Milbank, Caroline Rennolds, Couture: The Great Designers, New York, 1985.

Stegemeyer, Anne, Who's Who in Fashion, Third Edition, New York, 1996.

Articles

"Hardy Country," in Vogue (London), March 1975.

Boyd, Ann, "Hardy Amies, Haute Couturier," in The Observer (London), 3 February 1980.

Hauptfuhrer, Fred, "Oh, Those Polka Dots! Oh, Those Bows! Hardy Amies Designs Queen Elizabeth's Clothes," in People, 8 October 1984.

"Happy Birthday Mr. Amies," in Vogue (London), July 1989.

Ginsburg, Madeleine, "Tailor-made," in Country Life (London), 13July 1989.

Lambert, Elizabeth, and Derry Moore, "The Reign of Hardy Amies:

The Queen's Couturier in London and Gloucestershire," in Architectual Digest (Los Angeles), September 1989.

"Hardy Perennial," in Fashion Weekly (London), 19 October 1989.

"What's a Couturier to Do?" in Chicago Tribune, 21 May 1990.

"Royal Attire on Exhibit in London Palace," in Chicago Tribune, 20 September 1992.

"The Englishman's Suit," in the Economist (U.S.), 16 July 1994.

Williams, Hugo, "The Englishman's Suit: A Personal View of its History, its Place in the World Today, its Future and the Accessories which Support It," in the Times Literary Supplement (TLS), 22 July 1994.

***

Hardy Amies began his career as a couturier when he was brought in as managing designer at Lachasse, in London, after the departure in 1933 of Digby Morton. He acknowledges that by examining the models left by Morton he learned the construction of tailored suits. The 1930s was an auspicious time for the new generation of London couture houses emerging, for British tailored suit reigned supreme in America. Amies' contribution to the construction of the tailored suit for women was to lower the waistline of the jacket, which he believed Morton had always set too high, thus giving the "total effect of a more important-looking suit." His fashion philosophy, that elegant clothes must have a low waistline, characterized his work ever since and his clothes have always been just above the hipline rather than on the natural waistline. Working on his theory that fashion design should be a process of "evolution rather than revolution," Amies has conceded that his duty as a designer was to vary the cut and design of the tailored suit to make it as feminine as possible, without departing from the canons of good tailoring.

Like his counterparts in the London couture, Amies' work was always tempered by the requirements of the private couture customer who formed the majority of his business. Unlike the Paris couture houses who enjoyed the support of large textile firms and saw the link with couture as a beneficial form of publicity, as well as backing from the French Government for its industrie de luxe, the London couture houses did not benefit from such aid. The main role of the London couture, according to Amies, was not to create avant-garde clothes for publicity purposes but to design for the individual customer.

Amies is perhaps best known for his work for Queen Elizabeth II for whom he began a long association as a royal dressmaker in 1950 when he made several outfits for the then Princess Elizabeth's royal tour to Canada. Although the couture side of the Hardy Amies business was traditionally its less financially successful area, it has nonetheless given his house a degree of respectability as a royal warrant holder. One of his best known creations is the gown he designed in 1977 for Queen Elizabeth's Silver Jubilee portrait which, he said, was "immortalized on a thousand biscuit tins." While Amies' royal patronage clearly enforced his international image, his menswear and related fashion spinoffs (such as licenses) were by far his most sucessful enterprise. His small leather goods, ties, knitwear, and shirts, produced and sold under licensing agreements in various countries including America, Canada, Australia, and Japan, made the Hardy Amies label a household name.

Another side of Amies' work is in corporate uniform designing for the service industries, such as hotels and airlines, where his reputation both as a designer of tailored clothes and his royal association have undoubtedly made him an appealing choice.

Amies weathered the transformation of London's fashion image as the home of the thoroughbred tailored suit to a veritable melting pot of creativity, during a career that spanned more than fifty years. And even after his retirement in 1994, he remained one of Britain's best known establishment designers. Though he has admitted "I'm absolutely astonished at my success," and downplayed his talent, everyone agrees Hardy Aimes has inimitable style.

-Catherine Woram;

updated by Nelly Rhodes

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Sir Hardy Amies - Fashion Designer Encyclopedia

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British designer Born: Edwin Hardy Amies in London, 17 July 1909. Education: Studied at Brentwood School to 1927. Career: School teacher, Antibes, 1927; office assistant, Bendorf, Germany, 1928-30; trainee, W. & T.

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Ford Of Britain 100: Image Of The Week - 30/52

BRENTWOOD, Essex, 27 July 2011 - To celebrate the centenary of Ford of Britain in 2011 the company is exploring its photo archive to reveal rarely seen images.

Ford's unique relationship with Britain and its society will be illustrated each week by specially selected pictures.

Style is timeless and when you are responsible for dressing royalty you have to know about style.

In this week's image, designer for HRH Queen Elizabeth, Hardy Amies used a backdrop of Ford cars to launch his 1973 collection. Mass produced cars may seem a world away from couture clothing but both rely on a high level of style and elegance to make an impact at first sight.

The 1970s marked a key period in design for Ford cars, with the box-type Zephyr Mk lV and Cortina Mkll, giving way to the curves of the Cortina Mklll and Consul Granada, a fact appreciated by Amies when looking for the perfect complement to his chic outfits.

Forty years later, acclaimed fashion designer, Bruce Oldfield, took the Ford fashion connection a step further. In support of Barnardo's, the charity that helped raise him, Oldfield worked with Ford to create a dress made from Ford Streetka parts.

The dress featured 85 Ford Streetka components, including a corset made of fibreglass and skirt made from grille mesh. Valued at £15,000, the dress was auctioned for the UK's leading children's charity during the 2004 London Fashion Week.

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Ford Of Britain 100: Image Of The Week - 30/52

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Ford Of Britain 100: Image Of The Week - 30/52 BRENTWOOD, Essex, 27 July 2011 - To celebrate the centenary of Ford of Britain in 2011 the company is exploring its photo archive to reveal rarely seen images. Ford's unique relationship with Britain and its society will be illustrated each week by specially selected pictures.

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Great British Fashion (2012) : Collect GB Stamps

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Sir Edwin Hardy Amies KCVO (1909-2003) was born in Maida Vale. He became managing director of Mayfair couture house Lachesse in 1934. After World War II he opened his own fashion business in Savile Row. Amies was the first major European fashion designer to venture into ready-to-wear and in 1955 received a Royal Warrant as dressmaker to the Queen.

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Hartnell

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Utility Dress, 1940s, Original | Object Lessons - Conflict & Protest: 20th Century - Present

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CC41' which stands for Civilian Clothing 1941. This shows that the dress was from a government-approved pattern in 1941. The government involved famous fashion designers to make the Utility designs popular. Hardy Amies andNorman Hartnell were among those 1940s designers who created streamlined and stylish dresses with the CC41 Utility Mark.

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Best Model Instagrams New York Fashion Week

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Political Power Dressing All The Stars Were At Raf Simons

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He was Britain's most reknowned couturier and he was dressmaker to the Queen for over 35 years. Now the life and work of Sir Hardy Amies is to be celebrated with an exhibition on Saville Row.

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For decades, Sir Hardy Amies was Britain's top couturier. As the Queen's official dressmaker for almost 50 years, tailoring her coats and suits, women flocked to his Savile Row shop so they would be treated like royalty too.

Lady Heseltine, Lady Parkinson, and Tiggy Legge-Bourke were customers, as well as, less predictably, the film director Stanley Kubrick - Amies designed the costumes for 2001: A Space Odyssey. He designed uniforms for the Oxford University boat club, and made lounge suits for the 1966 World Cup-winning England football team.

When he died in 2003 aged 93, his business continued without him. But recently the firm that bears his name has struggled, despite expansion in Britain and to Japan, and yesterday warned that it might have to go into administration after failing to secure funding from a major shareholder.

In a statement to the stock exchange, the company asked for shares to be suspended while it sorted out its finances.

Its backer, the Icelandic investment firm Arev Brands Limited (ABL), had refused to put up more money, leaving Hardy Amies with a cashflow problem. ABL owns a 49.3% stakeand had provided substantial finance to the group, including £1.5m in loans since April.

"The directors of Hardy Amies were confident the necessary funds would be forthcoming until late [on Thursday], when its major shareholder informed the company it was unable to provide the requisite finance," a spokesman said.The directors said they were considering options, which may mean administration.

Yesterday, the prospect of life without Hardy Amies did not come as a surprise to the fashion world.

Designer Jeff Banks, who knew Amies, said the brand's clothes had become "distinctly mumsy" of late, and that the firm had failed to understand its customers.

"In its heyday, in the 1950s, I think that the Hardy Amies look was a British version of Audrey Hepburn or Jackie Onassis - really elegant and classy," said Jeff Banks, who had known the designer.

"Lately, Hardy Amies fell between two stools. If you look at who they are aiming at, really it is women in their 70s. But the thing is, mature women these days do not feel their age. They feel at least 15 years younger. They don't want to dress like the Queen Mum, they want to dress like Sex in the City," said Banks.

"Hardy Amies clothes had become distinctly mumsy, and that, I think, has been its downfall."

Richard Dennen, features associate at Tatler, said: "I'm not at all surprised the company is in trouble because I can't imagine anyone who would buy their clothes. They opened a shop on the Fulham Road in London last year doing Ready To Wear, and every time I have walked past it has been completely empty. The clothes are hideous and not very well cut. I don't know who their market is supposed to be.

"I think they have completely lost their way. Couture was their thing, catering for rich old dowagers, but they have tried to make the clothes more modern and edgy and 21st century, which is not what their customers want.

"Burberry is an example of a heritage firm that has succeeded where Hardy Amies has failed. Their clothes are really classic but really cool at the same time - they're really rocking it."

Hardy Amies has had losses for several years, and warned in June that poor sales would see them acceleratethis year and into 2009. It reported underlying losses of £1.1m in 2007, although this was better than the £1.8m loss the year before, thanks to a 35% surge in sales.

The group has six outlets across the UK, one at Bristol's new Cabot Circus shopping centre. It is also stocked in dozens of stores nationwide, including Harvey Nichols.

After working in British intelligence organising the resistance in Europe during the war, Amies founded his firm in 1946, first as a men's tailor at 14 Savile Row, still the group's flagship premises.

His 1946 collection prefigured Christian Dior's celebrated "New Look" - long, wide skirts underpropped by petticoats, and tiny waists constricted by corsets. His designs were "exactly what were to become the components of the New Look; but they lacked Dior's impact because shortages [due to wartime rationing] made it impossible for Amies to give his designs the extravagance which characterised those of the French house", said the fashion journalist Colin McDowell in an obituary.

* Amies first designed for the Queen in 1952; the Royal Warrant lapsed in 1996 when he retired.

Backstory

A range of designers have been favoured by the Royal family over the years. Princess Margaret, perhaps the most convincing Royal style icon, was a fan of Dior, and once stated her favourite dress of all was a white strapless tulle creation by the French designer. British designers were often favoured by Princess Diana whose favourites included Arabella Pollen, Bruce Oldfield, Amanda Wakeley and Catherine Walker. Her wedding gown was designed by husband and wife team David and Elizabeth Emanuel. "I always think of a beautiful butterfly emerging from a chrysalis," Elizabeth later said of the dress. The Princess of Wales never underestimated the power of a well-cut cloth, as was apparent the morning after Prince Charles' damaging interview with Jonathan Dimbleby, when she wore a stunning black dress by Christina Stambolian that became known as the "Revenge Dress". Never famed for his sartorial elegance, Prince Charles reportedly eschewed bespoke tailors Anderson & Sheppard in 2006, to become the first heir to the throne in modern times to buy made-to-measure, and considerably cheaper, suits.
Topics

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Queen's dressmaker warns it may go under

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For decades, Sir Hardy Amies was Britain's top couturier. As the Queen's official dressmaker for almost 50 years, tailoring her coats and suits, women flocked to his Savile Row shop so they would be treated like royalty too.

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Exhibition Review: Hartnell to Amies: Couture By Royal Appointment @ The Fashion and Textile Museum

Before we all got excited about the Olympics in the summer, London 2012 was all about the Queen's Jubilee. The Fashion and Textile Museum in Bermondsey has arrived a little late to the royal party with their new exhibition dedicated to two prominent royal dress designers, Norman Hartnell and Hardy Amies.

This isn't a display of the Queen's dresses, despite what the show's title might have you believe. Instead, we have a display of around 50 couture outfits showing off the incredible skills of two designers Liz favoured and examining how these two British titans helped establish London as an international fashion centre after the Second World War.

The show flows in chronological order from early spangly, Jazz-age numbers, through the austerity 30s to the flourishing 50s, the mini-skirted 60s to the Princess Di-inspired 80s. Theatre-loving Hartnell opened his Mayfair couture house in 1923, and won his first royal client in 1935. By 1947, he was famously designing the Queen's wedding dress and coronation dress of 1953. Amies enjoyed the patronage of the Queen for five decades; starting when she was a tweed-clad princess to more recent pristine pink creations.

While the exhibition features some sumptuous special occasion-wear (exquisite wedding dresses and ball gowns of the aristocracy), there's also enough more ordinary day-wear to keep the show from slipping into overwhelming glamour. Instead, we get a (partial) picture of Britain's social history through the clothes women wore; changing your outfit for an evening's entertainment in the 30s; showing off your new-found knees in the 60s; buttoning up again in 80s power suits. Gorgeous pencil drawings and sketches show off the designers' processes and techniques. You're also able to get up close to some of that famous Hartnell embroidery and embellishment. What's clear is that Hartnell and Amies moved and flourished with the times. Their forward-thinking creativity, dropping a hemline here, embellishing a collar there helped move London ahead of Paris as the fashion centre of the world; their legacy, the current state fashion industry (with the resurgence of British heritage brands, traditional tailoring and dressmaking) provides food for thought at the end of the exhibition.

There's also a nice section on hats by the Australian-born milliner Frederick Fox; once again the process and craft of fashion design, in this case hat-making, is highlighted in this interesting show.
Hartnell to Amies: Couture By Royal Appointment is at The Fashion and Textile Museum, 83 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3XF, from 16 November to 23 February 2013; from Tuesday-Saturday; from 11am-6pm; last admission 5.15pm. Tickets cost £7 for adults, £5 for students and concessions, free entry for under 12s. Visit ftmlondon.org to find out more. Lovely pics copyright Norman Parkinson Ltd / Courtesy Norman Parkinson archive. Dodgy photos: author's own. More here.

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Exhibition Review: Hartnell to Amies: Couture By Royal Appointment @ The Fashion and Textile Museum

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Exhibition Review: Hartnell to Amies: Couture By Royal Appointment @ The Fashion and Textile Museum Before we all got excited about the Olympics in the summer, London 2012 was all about the Queen's Jubilee. The Fashion and Textile Museum in Bermondsey has arrived a little late to the royal party with their new exhibition dedicated to two prominent royal dress designers, Norman Hartnell and Hardy Amies.

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Dressmaker to the Queen with a sumptuous line in menswear.

BY Luke Leitch | 07 September 2012

In the decade since his death, the fashion house founded by Hardy Amies has endured, but sometimes only barely. Amies was, of course, best-known as dressmaker to the Queen: he once bestowed the insight that Her Majesty's clothes so rarely wrinkle because "she's not a wriggler".

So after his passing in 2003, aged 93, the investors to whom Amies had sold his business a few years previously tried to capitalise on that fame by emphasising womenswear - a tactic that unravelled in 2008 when the company went into administration.

READ: Mencyclopaedia: Berluti

Now, the enormous townhouse at 14 Savile Row that Amies purchased (with the backing of Cary Grant's freshly alimonied ex-wife, Virginia Cherril) in 1947 is buzzing again - but it is a soft, very particular type of buzz. The house, sumptuously restored in 2009, receives a steady trickle of bespoke customers - perhaps three one week, nine the next - who come for perfectly executed Amies-labelled suiting (from £2,400) tailored by two-decade Savile Row veteran Stuart Lamprell.

Thornsgate Tort glasses £240

Upstairs, past the glass-cabinet displays of newly produced Hardy Amies "eyewear" - each style of glasses is named after a Maida Vale street as a nod to Amies's birthplace - there are two showrooms full of top-notch menswear. Both collections are overseen by Claire Malcolm, a thirty-ish designer who used to work with Kim Jones (now menswear designer for Louis Vuitton) and down the road at E. Tautz (previously Mencyclopaedia'd).

READ: Mencyclopaedia: Persol

Lots of it is really lovely: especially the canvassed linen military jackets in the "diffusion" (that's fashion-speak for less expensive) London collection, and the lustrous trenchcoats and suiting (some in a pulsating print based on a Crimean War-vintage blanket) in the main collection.

Frustratingly, however, unless you have access to Bloomingdale's in New York or are a regular visitor to Asia, it is as yet impossible to buy these clothes. This is because Hardy Amies's new owner (a Hong Kong-based family investment fund named Fung Capital) is only at the beginning of its campaign to license the Malcolm-revitalised brand to department stores around the world.

The townhouse on Savile Row

I hope they succeed, not only because the clothes are so fine, but because Amies himself was a pioneer of this sort of thing. After testing the water with Italian ties in the late Fifties, he licensed other companies around the world to sell Amies-branded menswear, ranging from pyjamas and felt hats to shirts and shoes (which in the early Seventies featured a two-inch heel). During the Sixties, his suit collection for Leeds-based Hepworths was worth £10 million a year, and Amies sold 20 times more menswear than he did womenswear - despite that association with the Queen.

Half-a-century on, these kind of licensing deals are everywhere: when you read about some celebrity "designing" clothes, the truth often is that they have sold a rag-trader the right to flog clobber with their name on it.

Which is why, instead of being swayed by labels, the most reliable way to find clothes you are happy with is to follow Amies's excellent advice: "one golden rule applies: if it looks right, it is right. You can judge for yourself in the glass."

Need to know
Get it at: Visit 14 Savile Row for bespoke suits or simply to see one of the street's most beautiful houses. Visit Bloomingdale's to buy the ready-to-wear, or wait until it becomes available in Britain. You can see the clothes at hardyamies.com.

Also notable: Amies served as head of the Belgian section of the Special Operations Executive during the Second Word War, and tailored his own uniform.

Read more of Luke Leitch's columns

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Dressmaker to the Queen with a sumptuous line in menswear. BY Luke Leitch | 07 September 2012 In the decade since his death, the fashion house founded by Hardy Amies has endured, but sometimes only barely. Amies was, of course, best-known as dressmaker to the Queen: he once bestowed the insight that Her Majesty's clothes so rarely wrinkle because "she's not a wriggler".

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Clothes were rationed in Britain from 1 June 1941. This limited the amount of new garments people could buy until 1949, four years after the war's end.

Despite the limitations imposed by rationing, clothing retailers sought to retain and even expand their customer base during the Second World War. Britain's high street adapted in response to wartime conditions, and this was reflected in their retail ranges. The government intervened in the mass manufacture of high street fashions with the arrival of the Utility clothing scheme in 1942.

Shoppers carefully spent their precious clothing coupons and money on new clothes to make sure their purchases would be suitable across spring, summer and autumn and winter. Despite the restrictions, the war and civilian austerity did not put an end to creative design, commercial opportunism or fashionable trends on the British home front.

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How Clothes Rationing Affected Fashion In The Second World War

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Clothes were rationed in Britain from 1 June 1941. This limited the amount of new garments people could buy until 1949, four years after the war's end. Despite the limitations imposed by rationing, clothing retailers sought to retain and even expand their customer base during the Second World War.

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The Queen may be 90, but there is little doubt she is still the ultimate style icon - as a new exhibition reveals

Fashioning A Reign: 90 Years Of Style From The Queen's Wardrobe at Buckingham Palace opens today

It shows off almost 80 of her outfits and 62 of her iconic hats. Here, we take a look at a glorious selection...

Her bright suits and bold hats put the Duchess of Cambridge's nude court shoes in the shade. The Queen may have turned 90, but there is little doubt she is still the ultimate style icon, as a new exhibition at Buckingham Palace from tomorrow reveals.

Her Majesty wears jewel-coloured outfits to ensure she can be seen by her subjects - and even uses them as a tool of diplomacy. Who knew that she dresses to echo the flag of the country she is visiting so as to flatter her hosts, and sometimes even has their national emblem sewn into them?

Fashioning A Reign: 90 Years Of Style From The Queen's Wardrobe shows off almost 80 of her outfits and 62 of her iconic hats. Here, we take a look at a glorious selection...

THE ONE-SHOULDERED DRESS

Made from duchesse satin, lace, sequins, diamante and beads, this asymmetric crinoline-skirted gown of pale yellow and turquoise - made by Sir Norman Hartnell, her favourite couturier of the time - is a perfect example of the Queen's Fifties fashions.

Worn on a state visit to the Netherlands in 1958, it features a one-shouldered bodice, the line of which is continued by a gathered panel of satin across the skirt.

The dress is appliqued with tape lace forming stylised floral motifs and is richly embroidered with heavy beading.

This, says the Royal Collection, is another perfect example of the Queen's unique championing of British couture.

THE INVESTITURE OUTFIT

An ensemble that bears all the hallmarks of Sixties fashion: the princess-line coat hides a tunic as well as an underdress.

Made in a striking pale primrose yellow, the silk outfit also includes pearls, bugle beads and embroidery on the cuffs, collar and hem.

The most interesting thing about it, however, is the matching hat made by a favourite milliner of the time, Simone Mirman.

Her Majesty took inspiration from the medieval age, which suited the surroundings of Caernarvon Castle, where the Queen was investing her son and heir, Prince Charles, as Prince of Wales in July 1969.

The section at the back of the hat represents a 'caul', a form of head-dress covering the hair and hung down over the neck.

'The philosophy behind the design is that the Queen would largely be seen from behind as she placed the coronet on the prince's head, so having good design from the back was just as important as the outfit looking successful from the front,' says exhibition curator Caroline de Guitaut.

THE OFFICIAL PORTRAIT GOWN

With its crinoline-style skirt, nipped-in waist and sweetheart neckline, this gown - a highlight of the exhibition - is a perfect example of the Queen's style in the Fifties.

Made by Sir Norman Hartnell, the Queen wore it in 1956 for a series of official portraits taken by Baron Studios.

It was fashioned from oyster-coloured duchesse satin and gold lamé, embellished with diamante, pearls, sequins and beads in tones of gold and silver.

'This is about beauty, about the best of British, about elegance,' says Caroline de Guitaut. 'It is another superb example of British couture, which the Queen champions.'

GOWN FIT FOR A HISTORIC VISIT

Designed by Savile Row's Hardy Amies, the Queen first wore this turquoise dress in 1965 when she became the first British head of state to visit Germany after World War II. It is made from organza silk, sequins, silver thread, beads and pearls and was worn to an official state banquet.

The ornate embroidery over the bodice was inspired by the Rococo interiors of the palaces at Schloss Bruhl, which Amies researched prior to the Queen's visit.

Her Majesty loved the dress so much so that (with her usual eye for economy), she wore it again for an official portrait by Cecil Beaton in the White Drawing Room at Buckingham Palace in 1968.

THE QUEEN'S WEDDING DRESS

When commissioned to design Princess Elizabeth's 1947 wedding dress, Sir Norman Hartnell set out to produce 'the most beautiful dress I had made so far'. His magnificent creation is in ivory silk, decorated with crystals and 10,000 seed pearls.

The silkworms used to manufacture the fabric were brought from China, rather than Japan or Italy, which had so recently been enemy countries, and the gown incorporated a 15ft star-patterned train, woven in Braintree, Essex, and inspired by the famous Renaissance painting of Primavera by Botticelli, symbolising rebirth and growth after World War II.

The accompanying shoes are tiny. Her shoe size has never been officially revealed, but is believed to be a two-and-a-half to three.

THE CORONATION DRESS

The Queen's 1953 Normal Hartnell-designed Coronation dress is regarded as a tour de force of British design.

The duchesse satin gown, which took eight months to design and create, features national and Commonwealth floral emblems in gold and silver thread, encrusted with seed pearls, sequins and crystals. It had to be reinforced to support the weight of the embroidery. Unbeknown to the Queen, Hartnell added a four-leaf shamrock on the left of the skirt for luck, and was delighted to see her hand brush it as she walked into Westminster Abbey.

'The Queen wanted a dress that would stand up to the occasion - it was the first coronation fully televised - and the dress she chose was the eighth of nine he sketched. It is timeless,' said exhibition curator Caroline de Guitaut.

THE QUEEN'S JUBILEE STYLE

One section of the exhibition is devoted to an example of the Queen's style from each decade of her life - and this green Hartnell silk dress is typical of the Seventies.

Along with a matching silk and straw Simone Mirman hat, it was worn by Queen on several occasions during her Silver Jubilee tour in 1977, when she travelled the length and breadth of the United Kingdom before heading overseas.

The soft silhouette, bow-tie neck and floral print silk are all hallmarks of Seventies design.

'There is a strong print, and the dress is made of lightweight silk for the sake of practicality,' observes the curator of the exhibition..

Among the most globally recognisable outfits on show is the dress worn by the Queen at the London 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony.

The gown was designed by the Queen's senior dresser, Angela Kelly, and made from silk in a peachy-pink colour, embellished with lace, sequins and beads, with matching feather fascinator.

Caroline de Guitaut says: 'The philosophy behind the design was to have a colour that wouldn't in any way be representative of any of the countries participating in the Games and also to have striking, strong design lines, so the illusion of the Queen supposedly jumping [out of a plane at the ceremony] wouldn't be lost.'

Fashioning A Reign can be seen at Buckingham Palace from tomorrow to October 2. For ticket details, visit royalcollection.org.uk

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Dresses that ruled Britain: Secrets of the Queen's outfits revealed

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The Queen may be 90, but there is little doubt she is still the ultimate style icon - as a new exhibition reveals Fashioning A Reign: 90 Years Of Style From The Queen's Wardrobe at Buckingham Palace opens today It shows off almost 80 of her outfits and 62 of her iconic hats.

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(Image: PA)

British fashion is to get the stamp of approval in a new Royal Mail collection out tomorrow.

A set of ten stamps celebrating the best of UK couture from the Queen's favourite designer Hardy Amies to the queen of cutting edge Vivienne Westwood are showcased.

Each first class stamp bears an iconic design from each of the fashion houses from an extravagant, black feather number from Alexander McQueen to a sharp, electric blue suit from Paul Smith.

Westwood harks back to 1993 with her signature harlequin dress, Amies has a chic, fitted skirt suit with leather gloves and Ossie Clark a vibrant, floaty hippy number.

Shot by top fashion photographer Solve Sundsbo, some outfits like Tommy Nutter's three piece suit for Beatles drummer Ringo Starr were recreated just for the stamp.

Royal Mail spokesman Philip Parker said: "Britain is famous around the world for the creative vision of its fashion designers, from the glamour and sophistication of Norman Hartnell, the punk influence of Vivienne Westwood, through to the world-class designs of Alexander McQueen

"So it is an honour to be able to pay homage to some of the designers who made the industry what it is today."

Claire Wilcox, senior fashion curator at the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A), said: "The V&A has the national collection of fashion in the UK and remains a source of inspiration to many fashion designers.

"Britain's contribution to fashion has never been stronger.

"We were delighted to advise on the Royal Mail series of stamps to celebrate many of our most influential designers."

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Stamped and ad-dress-ed: British fashion designers celebrated in new stamp collection

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British fashion is to get the stamp of approval in a new Royal Mail collection out tomorrow. A set of ten stamps celebrating the best of UK couture from the Queen's favourite designer Hardy Amies to the queen of cutting edge Vivienne Westwood are showcased.

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Skip to main content ✕ Coronavirus update: London has moved into Tier 2 - the high alert level - from Saturday 17 October. You are here: Home About usLondon is the home of menswear Menswear is booming in the UK. The industry is worth £10bn to our economy according to Mintel.

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Life may have been on pause recently, but that doesn't mean you can't start dreaming of exploring our beautiful countryside, wandering our sandy shores and discovering our historic landmarks once more.

Our traditional pubs, stately homes and glorious gardens are reopening, ready to give you a warm British welcome once again. In the meantime, you can still delve into our heritage, revel in our culture, and dig into our foodie delights from afar. Check out our latest articles or hop on over to our social channels for more tips, trivia and travel inspiration - it's all you need to imagine a true taste of Britain.

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Life may have been on pause recently, but that doesn't mean you can't start dreaming of exploring our beautiful countryside, wandering our sandy shores and discovering our historic landmarks once more. Our traditional pubs, stately homes and glorious gardens are reopening, ready to give you a warm British welcome once again.

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How did the fashionable woman of the Second World War and post war era manage to remain chic in a climate of rationing?

Using sources fromThe National Archives, this talk will consider the fashion industry of the time and reveal how designers Norman Hartnell and Hardy Amies not only contributed to the war effort, but made a lasting impact on British style.

Robert Daoust joined The National Archives as a Web Designer in 1999. He holds a BA in Fine Arts and an MA in Design for Interactive Media.
Cost: Free of Charge
Meeting point to be confirmed

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fashion or ration hartnell amies and dressing for the blitz

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Fashion or Ration Hartnell Amies and dressing for the Blitz

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How did the fashionable woman of the Second World War and post war era manage to remain chic in a climate of rationing? Using sources fromThe National Archives, this talk will consider the fashion industry of the time and reveal how designers Norman Hartnell and Hardy Amies not only contributed to the war effort, but made a lasting impact on British style.

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British stamps for 2012

2011 2013

2012 First Day Cover Checklist 2012 Presentation Pack Checklist 2012 Stamp Checklist

Roald Dahl (1916-1990) was one of the world's most imaginative, successful and loved storytellers. His stories are currently published in 49 languages worldwide. They continue to inspire the world's most creative collaborators, resulting in wonderful new movie adaptations, classical music, opera, plays and musicals. On 13 September 2006, the first national Roald Dahl Day was celebrated - on what would have been Roald's 90th birthday. Response to the event was so phenomenal that Roald Dahl Day is now marked annually, throughout the world. Over 100 million copies of Roald Dahl books have been sold globally. The RSC version of MATILDA - book by Dennis Kelly, music and lyrics by Tim Minchin - is running in London's West End. 2012 marks 30 years since Roald Dahl's classic book, THE BFG, was first published.
2012 (January 10 2012)
Commemorative

Roald Dahl at Wikipedia

2012 (April 10 2012)
Commemorative

2012 (April 10 2012)

Titanic at Royal Mail

The landscape stamp, which originally appeared as part of the Flags and Ensigns Miniature Sheet in 2001, was later reformatted and issued in definitive size for the Smilers® range in 2005 when it was also issued in a retail stamp book.
2012 (May 21 2012)

2012 (July 27 2012)
Commemorative

2012 (September 1 2012)
Commemorative

Royal Mail rounds off its British Farm Animals series of Post & Go stamps with its third and final issue featuring six examples of cattle breeds found in the British Isles.
2012 (September 28 2012)

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British Stamps for 2012 : Collect GB Stamps

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2011 2013 2012 First Day Cover Checklist 2012 Presentation Pack Checklist 2012 Stamp Checklist Roald Dahl (1916-1990) was one of the world's most imaginative, successful and loved storytellers. His stories are currently published in 49 languages worldwide. They continue to inspire the world's most creative collaborators, resulting in wonderful new movie adaptations, classical music, opera, plays and musicals.

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DESPITE showing creative promise of late with exquisite couture collections by creative director Ian Garlant, Hardy Amies has filed a notice of intention to appoint an administrator after failing to agree a rescue plan for its business, which has long been mired in financial woes.

Last week it was revealed that major investor Arev had backed out of a funding deal and trading in the company's shares were suspended; this morning, the label confirmed it was to go into administration.

The Savile Row-based firm was once the toast of Britain, with its eponymous founder famed for his role as official dressmaker to the Queen (and later, Diana, Princess of Wales), and able to boast a value of £200 million. It lost direction, however, in 2000 when it was sold to Luxury Brands Group and Amies retired the following year. The designer died, aged 93, in March 2003.

In spite of today's announcement the company is in "ongoing discussions with various parties about the future of the business", according to Drapers.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT HARDY AMIES IN WHO'S WHO

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DESPITE showing creative promise of late with exquisite couture collections by creative director Ian Garlant, Hardy Amies has filed a notice of intention to appoint an administrator after failing to agree a rescue plan for its business, which has long been mired in financial woes.

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HARDY AMIES is to return to its sartorial roots - producing only men's suits. The beloved British label was famously favoured by the Queen before it collapsed in 2008 following expansion plans into ready-to-wear clothes for men and women. According to the Daily Telegraph today, the Savile Row fashion house - founded by Amies in 1946 - has decided to focus on bespoke suits and made-to-measure dinner jackets in a bid to avoid further financial problems. Following its collapse in 2008, the company was rescued by Hong Kong-based entrepreneurs Victor and William Fung.

YOU SHOULD READ: Hardy Amies' biography...

TODAY IN HISTORY: Who did Vivienne Westwood say had "appalling" dress sense?

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HARDY AMIES is to return to its sartorial roots - producing only men's suits. The beloved British label was famously favoured by the Queen before it collapsed in 2008 following expansion plans into ready-to-wear clothes for men and women.

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HARDY Amies

, the fashion house that dressed the Queen for more than 30 years, said today it may go into administration after a major shareholder was unable to meet its request for more funds.

The firm's shares were suspended on the Alternative Investment Market on Friday after it said

Arev Brands

could not offer any more financial support.

"The directors are considering the options for the company in the light of this news, which may involve placing Hardy Amies into administration," it said in a statement.

A steady stream of Britain's retailers have gone into administration this year as shoppers cut spending amid rising food, fuel and mortgage costs.

Furniture importer and supplier

Willis Gambier

said yesterday it had gone into administration, following companies such as shoe seller

Dolcis

, clothing chain

Ethel Austin

and beds retailer

Sleep Depot

.

Hardy Amies was appointed official dressmaker to the Queen in 1955.

In a long career on London's renowned tailoring thoroughfare, Savile Row, he dressed pop stars like the Beatles and Rolling Stones and designed suits for England's winning 1966 World Cup soccer team, as well as costumes for films, including "2001: A Space Odyssey."

He died in 2003 at the age of 93.

Shares in Hardy Amies closed at 1.25p yesterday, valuing the business at about £2.8m.

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HARDY Amies, the fashion house that dressed the Queen for more than 30 years, said today it may go into administration after a major shareholder was unable to meet its request for more funds. The firm's shares were suspended on the Alternative Investment Market on Friday after it said Arev Brands could not offer any more financial support.

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Chelsea boot

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The company sells more than 50 million pairs of shoes a year, turns over almost £1.4billion and employs some 15,000 people around the world. But it is still based in Street, Somerset and remains resolutely committed to its Quaker roots. Here's an extract from my new book, a history of the firm and the family behind it.

l C & J Clark was founded in 1825 by two brothers, Cyrus and James, who came from a Quaker family in Street, Somerset.

They were in the woollen rug trade but one day James started making slippers from off-cuts of the rugs.

These slippers were called Brown Peters but no one knows why. The public loved them and an iconic brand was born.

l At the age of 18 James travelled all over the country selling his wares, restricting himself to what he called a "modest four glasses of port" after dinner until one day he gave up alcohol altogether and became an early member of the Temperance Society.

l Clarks was producing 60 lines of ready-made (rather than bespoke) footwear in 1835, including children's shoes for the first time.

l Quakers took a dim view of debt but the Clark brothers - who were hopeless accountants - soon found themselves strapped for cash and began borrowing from the bank after taking money out of the company to build houses.

l Such was their financial predicament that in 1842 a cousin suggested that they should emigrate to Australia.
Instead Quaker friends and family bailed them out.

l Queen Victoria visited the company's stand at the Great Exhibition of 1851.

l During the Crimean War the government wanted to pay Clarks to provide sheepskin coats for the troops. As pacifists the family refused but then changed their minds, using any profits to build a school in Street.

l By 1863 Clarks was almost bankrupt. ther Quaker businesses came to their rescue but on the proviso that Cyrus and James would relinquish day-to-day control to be replaced by James's son William, who was 24 at the time.

Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret both wore Clarks shoes on an official tour of South Africa in 1947

l William revolutionised shoemaking, introducing machinery into the process for the first time. Clarks was an early pioneer of rubber soling.

l In 1874 a former Clarks employee set up a rival company in Street but it did not last long.

l The only strike in Clarks' history lasted two weeks in 1880.

l Such was the moral code at Clarks that if a male employee married a woman who was pregnant he was not entitled to time off for a honeymoon. And missing work through venereal disease didn't qualify for sick pay.

l William Clark built a house called Millfield. It is now part of Millfield school, which England's rugby captain Chris Robshaw attended.

l Clarks owned The Bear Inn opposite the factory for more than 100 years but it only gained a licence to sell alcohol in the 1970s.

l The town of Street grew on the back of Clarks. The company opened a library and theatre, built a public swimming pool and public hall and allowed its land to be used for sports fields.

l In the 1880s, Clarks shoes were sold in boxes for the first time and a range of width fittings was introduced.

l Alice Clark, William's daughter and a partner in the firm, was an author and active campaigner for women's suffrage. Towards the end of her life she converted
from Quakerism to become a Christian Scientist.

l William's grandson Bancroft married the daughter of Field Marshall Jan Smuts, the South African statesman who occupies a plinth in Parliament Square.

l Margaret Lockwood, Anna Neagle, Greta Garbo, Norma Shearer and Marlene Dietrich all modelled Clarks shoes, as did David Beckham during his early years at Manchester United.

l Clarks did not have any of its own shops until 1935. In the beginning it supplied independent stores and then started the Peter Lord chain. Dedicated Clarks shops as we know them today did not appear on British high streets until 1984.

l Clarks started its own newspaper Clarks Courier in 1957.

l The single word Clarks (with no apostrophe) was registered as a trademark in the Twenties, with strong objections from a firm called Clarks of Kilmarnock.

l Clarks's first national advertisig campaign was launched in 1933 when Edward Kauffer, known for his cubism, was commissioned to produce posters.
Three insertions ran first in the Daily Express in 1937 with the strapline "Selling the name of Clarks."

l During the Second World War Clarks provided footwear for the troops and the American government sent over worn army boots to be taken apart and welted with rubber soles and heels. American servicemen said they were more comfortable than the originals.

l Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret both wore Clarks shoes on an official tour of South Africa in 1947.

l Nathan Clark, grandson of William, came up with the idea of the desert boot while serving in Burma with the Royal Army Service Corps. At the time no one in Street was interested but in 1949 the fashion editor of Esquire in New York took up the cause. Since then more than 10 million pairs have been sold in more than 100 countries. Noel Gallagher of Oasis was so taken by the desert boot that he created his own version as part of his Pretty Green clothing label.

l Clarks provided Honor Blackman with her shiny thigh?high boots for the role of Cathy Gale in ITV's The Avengers series.

l Sir Hardy Amies was appointed a consultant to Clarks in 1963 and produced a variation of the Chelsea Boot.

l Clarks bought Ravel, Mondaine and Pinet.

l Clarks shoe museum opened in the Street in 1974. Among the collection are 20,000 shoes which date back to Roman times.

l In 1974 Miss World was invited to Street for a special fitting of casual shoes. "Gee, they're wonderful," she said.

l Clarks employed Peter Wallis as a consultant during the Eighties. He is better known as Peter York, author of The Sloane Ranger's Handbook.

l In the late Seventies and early Eighties Clarks was again in dire straits. It was no longer viable to make shoes in Britain but the idea of importing from overseas was against everything the company stood for. Even so factories started to be closed down.

l In an attempt to see off the opposition Clarks acquired K Shoes in 1980 for £22million. It meant that Clarks and K had almost 800 shops in the UK.

l By the start of 1988 Clarks was barely making a profit. Various members of the family wanted a change at the top. Factories were closing and sales were down.
Matters came to a head when Walter Dickson, who was not a family member, was appointed chairman. Rival factions emerged and it became clear that Dickson and the board were contemplating selling the company. Hugh Pym of the BBC, whose mother is a Clark, led a campaign to keep the company privately owned. On May 7 at the Royal Bath and West Showground in Shepton Mallet, shareholders voted by the slimmest of margins not to sell.

l Clarks Village, the first retail outlet centre in Britain, opened in August 1993 and is now one of Somerset's most popular tourist attractions.

l Tim Parker, who went on to be a short-lived deputy mayor to Boris Johnson, was hired in 1995 as chief executive. Within 10 years of his appointment every single Clarks factory in Britain and elsewhere in the world was closed. Clarks shoes today are made mainly in China and Vietnam but are still designed in Street.

l The new warehouse in Street can ship and receive up to a million pairs of shoes a day and has a capacity to stock five million pairs.

l All K shoe shops were phased out in 2000.

l To order Clarks: Made To Last by Mark Palmer (Profile Books) at £20 with free UK delivery, please send a cheque or PO made payable to Express Bookshop to: Clarks Offer, PO Box 200, Falmouth TR11 4WJ or call 0871 988 8367 or buy online at www.expressbookshop.com. Calls cost 10p per minute from UK landlines.

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Sign up for FREE now and never miss the top Royal stories again. We will use your email address only for sending you newsletters. Please see our Privacy Notice for details of your data protection rights. The company sells more than 50 million pairs of shoes a year, turns over almost £1.4billion and employs some 15,000 people around the world.

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Hardy Amies Returns to Its Savile Row Roots
by Jared Paul Stern -
Hardy Amies, the firm named for the British couturier who opened a shop on Savile Row in 1946 and went on to design gowns for the Queen of England, is returning to its men's tailoring roots. The move comes after the company nearly went bankrupt in 2008 following an ill-timed expansion into ready-to-wear women's clothing and accessories, while the original bespoke business was neglected. On Monday the company announced that in a bid to avoid further financial problems it was returning to its founder's original purpose, and wwill now concentrate on being "the quintessential English tailor" providing fine tweeds and bespoke suits to well-heeled gentlemen. A bespoke suit, the company said, would start from about $5,400. The company's new owners are the investment arm of the £8 billion global trading company run by brothers Victor and William Fung. Sir Hardy Amies himself died in 2003 at the robust age of 93.

Hard times on Savile Row as dressmaker to the Queen warns it may go under* Hardy Amies may go into administration
* Top couturier designed for film directors and royals

Helen Pidd The Guardian, Saturday 27 September 2008

For decades, Sir Hardy Amies was Britain's top couturier. As the Queen's official dressmaker for almost 50 years, tailoring her coats and suits, women flocked to his Savile Row shop so they would be treated like royalty too.

Lady Heseltine, Lady Parkinson, and Tiggy Legge-Bourke were customers, as well as, less predictably, the film director Stanley Kubrick - Amies designed the costumes for 2001: A Space Odyssey. He designed uniforms for the Oxford University boat club, and made lounge suits for the 1966 World Cup-winning England football team.

When he died in 2003 aged 93, his business continued without him. But recently the firm that bears his name has struggled, despite expansion in Britain and to Japan, and yesterday warned that it might have to go into administration after failing to secure funding from a major shareholder.

In a statement to the stock exchange, the company asked for shares to be suspended while it sorted out its finances.

Its backer, the Icelandic investment firm Arev Brands Limited (ABL), had refused to put up more money, leaving Hardy Amies with a cashflow problem. ABL owns a 49.3% stakeand had provided substantial finance to the group, including £1.5m in loans since April.

"The directors of Hardy Amies were confident the necessary funds would be forthcoming until late [on Thursday], when its major shareholder informed the company it was unable to provide the requisite finance," a spokesman said.The directors said they were considering options, which may mean administration.

Yesterday, the prospect of life without Hardy Amies did not come as a surprise to the fashion world.

Designer Jeff Banks, who knew Amies, said the brand's clothes had become "distinctly mumsy" of late, and that the firm had failed to understand its customers.

"In its heyday, in the 1950s, I think that the Hardy Amies look was a British version of Audrey Hepburn or Jackie Onassis - really elegant and classy," said Jeff Banks, who had known the designer.

"Lately, Hardy Amies fell between two stools. If you look at who they are aiming at, really it is women in their 70s. But the thing is, mature women these days do not feel their age. They feel at least 15 years younger. They don't want to dress like the Queen Mum, they want to dress like Sex in the City," said Banks.

"Hardy Amies clothes had become distinctly mumsy, and that, I think, has been its downfall."

Richard Dennen, features associate at Tatler, said: "I'm not at all surprised the company is in trouble because I can't imagine anyone who would buy their clothes. They opened a shop on the Fulham Road in London last year doing Ready To Wear, and every time I have walked past it has been completely empty. The clothes are hideous and not very well cut. I don't know who their market is supposed to be.

"I think they have completely lost their way. Couture was their thing, catering for rich old dowagers, but they have tried to make the clothes more modern and edgy and 21st century, which is not what their customers want.

"Burberry is an example of a heritage firm that has succeeded where Hardy Amies has failed. Their clothes are really classic but really cool at the same time - they're really rocking it."

Hardy Amies has had losses for several years, and warned in June that poor sales would see them acceleratethis year and into 2009. It reported underlying losses of £1.1m in 2007, although this was better than the £1.8m loss the year before, thanks to a 35% surge in sales.

The group has six outlets across the UK, one at Bristol's new Cabot Circus shopping centre. It is also stocked in dozens of stores nationwide, including Harvey Nichols.

After working in British intelligence organising the resistance in Europe during the war, Amies founded his firm in 1946, first as a men's tailor at 14 Savile Row, still the group's flagship premises.

His 1946 collection prefigured Christian Dior's celebrated "New Look" - long, wide skirts underpropped by petticoats, and tiny waists constricted by corsets. His designs were "exactly what were to become the components of the New Look; but they lacked Dior's impact because shortages [due to wartime rationing] made it impossible for Amies to give his designs the extravagance which characterised those of the French house", said the fashion journalist Colin McDowell in an obituary.

* Amies first designed for the Queen in 1952; the Royal Warrant lapsed in 1996 when he retired.

Hardy Amies Ltd is a fashion house at №14 Savile Row, founded by English dressmaker Sir Edwin Hardy Amies (17 July 1909 - 5 March 2003) in 1946. Having been managing designer for Lachasse in 1934, and designed clothes for the British Board of Trade under the government Utility Scheme, Amies bought the bombed out shell of №14 in 1946.
The Hardy Amies brand developed to become known for its classic and beautifully tailored clothes for both men and women. Amies was successful in business by being able to commercially extract value from his designs, while not replicating his brand to the point of exploitation. Amies was one of the first European designers to venture into the ready-to-wear market when he teamed up with Hepworths in 1959 to design a range of menswear. In 1961, Amies made fashion history by staging the first men's ready-to-wear catwalk shows, at the Ritz Hotel in London. The Hardy Amies name is still licensed globally, particularly popular in Japan. Amies also undertook design for in-house work wear, which developed from designing special clothes for groups such as the Oxford University Boat Club and London Stock Exchange. Amies also designed costumes for films, including 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Amies is best known to the British public for his work for HM Queen Elizabeth II. The association began in 1950, when Amies made several outfits for the then Princess Elizabeth's royal tour to Canada. Although the couture side of the Hardy Amies business was traditionally less financially successful, the award of a Royal Warrant as official dressmaker in 1955 gave his house a degree of respectability and resultant publicity. One of his best known creations is the gown he designed in 1977 for Queen Elizabeth's Silver Jubilee portrait which, he said, was "immortalised on a thousand biscuit tins."[21] Knighted in 1989, Amies held the warrant until 1990, when he gave it up so that younger designers could create for the Queen.
In May 1973, Amies sold the business to Debenhams, who had themselves purchased Hepworths which distributed the Hardy Amies line. Amies purchased the business back in 1981. In May 2001, Amies sold his business to the Luxury Brands Group. He retired at the end of the year, when Moroccan-born designer Jacques Azagury became head of couture. In November 2008, after going bankrupt, the Hardy Amies brand was acquired by Fung Capital, the private investment arm of Victor and William Fung, who together control the Li & Fung group. The current collection is overseen by design director Jon Moore, who first worked for Hardy Amies in 1979.

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Hardy Amies Returns to Its Savile Row Roots by Jared Paul Stern - Hardy Amies, the firm named for the British couturier who opened a shop on Savile Row in 1946 and went on to design gowns for the Queen of England, is returning to its men's tailoring roots.

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As one of Britain's most famous and well respected fashion houses, Hardy Amies should need no introduction.

Sir Hardy's iconic designs have entered fashion history, whether dressing several generations of royalty, producing beautifully tailored menswear, or creating cutting-edge costumes for films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Hardy Amies approached The Practice to help them revitalise their brand for a 21st Century audience.

Our brand evolution strategy has ensured the label, still based at their famous 14 Savile Row address, has been introduced to a whole new audience and continues to flourish.

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As one of Britain's most famous and well respected fashion houses, Hardy Amies should need no introduction. Sir Hardy's iconic designs have entered fashion history, whether dressing several generations of royalty, producing beautifully tailored menswear, or creating cutting-edge costumes for films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey.

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Hardy Amies - ACC Art Books UK

By (author) Michael Pick

£45.00

Log in to add this to your wishlist.

Hardy Amies is associated worldwide with glamorous, elegant clothes and is perhaps most famously known as dressmaker to HM The Queen; the book is being published in 2012, the year of The Queen's Diamond Jubilee

Hardy Amies designed the wardrobe for the 1968, iconic film 2001: A Space Odyssey

In November 2012, the Fashion & Textile Museum, London, will be hosting an exhibition showcasing Amies's work - including examples of his gowns, sketches and printed ephemera - alongside that of Norman Hartnell and Freddie Fox

This stunning publication is quarter bound in luxurious Hardy Amies cloth

Second man in Britain to be knighted for his services to the British Fashion Industry

This publication is a chronological evolution of first the man, and then his business, it is his life story

Features hundreds of original drawings and sketches

"This beautiful and sumptuous hardback book published by the Antique Collectors' Club (ACC Publishing Group) features hundreds of original sketches, drawings and photographs from a career spanning eight decades, many never been seen before now." Candy Says Hardy Amies epitomised understated British couture, emphasising the cut of fine materials by tailored construction. Untrained in dress-making, he achieved headlines in Vogue in 1937 with his 'Panic' suit, a reconstructed design of a staple in every woman's wardrobe, wittily named to reflect current events. Evoking the glamour of pre-war London while meeting the demands of contemporary society's activities - town to country, morning to night - Amies designs drew a star-studded clientele. His war-time 'utility' designs revealed his design philosophy (and partly concealed his role as head of the Belgian Section of SOE), unveiling a needle-sharp intelligence and intuition for the changing world of fashion, his elegant execution of which was rewarded through the influential seal of approval by HM Queen Elizabeth II, as Princess Elizabeth, in 1950. The first post-war international designer to visit the USA, Amies' luxurious style produced lucrative global business opportunities, including ready-to-wear, menswear shown as couture, and wide-ranging merchandising options.

Michael Pick, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and formerly an exhibitioner in history at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, is the author of seven books on design and the decorative arts. A founding committee member of the Twentieth Century Society, a British preservation group, he has contributed to numerous publications, including The Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, Apollo, The Connoisseur, Tatler, Harpers & Queen, and Vogue. Michael has worked with fashion PR Percy Savage and was responsible for the renovation of the famous Mayfair art moderne Norman Hartnell salon. He also wrote BE DAZZLED! The Life of Norman Hartnell, about whom he has lectured at the Victoria & Albert Museum, aboard the Queen Mary, and at the Chichester and Oxford literary festivals. 'Hardy Amies' draws on conversations with Sir Hardy Amies, who asked Michael to write about his life.

Publisher

ACC Art Books

ISBN

9781851496754

Published

24th Oct 2012

Binding

Hardback

Size

300 mm x 237 mm

Pages

304 Pages

Illustrations

266 color, 252 b&w

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Hardy Amies - ACC Art Books UK £45.00 Log in to add this to your wishlist.

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Style Icon and Fashion designer Hardy Amies was born in West London in 1909. Before opening his flagship shop on Savile Row, Aimes served in World War Two. Even when fighting a war, Amies recognised the importance of style and appearance, getting his uniform tailored on the famous London street. Savile Row is, arguably, the most famous fashion street in the world and epitomises everything that is good about tailoring.

Amies opened up his store at 14 Savile Row in 1945 and the brand has gone from strength to strength. Unafraid to push boundaries, Hardy was the first to put together a men's ready to wear catwalk show at The Savoy Hotel and went on to write the ABC of men's fashion and was appointed as outfitter to the queen, a true privilege indeed.

Although he is no longer with us, Aimes' spirit remains within the London fashion scene and beyond. He famously said

A man should look as if he has bought his clothes with intelligence, put them on with care and then forgotten all about them

This sentiment lives on through the designers and tailors at the existing store on Savile row and it's innovative team continue to look at ways to challenge fashion norms. With a line in women's couture and on-trend ready to wear lines season upon season, Amis is a leader in the fashion world, even after his death. That is not to say that the brand has left tradition behind, clothes are still smart and functional and designed on classic principles.

Service at Hardy Amies is very personal, with a bespoke service available. Bespoke requests are all hand made and can take up to 12 weeks to complete, so that you are safe in the knowledge that you have a quality product. Amies prides itself on locally produced clothing, with leather bags made in Cumbria, Military coats made in North London and suede loafers made in Northamptonshire. Hardy Amies is a favourite brand for discerning gentlemen all over the world and for celebrities looking for a distinctive style. Amies was even commissioned for a film, the iconic Space Odyssey, due his distinct quality and style.

Hardy Amies epitomises London's unique design spirit, unafraid to push boundaries but conscious of tradition. Next time you are looking for a suit, go the extra mile and visit the Savile Row royalty that is Amies.

A map is always helpful!

This video is also available in: Chinese (Simplified)

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Style Icon and Fashion designer Hardy Amies was born in West London in 1909. Before opening his flagship shop on Savile Row, Aimes served in World War Two. Even when fighting a war, Amies recognised the importance of style and appearance, getting his uniform tailored on the famous London street.

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THE Queen's favourite dress designer has left a &#xA3;1.5m fortune to a close Welsh friend.

Sir Hardy Amies, who died in March, left his estate to arts expert David Freeman, 46 - who has now splashed out on a luxury apartment in Cardiff Bay.

Sir Hardy, who was 93, met Mr Freeman in the '70s and the two became friends.

The couple kept their friendship quiet until the dress designer's will was published, with the whole fortune going to Mr Freeman.

Freelance art consultant Mr Freeman, a former curator at Tredegar House in Newport, Gwent, paid tribute to his friend.

He said, "I'm touched Hardy thought of me in his will.

"He was a dear friend and I believe his death marked the end of an era for high fashion and a certain element of Royal tradition."

Mr Freeman has lived in Usk for the past eight years - convenient because it was halfway between his job at Tredegar House and Sir Hardy's Cotswold home.

His friends say Freeman met Sir Hardy while he was still a young man and their friendship grew because of their shared interest in the fine arts.

Mr Freeman's former neighbour Audrey Davidson, 79, said, "He went to visit a friend in London one day and someone said to him, 'You really must meet Hardy Amies'.

"They were friends for many, many years.

"They were both cultured men interested in the fine things of life and this is what drew them together.

"David would go to Amies's house frequently to stay with him.

"In the 12 months before Hardy died, David spent most of his time in his home.

"He arranged for carers for Hardy and made sure that everything ran smoothly at the house, including making sure that the gardens were always well tended.

"He was with Hardy at his bedside when he died. David was extremely upset even though he knew that Hardy was a very old man and very ill.

"But he told me that however much you prepare for something like this, that when it happens it is still a big blow."

Retired senior nursing tutor Miss Davidson described Freeman as a "very thoughtful man".

She said, "He thought the world of Hardy."

Miss Davidson said that Amies had intended leaving his fortune to his sister Rosemary, but she had died before him.

She said, "He then made David the chief beneficiary. David was very surprised that he was made the beneficiary.

She said, "He was his (Amies's) best friend.

"He isn't a mercenary sort of man and he will take it in his stride.

"I don't think he is the type to throw his money around or to squander it."

She said Freeman, who is a Fellow of the Society of Arts, has a brother who is a lecturer at Oxford University.

Freeman became curator of 17th Century stately home Tredegar House in Newport in 1978. He built it up into a major tourist attraction with an impressive collection of fine art - most famously spending more than &#xA3;120,000 to buy a salt dispenser bearing the crest of the original Morgan family who had lived in the home.

He left nearly five years ago to become a freelance fine arts consultant.

Frank Straw, former chairman of the Friends of Tredegar House, said, "David is a quite charming man and he has been Hardy Amies's friend for many years.

"David has a marvellous eye for fine art and always knew what was going on.

"He has very good taste and I'm sure he will spend any bequest very well.

"We were all aware that he was very close to Hardy Amies and he was regularly visiting him."

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THE Queen's favourite dress designer has left a £1.5m fortune to a close Welsh friend. Sir Hardy Amies, who died in March, left his estate to arts expert David Freeman, 46 - who has now splashed out on a luxury apartment in Cardiff Bay.

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WE have long known that beneath his genuine refinement and stately exterior Sir Hardy Amies, the Queen's dressmaker, was a tough operator. But the news that Sir Hardy - he lists needlepoint and opera among his recreations in Who's Who - organised assassinations of Nazis and Nazi sympathisers during the war must have come as a surprise to many.

Perhaps even more surprising to those who do not know Sir Hardy, is his dignified reticence about these operations. It contrasts starkly with the activities of the MI5 "whistle-blower" David Shayler over half a century later, and serves to remind us that every society gets the spooks it deserves.

Lt Amies of the Intelligence Corps did a stint at Aldershot in 1940 (his room-mate was Enoch Powell) after which he went on to command the Belgian section of the Special Operations Executive (SOE), rising to the rank of lieutenant-colonel and being highly decorated by the Belgians. Under his direction, Section T, as it was codenamed, undertook many dangerous and successful actions.

Operation Painter involved infiltrating two Belgians into an SS-run garage from where, using Gestapo contacts, they provided the Allies with the German order of battle after the Battle of the Bulge. Another operation, codenamed Chauffeur, provided the very first clandestine wireless link from the Germany.

A four-part BBC2 documentary starting on September 7, reveals indirectly, but unmistakably, that in January 1944 Amies co-ordinated Operation Ratweek, SOE's assassinations of top Nazis and their quislings across Western Europe just before D-Day. Contrast the immaculate, tough-minded Sir Hardy with Mr Shayler, who proudly besports himself in a Middlesbrough FC football strip on national television as he denounces his former employer.

After much negotiation with the British legal authorities, Mr Shayler, who has been on the run for three years, has finally returned to Britain. Perhaps not coincidentally, MI5 had generously warned him beforehand of a Libyan plot to kidnap him in Paris. "I did what I did because I love my country," he protested to reporters, "I am a patriot. I am not a traitor."

Patriotism, which Mr Shayler has to claim for himself so loudly, is not something anyone has ever had to question in Sir Hardy Amies, who has never mentioned Operation Ratweek - not even in his memoirs - and still refuses to discuss it, claiming to have forgotten all about it. If only Peter Wright, author of Spycatcher and another "whistle-blower", had also had a similarly poor memory about past operations.

Appropriately enough, as an undergraduate at Dundee University, Mr Shayler even published extracts from Peter Wright's book in the student newspaper he edited. The decline of the espionage ethic was never more pronounced than in the contrast between the gentlemanly, instinctively discreet Sir Hardy and Mr Shayler, who set up his own website as soon as he went on the run. Mr Shayler has even boasted how he turned down "millions of pounds" offered by a Libyan agent for the list of Secret Intelligence Service agents operating in Libya, as though it would have even crossed the mind of any genuinely patriotic Briton to do anything else.

What David Selbourne, the political philosopher, calls "the universal plebeian" has usurped the place once occupied by the likes of Ian Fleming (formerly of "Room 39" of Naval Intelligence), and Sir Stewart Menzies (the wartime "C") and he has brought his ethics with him. When Amies served in SOE, it suffered the same appalling attrition rate as Bomber Command.

By contrast, the bravest thing Mr Shayler seems to have done was to take a ferry trip to France. Nigel West, a historian of SOE, told me that he has been struck by the difference between what he calls "the dedication of people who put their lives at risk without a second's thought, and their counterparts today who are opportunists seeking to capitalise on the knowledge with which they have been entrusted. Within weeks of leaving MI5, David Shayler was writing a book proposal about his time there."

The sheer naffness of Mr Shayler's professed motives offend against the spy chic of the past almost as much as his cheeky-chappie grin and deplorable dress sense. Whereas once the Cambridge traitors Kim Philby, Anthony Blunt, Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess at least betrayed their country because they believed Communism was the world force best placed to defeat Hitler, Mr Shayler merely criticises MI5 for, as he puts it, "management malpractice" and "operational inefficiency", declaring that: "If I'm convicted I'll be a prisoner of conscience."

For all that the Cambridge traitors were utterly misguided in their beliefs, at least they acted from world-changing ideological conviction, rather than for ideals not far removed from John Major's Citizens' Charter. Mr Shayler's bleating about "management malpractice" perfectly illustrates the differences between then and now. Once there was the global struggle against Hitlerism, now in our post-heroic age we hear whingeing about "accountability", "openness" and customer service.

Once Hardy Amies walked into his 64 Baker Street headquarters in his polished brogues and perfectly knotted tie and stiff collar to take life and death decisions; now David Shayler talks about his pride in being a Middlesbrough FC season ticket holder and appears alongside Paul Merton on Have I Got News for You. Once SOE assassinated Reinhard Heydrich and destroyed the Norsk Hydro heavy water plant, now its successor organisation has to employ people who hope to employ European human rights legislation to protect them from the British Offical Secrets Act.

Mr Shayler has said that his treatment "has opened my eyes to the lack of civil liberties in Britain". Yet the only reason that there are any civil liberties anywhere in Europe is partly down to people like Sir Hardy Amies, and the thousands of his counterparts who carried on the covert struggle during the Second World War, at such appalling cost to themselves. What giants they look, these old heroes of the Secret War; their nobility and reticence makes a mockery of the overweight mediocrity who has declared himself their successor.

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David Shayler is a shameful heir to the secret heroes

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WE have long known that beneath his genuine refinement and stately exterior Sir Hardy Amies, the Queen's dressmaker, was a tough operator. But the news that Sir Hardy - he lists needlepoint and opera among his recreations in Who's Who - organised assassinations of Nazis and Nazi sympathisers during the war must have come as a surprise to many.

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Azagury, who designed many memorable outfits for the late Princess of Wales and whose clients also include Cherie Booth, is known for being a master of understatement. As well as the obvious show-stoppers, he also included some understated pieces that will suit the many ladies-who-lunch customers.

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New era begins for Hardy Amies with a taste of Morocco

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Since selling his business to a brand development group last year for an undisclosed sum, Britain's oldest couture fashion house has a new star, Jacques Azagury, who himself has a design house in Knightsbridge.

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Hardy Amies designed this cotton day dress at the end of the Second World War. The dress has magyar sleeves (in which the armhole and upper arm are cut very wide, narrowing to the elbow and wrist), a tightly fitted bodice and a dropped waist. The circular skirt is embellished with a fashionable bustle bow. The cotton fabric was made in Manchester for export to the West African market. The British government actively promoted the cotton industry during the War, forming the influential Cotton Board in 1940. The Incorporated Society of London Fashion Designers, whose designers included Amies, worked closely with the Board to create stylish fashions in British cottons. This dress, with its extravagantly full skirt, shows the influence of the 'New Look', the luxurious, post-War style created French couturier Christian Dior which used yards of fabric to achieve a curvaceous, full-skirted silhouette.

Physical description

Cotton day dress with magyar sleeves (in which the armhole and upper arm are cut very wide, narrowing to the elbow and wrist), a tightly fitted bodice and a dropped waist. The circular skirt is embellished with a fashionable bustle bow. Brown and white cotton with a bold circular print.

Place of Origin

Great Britain (made)

Date

1947 (made)

Artist/maker

Amies, Hardy, born 1909 - died 2003 (maker)

Materials and Techniques

Printed cotton

Dimensions

Circumference: 64 cm waist, Circumference: 88 cm bust, Diameter: 70 cm footprint

Object history note

The cotton fabric of this dress was made in Manchester for export to the West African market. It was worn by the donor.

Historical context note

The government actively promoted the cotton industry during World War II, forming the influential Cotton Board in 1940. The Incorporated Society of London Fashion Designers, whose 'top ten' designers included Hardy Amies, worked closely with the Board to create stylish fashions in British cottons to re-build the British textile industry following the war.

Descriptive line

Day dress of printed cotton, made by Edwin Hardy Amies, Great Britain, 1947

Bibliographic References (Citation, Note/Abstract, NAL no)

De La Haye, Amy, ed. The Cutting Edge: 50 Years of British Fashion 1947-1997. London: V&A Publications, 1997.

Labels and date

This stylish day dress has magyar sleeves and a tightly fitted bodice with a dropped waist. The circular skirt is embellished by a fashionable bustle bow. The cotton fabric was made in Manchester for export to the West African market. The government actively promoted the cotton industry during World War II, forming the influential Cotton Board in 1940. The Incorporated Society of LondonFashion Designers. whose 'top ten' designers included Hardy Amies, worked closely with the Board to create stylish fashions in British cottons. [06/03/1997]
Dress
Hardy Amies (1909-2003)
London
1947

The fabric was made in Manchester for export to the West African market. During the war the Board of Trade actively promoted the cotton industry, working closely with the Incorporated Society of London Fashion Designers, whose 'top ten' included Hardy Amies. The bustle bow is a device to add volume with the minimum of fabric. [55 words]

Printed cotton

Given by Enid Fennemore
V&A: T.236-1984 [22/09/2007]
DAY DRESS
English, Hardy Amies, 1945
Printed figured cotton

The dress is cut with magyar sleeves and a tightly fitted bodice with a dropped waist and circular skirt with four panels. The full skirt is complemented by a fashionable bustle bow.

The fabric was made in Manchester for export to the West African market. At the beginning of the Second World War the goverrnment was anxious to promote the cotton industry and encourage export of fashionable designs. This led to the creation of the Cotton Board in 1940 followed in 1942 by the Incorporated Society of London Fashion Designers. Hardy Amies was one of the original 'Top Ten' designers invited to join the society. A dress by Hardy Amies similar to this was shown at the Colour Design and Style Centre, Manchester, in 1942 and is now in the Gallery of English Costime, Platt Hall, Manchester.

Worn and given by Mrs E Fennemore
T.236-1984 []

Materials

Cotton (textile)

Techniques

Printing

Categories

Fashion; Day wear; Textiles; Women's clothes; Europeana Fashion Project

Collection

Textiles and Fashion Collection

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Dress | Amies, Hardy | V&A Search the Collections

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Hardy Amies designed this cotton day dress at the end of the Second World War. The dress has magyar sleeves (in which the armhole and upper arm are cut very wide, narrowing to the elbow and wrist), a tightly fitted bodice and a dropped waist. The circular skirt is embellished with a fashionable bustle bow.

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Tie | Amies, Hardy | V&A Search the Collections

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Cream silk withj paisley print, Hardy Amies, 1980s, Britain. Museum Number T.201-2009.

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Fashion in Motion is a series of live catwalk events presented at the V&A. Featuring some of the greatest designers of our time, Fashion in Motion brings catwalk couture to a wider audience by modelling it against the beautiful backdrop of the Museum.

Hardy Amies, the great English couture house celebrates its 60th anniversary this year.

The company was founded by an extraordinary man, the late Sir Hardy Amies. Although best known for being Queen Elizabeth II's official dressmaker for 50 years, his impact on fashion history extends far beyond society dressing. In his application of menswear tailoring techniques to the female form, Hardy Amies was among the first to practise 'power dressing'.

Hardy Amies was also one fo the founders of ready-to-wear clothing for men. In 1961, he made fashion history by staging the first men's ready-to-wear catwalk shows, at the Ritz Hotel in London.

Following Sir Hardy's retirement in 2001, his protégé Ian Garlant inherited the title of Creative Director, giving both continuity and a new impetus to the house.

The strength of Hardy Amies' style continues to grow, with Garlant's refurbishment of 14 Savile Row, the creation of the new Eau de Parfum for women and the development of the latest couture, bespoke and ready-to-wear collections for men and women. Work has also begun again on designs for home furnishings.

Hardy Amies is now one of Britain's only true couture houses, with garments designed, made, shown and sold at 14 Savile Row.

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The Hardy Amies Fashion in Motion live catwalk event took place on April 26 2006. Hardy Amies, the great English couture house celebrates its 60th anniversary this year and is now one of Britain's only true couture houses, with garments designed, made, shown and sold in Savile Row.