Decades later, Sir Hardy Amies remembered that moment in 1950. The young Princess Elisabeth, just 24 years old, and her sister, Princess Margaret, who was four years younger, announced each other - and actually came to his fashion salon on Savile Row .

"When I saw the future queen for the first time," Sir Hardy told the FAZ in 1998, "I felt a deep sense of chivalry that has not diminished since then."

Alfons Kaiser

Responsible editor for the section “Germany and the World” and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Magazin.

  • Follow I follow

No wonder the old man, who was born in 1909 and died in 2003, never forgot that moment.

Because he had only founded his fashion house five years earlier - the war was just over and the door to fashion was literally open because it had been destroyed by German bombs.

Now his career began as a tailor for the princess and then the queen, who finally allowed him to print the royal coat of arms on his stationery as "Dressmaker To Her Majesty".

Margaret always dressed very stylishly

Sir Hardy remembered two young women of good taste. He designed dresses with a narrow waist and not too long, wide skirt for the princesses. The “New Look”, introduced by Christian Dior in 1947, had made an impression on the young women. Just in the spring of 1950, the two princesses and their mother had attended a Dior fashion show at the French embassy in London. They were taken with the fashion designer: he mastered English manners, and his designs made the poor war and post-war years forgotten.

Princess Margaret in particular was enchanted.

In contrast to her more conservative sister, the “royal rebel” dressed fashionably: with floral prints and sunglasses, later with fur stoles and hats with peacock feathers.

In 1950, for her 21st birthday, Dior designed a sweeping cream-colored dress with a free shoulder, which became iconic because Cecil Beaton had staged it in Buckingham Palace in front of red velvet and a magnificent tapestry.

Elisabeth was fashionable as a conservative sister

Elisabeth just had to be more brittle. In any case, she was more reserved than her sister. And she had been married to Prince Philip since 1947 and had two children, Charles, born in 1948, and Anne, born in 1950. In addition, she had to stand in for her father, whose health deteriorated noticeably in 1951, more and more often at public events. When George VI. died, she was proclaimed Queen on February 6, 1952 and crowned at Westminster Abbey on June 2, 1953. Her clothes were not about female self-realization, but about royal representation. While Margaret freed herself from the courtly corset, Elisabeth remained trapped in it for the next seven decades. And while Margaret became one of Dior's top customers and a style icon,the Queen had to dress in British fashion - which lagged far behind the French.

And the crowning glory!

For this she did not commission Hardy Amies, but Norman Hartnell, a master of the great form, known for lavish dresses with opulent embroidery.

He presented her with nine different dresses, she decided on the eighth, but asked for colored embroidery instead of just silver, and asked for symbols of the Commonwealth of Nations as well as the four national emblems - a maple leaf for Canada, a silver fern for New Zealand.

The royal regalia finally called for a dignified setting.

In order to get used to the heavy crown, the Imperial State Crown was put on again and again in the palace.