Previously unseen water colour sketches by Norman Hartnell
The London Fashion and Textile Museum intoduces a retrospective of couture by royal appointment.
The designs of Norman Hartnell to Hardy Amies will be featured.
More than 150 outfits, including ballgowns, cocktail dresses and
ready-to-wear designs worn by British high society - often taking its lead from
the monarch - will feature in the exhibition at London’s Fashion and Textile
Museum.
Before Hartnell opened his first boutique in Mayfair in 1923, there was
little tradition of British haute couture. But after becoming a favourite with
Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, and her daughters, Princesses Elizabeth and
Margaret, his creations gained a legion fans.
Hartnell achieved worldwide fame with his designs for the Queen’s wedding
dress in 1947 and her Coronation gown in 1953.
Samples of Hartnell’s embroidery designed for dresses worn by the Queen for
overseas state visits during the 1950s and 1960s will also be included.
Creations by Sir Hardy Amies will also feature in the exhibition. Amies, who began his career in the 1930s at the London tailors,
Lachasse, started designing for the Queen in the early 1950s and continued until
a year before his death in 2003.
He was credited with transforming her daytime wardrobe with sharp, tailored
coats, dresses and jackets. For her first ever televised Christmas message in
1957, she wore an Amies dress featuring a sweetheart neckline and a bow bodice.
The Queen further brought British fashion to worldwide attention in 1953, when
she marked the beginning of her reign with her longest ever overseas tour of the
Commonwealth, which lasted from November 1953 to May 1954 and spanned 13
countries.
Dressed in more than 100 new outfits by Hartnell and Amies, the tour saw her
become an international trend-setter as the most photographed woman in the
world.
The exhibition will also feature hats by the Australian-born milliner, Frederick Fox,
whose designs have been worn by the Queen, the Queen Mother and Princess Diana.
Michael Pick, a biographer of Hartnell and Amies and guest curator of the
exhibition, said: “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, Amies and Fox - seen worldwide through the
patronage of the Royal family - helped to re-assert Britain’s reputation as an
international centre for fashion.”
Hartnell to Amies: Couture by Royal Appointment is at the Fashion and
Textile Museum, November 16 to February 23, 2013
Wedding Dress Lady Glenconner by Norman Hartnell
Norman Hartnell
A model wears Hardy Amies
