How to dress a queen |
The problem with exhibiting costumes is well known. Should the mannequins be lifelike with human features, or faceless? What about trying a more surreal approach with Perspex or metals? This show of her late Majesty’s wardrobe opts for something more ghostly: hundreds of shoulderless, neckless, wristless, legless figures, floating magically in space, presented in cases at eye level, with others, higher, in serried ranks, like some gorgeously arrayed terracotta army. The unifying factor is that instantly recognisable royal silhouette – from the youthful wasp waist to the later fuller frame.
That Queen Elizabeth was a lifetime model of clothes which were exactly appropriate to her proportions and her job is made abundantly clear. Her words ‘I have to be seen to be believed’ also meant that, once seen, she was always believed. Her appearance made you feel simultaneously remote from and close to her. Her great knack was never to dress à la page, meaning her clothes could never date her. Instead the Queen cannily established her own unique image, which, with a few tweaks, could appear the dernier cri. A headscarf instantly turned housewife into princess.
There were few people of taste in the early years of her reign to guide her. English fashion in postwar years was........