Feuds, conflict and how the royal family uses fashion as a weapon

HISTORY
Fashioning the Crown: A Story of Power, Conflict and Couture
Justine Picardie
Faber, $39.99

Justine Picardie came up with the idea for this book some decades ago when the journalist and historian was working at British Vogue and met Sir Hardy Amies. Queen Elizabeth II’s famous couturier was then in his 90s and as enigmatic and discreet as ever. She’d heard from her mother “who knew him a bit” that he’d been a spy during World War II and she was intrigued. Some years later, Picardie plucked up the courage to ask the Queen about it.

The author explains she had not grown up in “a monarchist household” but since her husband Philip Astor was Prince Philip’s godson, they sometimes socialised with the royals. It was just the second time she had personally met the monarch. Astor was part of a royal shooting party and at lunch in a bothy on the Balmoral estate, Picardie boldly brought up the subject of Amies’ role as an undercover agent with the Belgian Resistance.

Her Majesty’s response was hilarious and notable. “With the merest hint of a raised eyebrow she said ‘Ah yes, those rumours that he was very good at garrotting Nazis’. … a brief silence fell between us. ‘Of course, it was an excellent cover for a spy to be a couturier,’ she continued.”

Afterwards, the Queen donned yellow marigolds and proceeded to do the washing up. Picardie helped, putting leftovers into Tupperware boxes. “Make sure you don’t miss any crumbs,” said the Queen.

This idea of how clothes can be used to conceal and make a statement is an intriguing thread in Picardie’s examination of royal messaging through what they wore. Clothes are about so much more than fashion, the author posits as she draws on original research in the Royal Archives and offers telling snapshots of her own experiences with the House of Windsor to weave an insightful examination of 20th-century royal history.

Although the book’s release has been deliberately timed to coincide with the 100th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II’s birth, it’s not solely about the late monarch. It also covers the wardrobes of other leading royal women: Queen Mary, the Queen Mother and the Duchess of Windsor. What’s more, Picardie ends with Elizabeth II’s coronation.

At first, that timeline can feel incomplete, not just in relation to the Queen’s fashion during her reign, but to other key royal fashion figures; Princess Diana comes to mind. But Picardie’s rationale is wholly driven by history. She wants to look at the stormy decades from the birth of Princess Elizabeth of York in 1926 until she unexpectedly became monarch; to show how fashion, conflict, power and politics intersect.

This period was a tricky time of extreme jeopardy for the monarchy as it walked a tightrope of disassociation with its Germanic and Russian roots while Britain waged war with Germany and Bolshevism raised its head.

Picardie notes that the Queen fully understood that she must “be seen to be believed” and her sartorial decisions were used as a secret weapon. “Dress diplomacy” explains Picardie, became a key framework for her couturiers, including master spy Amies.

Other royals used their dress to make different statements. As heir apparent, the future Edward VIII thumbed his nose at traditional royal attire, pioneering sportswear and two-tone shoes – shock, horror! – much to his father the king’s disapproval. Through their dress – and behaviour – he and his American then married lover Wallis Simpson declared themselves firmly of the Jazz Age.

History dictates that their new world order brashness failed in the court of public opinion, but they never stopped making their point. After his abdication, the recently wed Duchess of York was photographed by Cecil Beaton in a daring Elsa Schiaparelli-designed “lobster dress”, one of 66 gowns she had in her wedding trousseau. The bright red crustacean painted onto the fabric by surrealist Salvador Dali was suggestively positioned on the front suspended “between Wallis’s thighs”. The couple’s critique of the fusty royal house they had left behind was obvious.

Elizabeth succeeded where her uncle had failed and part of her armour was an impeccable wardrobe of British fashion designed to re-establish stability. Picardie discusses the politics of her reign through that wardrobe with a sharp intelligence that goes way beyond fashion.

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