Stylish Read: "Fashioning the Crown"

The author of biographies of Chanel ("Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life") and Christian Dior's sister ("Miss Dior") has now fashioned a layered look at Britain's royal family. Cover image notwithstanding, "Fashioning the Crown" is not just another romp through Queen Elizabeth's tweeds, cardigans and head scarves. Beginning with the renaming of the royal family (from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to Windsor in 1917), Justine Picardie skillfully weaves together (pun intended) history, biography and fashion commentary. So thoroughly meshed are all the threads that you wonder how anything could be written without the fashion element. "You are what you wear" was never more meaningful. 

Mary and George V with a young Edward

I'm a sucker for the British royal family anyways and can never get enough of Wallis and Edward (he the king who abdicated and she the woman he loved). After a short section on George VI and Queen Mary (for whom dress was more of a duty), Picardie dives into Wallis and Edward. Over the years new information suggests this may not have been the greatest love story of the 20th century. Whatever the attraction, their mutual love of fashion was surely a tie that binds. I found it interesting that Wallis, who had been dressed by London's top (but conventional) designers, switched to the avant garde Schiaparelli once she became known as the sorceress who lured a king off his throne. 

Wallis and Edward on their wedding day

There is quite a bit on Queen then Queen Mother Elizabeth. I'd always seen her as a smiley, fairly dumpy grandmother, but the fuller picture gives her more influence and credits her as a guiding force in the reign of her husband, George VI. 

Margaret, Elizabeth and Elizabeth

The young Princess Elizabeth is covered way beyond the matching outfits she and sister Margaret wore. Elizabeth comes across as well suited and well prepared for her role as Queen, giving even the acerbic Cecil Beaton hope for the future of the Windsor dynasty. And as well known by now, she set her sights on the handsome Philip as a very young teen. He was by no means the match her parents wished for. Elizabeth's steely determination in the face of their reluctance was surely a portent of strengths to come.

 

Newly engaged Elizabeth and Philip

Almost as an afterthought are sections on Hardy Amies and Norman Hartnell, both royal couturiers for many years. I'm afraid in my mind they are the two responsible for all that royal family dowdiness, but for their time—and clients—they were reliable choices. Amies, an intelligence officer in the British army during WWII, comes across by far the more interesting.

 

Picardie has done her research, quoting extensively from diaries of contemporaries close to the royals, both politically and socially, as well as using Hartnell's and Amies' autobiographies. And Picardie herself was able to uncover and view objects for years under royal lock and key. As she has done in other books, we read her thoughts as she examines some of these treasures. 

My only real disappointment in "Fashioning the Crown" was it ends just at the beginning of Queen Elizabeth II's reign. As that puts us in 1953, there is a lot more fashion to come under that crown.