Back when Prince William married Kate Middleton, I may have been too distracted with the feathers I wore on my head to realise that the bride's dress was covered in detailing that reflected centuries of British legacy. Amongst the symbolic inclusions were shamrocks, roses, thistles and daffodils and let's not forget that the designer, the fabric and even the seamstresses that worked on it were British. Talk about Team GB!
This form of interplay between power, national identity, politics and clothing is no stranger to the British Royal Family. In fact, a forthcoming exhibition at Buckingham Palace, entitled In Fine Style, showcases a series of Stuart and Tudor paintings of former British monarchs, focussing on their sartorial details and peculiarities.
As Anna Reynolds, the curator of this Royal Collection, confirms, the fashion of these paintings evidently reveals the nature of the relationship between the monarch and its subjects. Reynolds goes on to add that the Royal Family understood that fashion and public image could be exploited effectively as a political tool. Wow, we're speaking about hundreds of years ago! They were a cunning bunch weren't they?
Let's take Queen Elizabeth I as an example. She was, after all, a frontrunner of the Royal Power Dressing movement. Style was one of the Queen's favourite methods of propaganda. At the young age of 13, Elizabeth lamented her appearance - somewhat plain and bookish - in a portrait by William Scots. However, by the time Elizabeth sat on the throne, at age 25, she had gone through a fair share of tumults: a beheaded mother, religious persecution, execution of Lady Jane and various other - verging on the macabre - acts. In addition, QE1's first decade as monarch was a difficult one. In between dealing with the country's debt, having no consort or successor, threats and plots from Mary Queen of Scots and parliamentary problems, poor Liz barely had any time to breathe! Elizabeth knew that she had to portray herself as a strong, iconic figure and she relied on her clothing to do so!
Her perfect understanding of the link between fashion and power cannot be better exemplified than in Phoenix, a portrait by Nicholas Hilliard, where her grandeur and embellishment find it hard to fit within the picture's frame!
A quick look at the painting and you could write volumes about the symbolism threaded in its sartorial details. We could start off with the monarch's large frame, her prominent sleeves and padded shoulders and the use of the red Rose of the Lancaster line as an appetiser. Then we move to the phoenix pendant - symbolising the way Elizabeth herself rose from the ashes and the way the throne would rise again without a direct successor - as a main course. For dessert? Her pearls, a symbol of her legendary virginity. The overall picture is overwhelmingly majestic - and almost condescending if you ask me - and reflected perfectly the image the very much admired monarch wanted to convey.
Elizabeth, or Gloriana as she was later known, insisted on the use of flattering lighting and colours when having her portraits done. She didn't want to be shadowed in any way, so much so that a law was passed to forbid anyone from sartorially 'upstaging' the Queen! If anyone dared dress more fashionably than their monarch, they'd be sentenced to three months in prison. What a diva!
If you happen to be around London around the 10th of May, you might want to visit In Fine Style: the Art of Tudor and Stuart Fashion at the Queen's Gallery at Buckingham Palace. I know I'm going!
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