Fashioning a Reign: Q&A with Curator Caroline de Guitaut

Take The State Rooms at Buckingham Palace tour over the next couple months and you may notice the crowds walking at a slightly faster-than-expected pace through the first half. They start to pick up speed just a little while strolling past the magnificent courtyard, and then they get even a tad quicker climbing the magnificent gilded staircases, almost all but ignoring oil paintings, marble sculptures and other royal marvels along the way. Normally, these delights and artworks would have the tourists meandering, even shuffling their feet, to slowly take it all in, but now they're almost brisk on the red carpets of Her Majesty's official London residence. Until October, they will continue to skip past practically all of it to get to the real beauty and treasure: Queen Elizabeth's dresses.

"I remember that one!" said an American in a union jack sweater as she pointed to a royal blue outfit with a matching hat by Sir Norman Hartnell in the Ball Supper Room. Later on, in the grand Ballroom, with the Queen's wedding dress on one end and her coronation dress on other, three English ladies would stare intensely and approvingly at the row of mostly block-color outfits placed in-between and agree that Her Majesty "certainly does appreciate a nice tasteful solid!" (The same three were spotted nearly swooning over the sparkly glamour of the state visits and overseas tour dresses just a little while later.) And that was all before they came to the hallway of hats.

British Heritage Travel: What was your main concern in curating this exhibit? Did you want to focus on the history or on the beauty of these dresses?
Caroline de Guitaut: Fashioning a Reign: 90 Years of Style from The Queen's Wardrobe marks Her Majesty's 90th birthday through an unprecedented display of fashionable dress covering the period from The Queen's childhood to the present day. The outfits on display have been worn on many memorable occasions in The Queen's life and our nation's history, so there is definitely a focus on history, but they are also remarkable and beautiful examples of British couture.

[caption id="attachment_13701818" align="aligncenter" width="702"]

6

Outfit and hat designed by Sir Norman Hartnell, worn by The Queen to the wedding of Princess Anne to Captain Mark Phillips at Westminster Abbey, 14 November 1973 Images for use only in connection with the exhibition 'Fashioning a Reign: 90 Years of Style from The Queen's Wardrobe' at the Summer Opening of Buckingham Palace, 23 July - 2 October 2016. Images must not be archived or sold-on. Royal Collection Trust / (C) Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2016. Single use only; not to be archived or passed on to third parties. Royal Collection Trust / (C) Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2016.

 BHT: Do you think visitors will be able to form opinions about Her Majesty's personal style?
Caroline de Guitaut: Visitors will get a real insight into how The Queen dresses to undertake her various important roles, most notably as Head of State. But I think from the number of different ensembles on display it is easy to observe how her personal style has been defined.