All language subtitles for Tales from the Royal Wardrobe.srt - 2

Today few people's
wardrobes attract as much attention

as the British royal family's.

Hardly a day goes by
without some press comment

on a little royal romper suit,

or a designer dress,

or a sneaky high-street purchase.

And you might think that the world
today has gone mad for a peek inside

the royal wardrobe, but believe me,
it's always been like this.

In this programme,
I'm going to open wide

the doors of the royal wardrobe
to uncover its secrets,

exploring the clothes of kings
and queens past and present.

From Elizabeth I, over 400 years
to our current British monarch -

Queen Elizabeth II.

I believe that the fascination
of royal clothing

goes beyond its cut or its colour.

These things are more than clothes,
they're symbols or statements.

And I think that throughout history,

the royal wardrobe has been
important

in shaping the image
of the monarchy,

for better and sometimes for worse.

I'm going to start rifling through
the royal wardrobes of history

with Elizabeth I's.

She's a queen who I particularly
admire for her skill

in using clothing to construct
an image of power and majesty.

As a child,
Elizabeth spent much of her time

at Hatfield House
in Buckinghamshire,

and it was her favourite residence
throughout her life.

It was here, beneath this oak
in Hatfield's grounds,

that she discovered that she was
now Queen, at the age of 25.

Right from the start of her reign,

Elizabeth had to control
her image very carefully.

She knew that the odds
were stacked against her
being a successful monarch.

Firstly, she was female -
being a king was a man's job -

and secondly, because her mother
had been Anne Boleyn,

many people believed
that she was illegitimate.

Thirdly, she had very big shoes
to fill, those of her father,

Henry VIII, who had every natural
and artificial advantage.

He was a fine figure of a man.

Although when it turned
to fat later on,

he was 54 inches around the waist.

But here, he's had Holbein make the
most of his very splendid costume

and the eye cannot help but be drawn
to this particular garment here,

the cod piece, which, following
Tudor fashion, has become outsized.

Men used them as little purses
to carry money in

or sometimes precious things,
like jewels,

hence the expression,
"a man's crown jewels".

But what Holbein is really saying
here is that Henry is fertile,

he's full of lovely sperm, he is
the ideal medieval macho monarch.

Elizabeth obviously didn't have
her father's imposing
physical attributes,

but she helped to make up for that
using clothes.

And to spread the message of
how queenly this queen was,

portraits of her were hung
in every great house of the realm,

including Hatfield.

This is an extraordinary dress
that she's wearing.

And what's this white, gauzy stuff

that's sort of swirling around her
like a cloud?

Well, that's very fine fabric,

it's wired at the edges, so it gives
the effect up there of wings,

so it's giving her, as she moves,
tremendous presence and consequence.

It looks like a sort of
personal cloud of dry ice,

swirling around her
wherever she goes.

It looks fantastic in the portrait,
what it was like in reality,

walking around with great
wired wings, you know,

particularly
if there was any kind of wind.

I guess you'd blow away
if the wind got behind you.

Well, I wouldn't try it out.

Whilst Elizabeth's incredible dress
may have been impractical,

it certainly gave her presence.

But it wasn't just the colour
and shape that had significance,

the dress is full of symbolism

that an Elizabethan viewer
could read like a book.

To them, the pearls signified
peace and purity.

She was supposed to be
the Virgin Queen.

The bejewelled snake symbolised
wisdom, the heart symbolised love.

This Queen ruled with both heart and
head - and she had eyes everywhere.

What's going on, for example,
with these little eyes?

Well, the eyes and the ears...

They really are very freakish.

They are extraordinary.

Do you think this is the Queen
saying, I can hear everything

and I can see everything
that you do?

It is, rule of the stage, as it were,
is symbolised by eyes and ears.

What's going on with the rainbow?

We know this is the rainbow picture

because she is holding this thing
that looks like a grey hosepipe.

This at one stage must have been
all the colours of the rainbow

but now they've faded, so we have
this little inscription here.

That's a clue. The inscription
in Latin says,

"Without the sun
you don't get the rainbow."

So she is the sun, basically?

She is the sun,
a very common metaphor for a ruler,

and the rainbow is
the symbol of peace

and this is really what everyone
wants - peace and tranquillity.

The picture is saying,
I've got a heart, I'm wise,

I'm wearing a snake, I can hear you
and see you with the eyes and ears

and also I'm holding a rainbow,
I can control the weather.

That's a pretty good range of skills
and attributes, isn't it?

Well, effectively it is.

Elizabeth's dresses
were an important part

of the Tudor propaganda machine,

where the people saw
them in pictures

or on her progresses
around the country

and we know they were important to
her from the number she possessed.

This little street here
is called Wardrobe Place

because 400 years ago,
a vast building stood here

to house the royal wardrobe.

It had its own special staff,
the warders of the robes.

And this map of Elizabethan London
shows it took up a whole city block,

it was like a vast warehouse
full of dresses.

An inventory taken in 1599
revealed that

Elizabeth I had 1,326 of them.

Elizabeth's vast clothing collection
required

a huge retinue of staff
to look after it.

One man was employed
just to look after her muffs.

So, considering the sheer number
of her dresses,

it's quite remarkable
that none survived today.

At Westminster Abbey, though,

the resting place of the royals
for the last 1,000 years,

you do get a tantalising and
intimate glimpse of one single item.

This is one of the very earliest
surviving bits of royal clothing -

we've still got it

because of the weird tradition
of the funeral effigy.

This was a model of the dead King
or Queen that was made to be carried

in their funeral procession
to Westminster Abbey.

Elizabeth I's head is missing,
but originally it was painted

and coloured so beautifully

that it apparently looked like
she was still alive.

And her figure was dressed
in her coronation robes

and underneath that,
specially constructed underwear.

This corset-type thing,

called a set of stays, doesn't look
like much, but it is remarkable.

Originally it was
a very high-status item.

It's made with many, many strips
of whale bone for support

that have been sewed into it
very carefully

with a huge amount of labour.

And it's extraordinary to think
that this represents

the body of a woman
who was 70 years old.

It forces the flesh into a very
unnatural, long, narrow shape.

Which was partly
Elizabethan fashion,

but it was also the Queen
wanting to create

a very strange and otherworldly
image for herself.

Elizabeth's underwear was
originally only seen

by her ladies-in-waiting.

And it's only when the effigy
was conserved

that this intimate item
was accidently discovered.

The stays are exciting

because they formed the foundation

for an incredible number
of layers above

that would construct
Elizabeth's unique silhouette.

How long do you think
it would take, Mark,

for Elizabeth I to get totally
Queen'd up, start to finish.

Oh, gosh, well, she's not in a rush,
so I'd imagine,

probably about two hours.

Of course,
it's not just the clothes,

it's the jewellery,
the make-up, the wig,

the entire ensemble to be the Queen,
about two hours.

And here I am in my satin-coloured
body, that's its name, isn't it?

A pair of bodies even.
A pair of bodies.

And covered in fine fabric,
because of course it's the Queen's.

It's an awfully long
and narrow shape,

they're not at all like Victorian
stays that give you a lovely waist.

No, or indeed a lovely cleavage,
it's a different look.

And what's next - bum roll?

Exactly. You're the Queen,
it's covered in silk velvet.

Velvet - it's like a massive
travel pillow, isn't it? Indeed.

A giant could sleep like this
on the aeroplane.

No neck ache in that. But bring it
down, and unlike a Victorian one,

which would rest right down
the corset, this just in the middle.

And we're looking for a cone shape.

That's exactly what these garments
achieve, it makes you more and more

like an insect, bizarre shape of the
late Elizabethan and Jacobean age.

There we are. And what's the point
of the bum roll?

It seems to be that the more space
you have, the richer you are,

so you're making so much space here,
no-one can get close to you.

You'll have to walk
very slowly anyway,

because no gentleman or lady
would hurry - servants do that.

So, now I've got my soft hips,
I can bump into things,

if it's late at night.
What comes next - is it the hoops?

It is - the farthingale.

These shapes are made of osier,

the same as they use in barrels,
these big circles of wood.

So this is wood inside,
big, round, wooden circles?

That's right. Over your head

Does it do up at the back
or at the front? At the front.

It's got to nestle just on top
of the bum pad

and go all the way down
to give you that shape,

taking up even more space.

Of course, it's quite improper
that a gentleman should dress you,
or even a man like myself.

Of course, it's an immensely
titillating sight for you, isn't it?

It certainly is.
I'm doing my best to control myself.

How do you feel?
I feel...

rather Queenly.

Now the petticoat, Lucy.

And this is beautiful,
this is the four-part

and it's white and gold, as you see.

The back is of silk,

it's not as good as the front,
but it's pretty good,

but no-one sees it except
the ladies who are dressing you.

Only I know that I have a silken
bottom? Indeed. OK, all right?

Now, Lucy,
turn around and give us a twirl.

Does my bum look big in this?
HE LAUGHS

Now, let's imprison
those wandering hands of yours

in miles and miles of velvet.

Hang onto your cuffs
cos this is jolly heavy.

Oh, there we are. Are you in? Whoa!

Now, how does that feel?

Very cosy.

It looks good on you, colour-wise.

Impossible, most of these dresses,
for people to get into themselves.

And now for your so-called
cartwheel ruff...Your Majesty.

Forgive my trembling hands.

You know, it really works,
all of this gear.

Cos I do actually feel
extremely Queen-like.

You look it too.
Queen of hearts. Ah, yes, excellent.

Behead that man
and give that lady a peerage.

Very good, madam.

Ah, lovely!

Elizabeth I's dresses
literally dazzled the eyes

of her 16th-century courtiers
and visitors.

This dress alone was covered
with 800 freshwater pearls

and that's not including
the jewellery she wore on top.

As a result, Elizabeth's wardrobe
became legendary,

even in her own lifetime.

In 1600, when the Moravian Baron
Wolfstein visited England,

he said his sole object had been
to win an audience with the Queen.

And afterwards he said
that she had been glittering

with the glory of majesty

and she had been adorned all over
with precious jewels and gems.

Elizabethan fashion
not only bolstered

the international reputation
of the Queen herself,

but also her entire court.

She used clothes to construct
her own personal image,

but expected the rest of her court
to follow her lead.

A gentleman's suit,
appropriate for court wear,

would cost as much as a year's rent
on his London town house.

To maintain standards,
Elizabeth even passed laws

on what people should,
and importantly, should not wear.

Elizabeth wanted her courtiers
to look good,

but she didn't want them
getting above their station.

So she passed no less than
ten Statutes of Apparel -

laws that said who could wear what,
at what rank of society.

So here is a 16th-century
Act of Parliament

against the inordinate use
of apparel.

It says here that
if you want to wear cloth of gold,

you have to be an Earl
or above that in status.

If you want to wear
fur on your clothes,

you have to be worth
at least £100 a year.

And I also like the impression
it gives

that the Queen can see you
even in your bedroom.

Woe betide you if you are worth
less than £20 a year

and if you wear the sumptuous fabric
of silk on your night cap.

Elizabeth's wardrobe really proves

how royal dress has the power
to make a monarch.

Her image contributed to the
longevity of her 44-year reign

and the relative peace
and prosperity that the country
enjoyed throughout.

But the wardrobes of her successors,
the Stuarts,

show how clothes could contribute
to the breaking-up of a monarchy.

By the early 17th century,

the royal wardrobe of Charles I had
become a symbol for excess and vice.

In 1633, Parliament ordered
an inquiry

into the accounts
of the royal wardrobe

and they discovered that
money had been siphoned off.

It had been spent on unauthorised
days out and other jollies.

Basically it was a 17th-century
expenses scandal.

In the 16th century,

the Tudor monarchs had kept
their artists on a tight rein.

They, and they alone, had determined
how they should be painted.

But the rise of the printing press

and the sale of illustrated
pamphlets on street corners

meant that the Stuart image would be
treated less respectfully.

And court fashion became
part of the political battleground.

Now, these pictures
from satirical pamphlets

show the power of dress
and particularly accusations

about the lavishness of dress
and the role it played

in the propaganda war leading up
to the actual, physical Civil War.

This gentleman in this picture is
a Cavalier, he fights for the King.

And the artist is basically saying
that, with all of his clothes

and all of his styling,
the gentleman is a twit,

because look at what he's wearing.

The key tells us
that he's wearing a silly hat,

it looks like a closed stool pan,

or a toilet pan,
set on the top of his noodle.

It says here that he's wearing
a long-waisted doublet,

unbuttoned halfway.

Now, that's shades of Simon Cowell

and the button's
a bit too open on the shirt.

He's got in his hand a stick,
playing with it -

we know what that means.

And he's also wearing
a great big pair of spurs,

so you hear him coming along -

he jingles like a Morris dancer
as he approaches.

So basically he is
absolutely ridiculous.

In this other pamphlet, the thing is
getting a little bit more serious,

because here we've got the Civil War
as an allegory of a dogfight.

What I really like about this image

is the way that the dogs
and their masters have

exactly the same haircuts.
Look, the Cavaliers have got

long, wavy, curly hair,
and so too has their dog,

whereas the Roundhead dog,
he has exactly the same

pudding basin-type haircut
as his Parliamentarian masters.

Now, the luxurious clothing
of the King and his Cavaliers

did not lead directly
to the Civil War,

but negative comment about their
wardrobes opened the way for

other, much more serious, complaints
that ended in armed rebellion.

So it might sound surprising

that right at the end
of Charles I's life,

when he was incarcerated
and awaiting trial,

he was still
thinking about his wardrobe.

You might think that Charles I,
defeated, in prison,

would have other things on his mind
apart from his clothes.

But when he heard he was to be
brought to London for his trial,

what does he do?
He orders a new velvet suit

covered all over in gold embroidery.

He still wanted to make
a regal, a kingly impression.

The King's trial ended with
the order for his execution.

It was to take place
on 30th January 1649.

That morning,
he dressed with great care.

He put on two shirts,
because it was very cold that day

and he didn't want anyone to see him
shivering on the scaffold.

He was bought here
to the Palace of Whitehall,

and his guards marched him
through the galleries,

through this very door
into the Banqueting House,

the last room
that Charles I would ever see.

The King was frog-marched
through this space

and out through a hole in the wall
that had been made,

leading onto a scaffold
erected in the street outside.

There, he said his last prayers,
he took off his hat,

he moved his long hair
out of the way to bare his neck.

And he gave his gloves
to his friend, Archbishop Juxon.

Then he knelt down
and put his head on the block,

it was very low,
he was almost lying on his stomach.

And then the axe came down.

Fashion and clothing were central
to Charles I's kingship

and its power was revealed
most fully

by what happened to his wardrobe
following his execution.

After the King's death, there was
a great deal of interest

in what was going to happen
to his clothes.

People started to collect them.

And so we have the cap he wore

when he was captured
by the Parliamentarians.

Even more excitingly, we've got
fragments of the cloak he wore

on the morning of his execution.

And those gloves he gave
to Archbishop Juxon,

well, here they are.

But hang on a minute...

These are also said
to have been the gloves he wore

on the morning of the execution.

And if you go to Lambeth Palace,
they've got a third pair there.

Now, clearly he wasn't wearing
three pairs of gloves

and clearly not all of these things
can be real,

but that's not really the point.

To the supporters of the defeated
King Charles,

these items of royal clothing
had such power,

they had such significance

that people venerated them,
like the relics of a holy saint.

Now, for first and only time
in the last thousand years,

the country was without a monarch.

To many people, the monarchy itself
was dead and gone

with all its pomp and ceremony,

including props
such as royal clothing.

This is the iconic image
of Oliver Cromwell.

The original was painted
by Sir Peter Lely,

who ironically was a court painter.

But when Cromwell went about
having his picture painted,

he did it in quite a different way
to, say, Elizabeth I.

He's supposed to have said to Lely,

"You've got to show me
as I really am, warts and all."

And it seems like he got his way -
look at that giant wart on his chin.

Cromwell's portrait suggests
that he wanted to distance himself

from the extravagant image
of his royal rivals.

And his supporters preserved relics
that promoted this image.

So, John, this is the actual hat
of Oliver Cromwell?

Well, we'd like to think so,

but actually if you look at it,

it's really a bit too small.
Oh! I know.

It's definitely a hat of the period,
though.

It's more likely to be a woman's
or a child's hat. Oh, no!

Wouldn't have fitted on his
big head? I don't think so.

John, you are such a spoilsport.

I know. But these really do have
to be his rather lovely gloves?

Could be, there's a label inside them
which says that they were given

by a gentleman in Huntingdon in 1704
and they were given to a member

of the Cromwell family, so they were
believed to be Cromwell's gloves.

And they're still believed
to be Cromwell's gloves.

I want them to be Cromwell's gloves
because they fit in with

my idea of him - they're sort of
rufty-tufty, they're leather,

not fancy, they look practical.

I imagine that a man who wanted
himself painted warts and all

would have worn gloves like this.

I think that's the point, really,

they perhaps fit in with the image,
the warts-and-all image,

which by the 18th century is what
people probably thought

Cromwell might have said, ought to
have said, and therefore did say.

Whether these clothes actually
were Cromwell's or not,

they projected the image
that his supporters wanted -

a simple man,
full of puritan virtue.

In reality, though,
things were rather different.

As a ruler, Cromwell adopted many
of the trappings of being a king.

He didn't know what else to do,

there were no other models
to follow.

And when he died, his supporters
even buried him with a crown.

The Commonwealth really died
with Cromwell

and the country's republican
experiment ended with

the return of Charles II
to reclaim his father's throne.

But Charles's new subjects noticed
that he was anxious to avoid

making the same mistakes
as his father

and that even filtered through
to his fashion sense.

In his diary for 1666, Samuel Pepys
tells us about something

unprecedented that the King did
in one of his council meetings.

Charles II had declared
his resolution of setting

a brand-new fashion for clothes,
for everybody at court.

He did this to teach the nobility
thrift, which Samuel Pepys,

and presumably the rest
of the population,

thought was a very good thing.

Charles II was introducing
a new kind of outfit - the suit.

Although the suit's decoration could
be quite the opposite of thrifty.

Susan, this suit is covered all over
with silver embroidery,

that's a bit over the top, isn't it?

Well, it was worn
for an important occasion

by the brother of Charles II -
James -

when he was Duke of York,
when he married in 1673.

Imagine him
coming into a candlelit room,

he must have glistened all over
like a Christmas tree.

Well, yes, and perhaps even more so
when the coat and breeches

were first made as the threads were
that much brighter and sparkling.

What's so new about this
as an outfit of clothes?

What's remarkable for a royal dress
is the fact that it's a coat

he's wearing with his breeches,
and not a doublet.

So the doublet would have been
a tight little jacket

and then big, baggy breeches.

Yes, and then the doublet,
by this time, sort of ends

barely at the waistline.

So perhaps it was a good opportunity
for Charles to set something new,

maybe the doublet was too reminiscent
of the old court, of his father.

Here was a chance to establish
a look that would be uniquely

identified with him, an outfit that
everybody was desperate to wear

and thinks is really cool
and stylish.

Where did Charles II, then,
get his fashion sense?

Clearly he was a fashionable
sort of fellow.

Well, he did very significantly spend
time at the court of Louis XIV.

Louis was recognised as being

the style leader
for absolutely everything,

including clothing,
and was quite dictatorial about

what people were allowed to wear and
how they were to present themselves.

Surely emulating someone who's
a bit dictatorial about fashion

isn't a very good idea
for Charles II

cos he's seen his father
be dictatorial and get his head
chopped off as a result.

Well, certainly he must have
taken that into account,

but on the other hand,
it's not something that's decreed,

he doesn't enforce
the wearing of this garment.

So is it fair to say
that Louis XIV is going,
"Courtiers, wear what I want."

He's using the French stick
if you like.

And then we've got Charles II
in London making everybody

want to wear the suit
because it looks so good.

He's using the carrot.
Yes, absolutely.

We've got the French stick
or the English carrot.

Which do you prefer?

Well, I think we'd all go
for the English carrot, wouldn't we?

Good answer.

Now, Charles II may be remembered
as the jolly old merry monarch,

but I believe that he was
a particularly canny king.

He cleverly distanced himself
from his father, Charles I,

and also from contemporary
absolutist monarchs, like Louis XIV.

And Charles II marks a real turning
point for the British monarchy.

His predecessors had all believed

that the had a God-given right
to rule.

But from Charles II onwards,

every British monarch knew that
he nor she was no longer top dog,

and that he or she had to rule

by paying a nod to the power
of their people.

After the Civil War,

Charles had realised that monarchs
could no longer power-dress,

like Elizabeth I, because they
simply didn't wield as much power.

But they were still left
with the pomp.

As a trilogy of Georges navigated
their way through the 18th century,

gentlemen sported
the new sensible suits,

while ladies did quite the opposite.

Now, Eleri, what is this
extraordinary object?

This is an 18th-century
version of an underskirt

known as a side hoop or panniers.

It was worn to create
a very extravagant skirt shape.

So, my body, my waist, goes
in that hole there, right?

You stand in there

and then this drawstring
gathers around your waist.

And you tie that up? Absolutely.
Is this whalebone under here?

Yes. It's quite a flexible thing.

Exactly,
it's what creates the shape.

Although it doesn't look very much,

it's actually quite a special
luxury garment.

And it's amazing that underwear like
this survives from the 18th century.

It's very rare.

And what kind of a dress
would have gone on top?

An extraordinary dress
called the court mantua.

Tell me about this,
it's almost ridiculous,

the size and shape of this thing,

it must be
the least practical dress ever.

Absolutely,
but that's sort of the point,

is that the person who was wearing
this was obviously rich enough

and important enough not to wear
practical clothes.

You couldn't do a shred of work in
this, in fact you could barely move.

They were wearing these dresses
at the Georgian court

and they became
something of a uniform, didn't they?

They did, it was actually
prescribed, and there were
very strict rules of etiquette

about what sorts of dresses
you should wear

and women had to wear these mantuas,

pretty much for most of
the 18th century.

I've read that the courtiers
complained about all the ruffles

and the frills getting in the way
of any sort of activity

they wanted to be doing.
What about this particular silk

that's been woven here,
what's the significance of it?

This particular silk
is a very expensive one,

because of the complexity
of the weave, there aren't that many

repeating patterns within it,

which to the trained eye at court

would signify very rarefied
sensibility and also a lot of money.

This one's pretty wide, is this
as extreme as mantuas get?

You did get skirts that came out

at complete right angles
to the waist and then down.

A big walking oblong?
Absolutely.

Do you think then, I get the sense
that by the late Georgian period,

going to court must have been
a bit like going to the zoo,

like the dinosaurs are still
walking the earth

wearing these crazy
outmoded dresses.

But that was part
of maintaining at court

this splendour of the 18th century,
because everything about the court

and society changed so much
during that century

that it was a way
of preserving in aspic

the ceremony associated with court.

This has to be the world's
least practical dress.

When you came to court you had
to follow an extremely strict

code of behaviour.

You'd be coached beforehand
by your dancing master.

So one court lady tells us

that if a hairpin
was pricking your scalp,

you couldn't pull it out -
you had to put up with the pain.

If it got really bad, then you could
bite the inside of your cheek

and swallow the blood
as a diversion.

So what were the rules
of wearing a dress like this?

Well, firstly, there were
no chairs in the room -

it's contrary to etiquette
to sit down in the royal presence,

so you had to stand for hours
in your heavy hoops

and also in your high-heeled shoes.

You mustn't cross your arms,
that's a complete no-no,

as is turning your back
on the King or Queen.

If you wanted to leave the room,
you had to ask permission,

and if it was given,
you had to curtsy three times

and then back out of the room,

avoiding collisions
with other ladies

in their hoops, and getting yourself
straight out of the door.

Everybody wants to know how
the court ladies went to the loo,

and the answer is
they're not yet wearing knickers,

which haven't been invented.

So they ARE able to use
the chamber pot.

But to do this, you're supposed
to ask for permission and withdraw

to the anteroom, and permission
is not necessarily forthcoming.

Once, one of Queen Caroline's ladies

was refused permission to withdraw,

and a few minutes later,

a humiliating puddle
appeared from underneath her mantua,

and this is
the contemporary quotation -

"It threatens the shoes
of bystanders."

By the end of the 18th century,

courtly dress had become
a source of derision.

The royal wardrobe was becoming

less and less relevant
to the outside world -

and so too was the monarchy itself.

The population
might have laughed a lot more

if the royal joke hadn't been
quite literally at their expense.

This is the Prince Regent,

the future George IV,

standing in for his dad
while he was mad.

You may remember him as the Hugh
Laurie character in Blackadder -

in other words, a bit of a twit.

When he finally became King in 1820

he put on the most wonderful
coronation,

it was an enormous spectacle
that everybody enjoyed,

until they discovered
how much it had cost.

He spent £25,000 on his robes
that he only wore for a few hours.

George IV was a very stylish man.

As his wife said, it was just
a shame that he had to be King,

he would have made
a much better hairdresser.

MUSIC: "Zadok the Priest"
by Handel

Now, if I had to imagine
the slippers

of that bling lover George IV,

this is what I would come up with.

Yeah, definitely, and I like
how they match the pink,

sort of salmon-pinky lining
to the silver tops.

Oh, look, there's a pink
lining as well, look at that.

And they glitter - and you've got
a matching gold pair over there.

Yes, with a yellow lining.

And then most importantly we have
George's actual coronation shoes.

The moment of becoming King
he was wearing these shoes -

and they're silver again,

and they have
the little red heels of royalty.

Now, this was the greatest
show on earth, wasn't it,

tell me more about it.

I think it looked spectacular but
I think it also looked a bit strange,

because what George did,
he made all the courtiers wear some

sort of historic fancy dress outfit,
some sort of Tudor/Stuarty number.

Was this dignified for a poor
aged peer with knobbly knees

to be sent out in tight stockings?

Probably not. I mean,
I guess they weren't all old,

there were probably some men with
really nice knees and nice legs...

But it has an air of sort of theatre
fancy dress about it, I think.

Did they have to pay
for their own costumes?

As far as I understand, they did.

I've read somewhere that one of these
could cost up to £250,

that's a lot of money.

What did people really think of
George's love of clothes?

I think they thought
it was a bit undignified for a king.

You should maybe occupy your thoughts
with other things

than the cut of your pantaloons
or your cravats.

He was too busy
fussing round with his buttons?

I think that was
what a lot of people thought.

What happened to his
fabulous wardrobe after he died?

Well, quite a lot was sold off.
So we happen to have

an auction catalogue, which lists
some of the things he had.

He had 28 white waistcoats,
of which we have three.

But why did he need
28 white waistcoats?

Well, that's a good question,
why does anyone need 28 waistcoats?

One of them is here, and if you
open it up you can actually see

it says here PR for Prince Regent
and you can see how big it is.

It's large!

But what is really bizarre in here,
there is

one lot that you could buy -

two masquerade nun's dresses
and a red petticoat.

What he was doing with the nun's
dresses? I have absolutely no idea.

Maybe he went somewhere
dressed up as a nun.

Oh, that's a brilliant image,
isn't it?! Rather large nun.

All this meant that when the King
died, he wasn't much mourned.

This book written about him,
the year after his death,

says that to George IV
the cut of a coat

became of greater consequence

than the amelioration
of the condition of Ireland.

He cared more about the tie
of a neckcloth

than he did
about parliamentary reform.

Instead of governing the country,
he'd spend all morning

talking with his tailor

about the merits of loose trousers
over tight pantaloons.

His obituary in the Times newspaper
claimed that

"Never was an individual
regretted less by his people

"than this deceased King.

"What eye has wept for him?"

George IV was the least popular King
since Charles I,

and his wasteful
and egotistical attitude to clothes

was one of the reasons
that the monarchy's image

reached such a low point
in the early 19th century.

An increasingly critical press

meant that people were more aware
than ever

of what the royals were up to.

Yet the monarchy's status
was about to be transformed -

by a rather unlikely figure.

If you were asked to name the most
clothes-obsessed, image-conscious

King or Queen, you probably wouldn't
come up with Queen Victoria.

Most people think of her as
a little old lady dressed in black,

looking like a potato,

but actually she loved clothes,

and Queen Victoria is the woman
who gave us the white wedding dress.

Victoria may be remembered
as the widow in black,

but at her wedding she abandoned
the convention

of wearing royal robes.

She chose instead her white dress,

and even designed
her bridesmaids' outfits.

But it wasn't all black and white
in Victoria's wardrobe.

Deirdre, this is not our idea of
Queen Victoria, is it?

She's pretty short and she's
pretty teeny-tiny round the waist.

Look how small that is.

She is. Well, she wore this dress
when she was about 16 years old,

so it is pretty teeny-tiny.
It's so cute.

It is cute. She was five foot
one and three-quarters,

and the sleeves
are very beautifully puffed

as any 1830s evening gown would be.

The silhouette of the dress
is also off the shoulder

and creates a very beautiful line
around her neckline.

It's possible she wore it the first
time she met Prince Albert.

That's so romantic.

But what do you think she thought of
fashion?

She really doesn't

have a place on the best dressed
list of queens of history, does she?

She was certainly
very, very interested in fashion

and extremely aware of the power

that fashion had
in shaping public opinion.

For big public occasions
she always wore British,

and that was something
that was always clearly identified

in newspaper articles describing her
clothes for any particular event.

Do you think that Queen Victoria

self-consciously constructed
her image?

Definitely. She was absolutely
obsessed with theatre, to the point

where she actually dressed
her family and friends as well.

So say for instance... This is
the christening of Princess Vicky,

her eldest daughter,

and you can see
that the Queen is here

wearing a very magnificent dress
in silver and gold,

looking very Queen-like.

But it's also a very special group,

distinguished by their unified
clothing in silver, gold and white.

And again, when Queen Victoria
visited Scotland in 1842,

she went to Drummond Castle
for this enormous ball

where everyone wore tartan,
except for her. Oh!

It says here her dress was composed
of rich Spitalfields silk

of a pale pink.

Are you saying that she outclassed
everybody else?

Not necessarily
that she outclassed everyone else

but she's certainly
dressing to stand out here.

She had worn tartan throughout the
entire visit to Scotland in 1842.

For days on end she's dressed
from head to toe in tartan,

and on the biggest day
of the entire visit

she decides to wear pale pink
in front of a backdrop of tartan.

Mmm. That sounds rather lovely,
doesn't it?

Micro-managing
her own and her family's wardrobe

helped Queen Victoria to win over
the hearts of her people,

and to make the monarchy popular
once again.

Victoria understood
not only the power of dress,

but also the power of the press.

Here's a letter from Queen Victoria
to her son,

about her belief
in the power of dress.

She says it's "the one outward sign

"from which people can
and often do judge

"the inward state of mind"
of a person.

And it's of particular importance
in persons of high rank.

So, she says to him, "We do expect
that you will never wear

"anything extravagant or slang,"
as she puts it,

too casual - "because that
would prove a want of self-respect

"and be an offence against decency."

Like Elizabeth I, Victoria
made careful clothing choices

that played well to her people.

And like Elizabeth, Victoria
enjoyed a long and stable reign.

She knew that her dresses
would make their impact

through newspaper reports.

With expanding readerships,
and the introduction of photography,

she, her family
and their descendents

would be under closer scrutiny
than ever before.

Though some of her successors
were less prudent,

and the results for the monarchy
were nearly catastrophic.

This is a gentleman's suit
from the 1930s.

Now, you might think
that it's a bit loud -

look at this houndstooth
in the tweed -

and you can imagine

Bertie Wooster perhaps
going out in a suit like this,

but it isn't actually
offensive to our eyes.

At the time, though, the
establishment thought that this suit

was scandalous - as they did
also its owner, who was Edward VIII.

Edward VIII's approach to clothing
was rather like George IV's.

His relationship with
the American divorcee Wallis Simpson

was the real reason
that he abdicated in 1936.

But Edward's playboy lifestyle,
and the wardrobe that he favoured -

here at his golf club, for example -

had caused concern much earlier on.

Shaun - looking at these photos
of the Prince of Wales,

the future Edward VIII,

he looks pretty smart
in all of them I'd say,

I'd say that was
a pretty smart jacket there.

What was the problem with this?

Well, in today's conventions
it IS a smart jacket,

it's a Glen plaid jacket.

But tweeds, Glen plaids like this,

it was wear for the country,
it wasn't city wear

and he was wearing these things

outside the place
they were supposed to be worn

and that's
where he was pushing boundaries.

So is that like turning up to
Royal Ascot wearing a shell suit?

I don't think it's
quite as extreme as that,

but certainly it would have been.
It was about the appropriateness.

So at a time when he would have been
inspecting the troops

and he should have been wearing
something formal, perhaps uniform,

in this image he's wearing
a double-breasted jacket,

which again we think of being
rather conventional,

but he's wearing it with
a pair of shepherd tweed trousers.

The fashion convention
was for narrower Edwardian trousers

that his father would have worn.

These are bags.
They are bags, absolutely,

and he very much pushed this boundary
with his trousers.

And his biography says
he doesn't wear bags as such...

Those are baggy trousers!

..but they are very baggy trousers
and in fact, while he had his jackets

made at a tailor in London,
Scholte's,

he had his trousers
made by an American tailor,

he didn't like the cut
and had them flown over.

That's so profligate! Absolutely.

What Wallis Simpson called
his pants across the ocean.

No way! His pants across the ocean.
That's brilliant.

Look at the contrast with this
very formal-looking gentleman here.

And the bowler hat as well -

while we think of that as being,
you know, the epitome of British

tradition, it started off as a hat
for the country, for servants.

He's wearing it in town,
wearing it to inspect the troops.

He started to wear knitwear.

He had popularised
Fair Isle knitwear,

certainly in golf
and then into other forms of leisure.

You are wearing his legacy today.

Indeed. So it just shows, doesn't it,
how important he was.

This seems like the iconic image
to me - because what is he doing?

He's got off an aeroplane,
he's wearing a very stylish suit,

he's got this funny little dog
with him

and he's doing something
very camp with his arm.

He is, and he was the modern man.

This for me sums up Edward VIII -
would you have employed him

at the London College of Fashion?

Absolutely!

I'd employ him as my tailor. As
my dresser. He should have YOUR job!

Now, obviously Edward VIII
didn't abdicate

because he spent too much time
on the golf course,

or because of his fondness
for knitwear.

But in the eyes of the establishment
these things were symptomatic.

To them, Edward VIII was
too fashionable, he was too "slang".

If he wasn't dressed like a royal,

people thought
he wasn't behaving like a royal,

and this was morally lax.

Edward's love of clothes kicked off
a debate that would affect

the wardrobe choices of every
young royal from then until now -

how to respond to fashion.

It was something that
the present Queen had to deal with

from an early age,

when Britain's wardrobes
were invaded by -

quelle horreur -
the French fashion house Dior.

Having wowed Parisian audiences
with his sumptuous yet controversial

New Look in 1947,

Christian Dior then unleashed it
upon the British public.

Dior's New Look
was pretty controversial.

In Paris, some of his models
had some their clothes

ripped from their bodies
by disapproving crowds.

And in London,
the head of the Board of Trade

thought that this was a ridiculously
profligate use of fabric

when rationing was still enforced.

The trouble was, though, that
every female fashion lover in London

loved this - including the female
members of the royal family.

While Dior's trip to London
caused a public frenzy,

there was something secret
going on behind the scenes.

One day he packs up
all of his dresses into bags,

and he sneaks out
the back of his hotel,

to travel across London
to the French Embassy.

And there he put on a private
showing of his collection,

to a whole gaggle of royals

including the Duchess of Kent
and Princess Margaret.

But apparently one person
was conspicuous by her absence -

that was Princess Elizabeth,
the future Queen.

It was acceptable for junior royals

to drool over Dior
and his French frocks,

but apparently it wasn't all right
for the heir to the British throne.

Princess Elizabeth's younger sister
Princess Margaret

was the one with the freedom
to frolic with fashion.

Princess Margaret remained
at the front of the fashion pack

for her whole life -

after all, she was married
to a fashion photographer.

She went on wearing Dior from
the New Look right into the 1970s.

This dress from 1977 is by Dior,

and she wore it at the Queen's
Silver Jubilee celebrations.

Louis Armstrong described
the fashion-loving Princess Margaret

as "one hip chick".

I don't think
he would have been able to say that

about her elder sister, the Queen.

# Hello, Dolly

# This is Louis, Dolly

# It's so nice to have you back
where you belong... #

While Margaret
looked exotic, glamorous and cool,

her elder sister realised that with
HER position came responsibility.

Like her great-great-grandmother
Queen Victoria,

Her Majesty the Queen

had to make choices that were
conservative and very, very British.

At first she used the designer
Norman Hartnell,

who she had inherited
from her mother,

before choosing Hardy Amies -
whose fashion house still lies

at the heart of British tailoring,
on Savile Row.

OK... This is a bit of
a treasure trove in here, isn't it?

Yes, this is where the archive,
the Hardy Amies archive is kept.

Look at all of this.
Ooh, I can see sparkles over here.

Yeah, the colour's so great in here.

This was an evening dress made for
the Countess of Dudley,

who in a previous life was the
Hollywood film star Maureen Swanson.

What about this one?
This is fabulous.

This was made in 1983
for Princess Michael of Kent.

Can I take this one home?
I want it.

Look at it, though, look at it.
Isn't it wonderful?

That's a dress for a princess,
that is.

Just layers of this lace.

And what's in all the boxes
up there?

I see HMQ - does that stand for
what I think it stands for?

HMQ - the code,
Her Majesty the Queen.

So we have a series of boxes
of fabric swatches and samples.

The fabrics were never used
for anybody else, just the Queen.

Actually, this here is...

This is the Queen's mannequin!
Look at that.

The mannequin says on it, "HMQ".
Yes. This is her.

This is her, this is Her Majesty
the Queen. 1962...

Ooh, it's been padded out
a little bit since then.

You can see here
the Queen's famously small waist.

Yes. She did have a really
fantastic waist, a great figure.

And is this the right height?

A little short, I think, but, yes.

Am I taller than the Queen?

Almost the same height.
You've got heels on.

You are correct about that.

And she does have a head.
Yes, of course. And a crown.

OK. Here we have the Queen's
press book.

Look how big it is, and it says
"The Queen". Gargantuan press book.

So here we go, from the beginning.

So here -
this is the procession almost,

the process of Hardy
going to Buckingham Palace.

And there's Hardy
in the middle there.

It's obviously quite a moment -

as it says, "Setting off
for Buckingham Palace, 1954."

Yes, it was. Hardy Amies was really
proud, really proud of his role

designing for the Queen.
It was his life's work, really.

What happened
when they got to Buckingham Palace?

They would go through the back door,
which always really irritated Hardy.

The back door.

He always thought he should have
gone through the front.

So they'd go through the back door
and meet Her Majesty

with her own team of people, there
would have been her own fitter.

So he didn't do it himself?

No. The Queen would have had
someone. Yeah.

And he would say, "Maybe
do something here with the lapel

"or the hem of the skirt
or something, maybe length-wise..."

If you were the Queen's designer
then, what were the rules

and regulations that you had
to work within?

Well, a huge bonus would be to get
a colour right - for example here

the Queen is wearing mauve in Japan

and that's the imperial colour
of Japan.

So when Her Majesty stepped
from the aircraft wearing this,

the host nation were delighted
that she was paying homage to them.

So it's a compliment to
the host nation to incorporate

some sort of a reference
to their own culture.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

The Queen considered this
her working wardrobe.

She wanted to be seen.

Even on a rainy day -
we can just see a tip of it there -

an umbrella,
normally a transparent umbrella

that the public, her public,

could still see her
in all her magnificence.

So that's why she's in the really
bright jade and the magenta and

what I would describe as
rather a terrible shade of orange.

This incredible tangerine.

"This is your royal duty,
you will wear these colours."

Yes - "You will stand out."

And I can't help noticing
the iconic

shoes and handbag - the low-heeled
shiny pumps, and that old handbag.

He felt that sometimes

that blackness didn't really
complement

some of the shades
he put the Queen in -

and here we have a shoe,

this is a 1976 court shoe

for Her Majesty.

Mm-hm...

Very importantly,
they've been scored on the bottom.

Oh, yes, you can see crisscrosses
to stop her from falling over.

They are awfully slippy, those
leather soles, aren't they?

They are. And slightly raised here.
Must be to support the arches.

That's right. You could stand up
all day in that shoe.

Yes. All about comfort, yes.

So if you're the Queen's designer

I imagine that this is
a little bit constricting -

is it difficult, is it a bit
frustrating, do you think?

I think so. She had a little by-line
that said... She'd say to Hardy,

"I don't want to look like the girl
on the cover of Vogue",

and by saying that
she was saying to Hardy,

"This is too fashionable for me."

The Queen would never have become
the clotheshorse

that Hardy longed to dress,

but instead she won respect
by sticking to her style.

By wearing the same sort of thing
for 70 years,

she has created a timeless look

that's won praise from some of
the greatest fashion arbiters.

Miuccia Prada
has said that the Queen

is "simply one of the most
elegant women in the world."

Just as Queen Victoria commanded,

recent royals
have carefully stuck to the rules

about not flirting too much
with fashion.

When a member of the royal family
DID make the break

and wear foreign fashion,

it was only after the ending
of her royal career,

when the world witnessed
the most glamorous

and successful clothing sale
in history.

The Christie's New York
charity auction

of the royal wardrobe
of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Meredith, what were
the circumstances

of the auction
of all of the dresses in 1997?

Well, rather surprising ones - well,
I was certainly very surprised

because one sunny morning
in September

I was summoned to the man who was
running Christie's at the time

who said, "I want you to go down
to Kensington Palace,

"Princess Diana's
decided to sell her wardrobe."

And I said, "You must be joking."

He said, "I'm not,
but I think it's for charity.

"Anyway, she's very excited,
you'd better go and meet her."

So I rang up, and a voice answered

and it was Paul Burrell, the butler,

I thought sounding
rather kind of pompous.

So off I went,

and she explained her idea of

lessening the load on her wardrobe

by selling a lot of dresses
for charity.

Which was a bit of a show stopper,
quite frankly,

over a cup of coffee
and a bickie.

What do you think her motivation was
for doing this?

I think two things - first of all
she'd seriously run out of space

in her wardrobe,
in her dressing room,

but that's a sort of jokey answer.

The serious answer was, you know,
it was the end of one kind of life.

She wasn't going to do state visits
any more,

she wasn't going to sort of
open things, cut ribbons,

and all of those sort of things
could go.

And the third reason I suspect

was that she actually quite wanted
to clamber into Chanel and Versace -

she liked French and Italian clothes

and she'd only ever been able
to wear,

quite rightly so,
English clothes before that.

How did you go about selecting
these particular 80 lots?

Well, it was a collaborative
effort between me,

the Princess,
sometimes Prince William -

who was often down from Eton
for dentist's or whatever -

the butler played a part...

We used to have them on racks
in the drawing room,

and go through them
and eliminate some of them.

Prince William would say,
"Mummy, you really can't sell that,

"you've worn it a bit too much."

And then the ones
that we sort of selected had tags,

Prince William was told
how to tag things by the butler,

so he busily tagged things.

And we finally arrived
at the sort of...

we thought pretty much the balance.

So we had some very grand dresses,
and some not so grand dresses.

Some things, you might say,
were not for everybody,

but for people who wanted to be
princesses for a day, I guess.

And the climax of the whole thing
was...

The first night, the sale

and the climax was the lot
before the end - lot 79,

the...what I call
the John Travolta dress

that she danced with
John Travolta in the White House,

I think I've actually marked -
X marks the spot.

And it's a very famous...

It was dark blue velvet,
made by Victor Edelstein

and she looked ravishing in it.

And am I right in saying
that at the time that it was sold

it was the most expensive
item of clothing ever?

Yes, it was.
I'll have to refresh my memory

and it says here we sold it
for £222,500,

which is a lot of money.

You wouldn't want to spill your
baked beans down that, would you?

No, she always said
it's awful going to banquets,

you're always worried
about the chicken,

because it's always in a sauce

and you can't tuck a napkin in,
can you, if you're

sitting at a kind of state banquet.
I did sympathise, I must say.

This is just one of the 80 dresses
from the sale,

which made a total of £3,250,000.

It's a green velvet
halter neck evening dress

with diamond buttons.

And this and the rest
made so much money

not because they're lovely dresses -
which they are -

but because they were royal,

because Diana, Princess of Wales
wore them herself.

Her dresses
were her personal statements,

this is how she spoke to us.

She even told one of her designers

what went through her mind
when she was picking an outfit.

She would think, "What am
I communicating if I wear this?"

These words of Princess Diana's

sum up the reason why the royal
wardrobe throughout history

has been so important.

For each and every King and Queen,
or Prince and Princess,

there's been no such thing as
an ordinary dress

or a boring old pair of trousers.

In the eyes of their people,

every single outfit has always
been seen as a statement.

Clothing has created their image,
and helped determine

whether they've been loved
or loathed.

For the royal family, one was,

one is
and one probably always will be

what one wears.