Happy birthday, your majesty.
SoSensational is delighted to offer birthday greetings to Queen Elizabeth II on her 90th birthday.
Although SoSensational is the fashion website for older women, we don’t normally think of 90 as being in our remit! However, for we women of the Baby-Boomer generation, The Queen has been on the throne for most (sometimes all) of our lives. Indeed Jan was two at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, Cyndy was four… so Queen Elizabeth has been a constant presence, which means we can’t let this moment pass without paying a fashion tribute.
As a slender young Princess Elizabeth at the end of World War 2, she really rocked 1940s fashion – Dior’s New Look translated by the Queen’s favourite British fashion designer Norman Hartnell.
Elizabeth and her more fashion-forward sister, the late Princess Margaret, embraced all the mid-century (i.e 1950s) trends such as mid-calf hobble skirts, tiny head-fitting hats and fur stoles.
As a mother as well as monarch, the Queen slightly lost her style mojo in the 1970s and early 1980s. In the 1980s, she seemed to be embracing frumpiness in her fashion choices and in the granny hair-style she had adopted. However, the late-80s and 90s saw a revival in her interest in fashion. New fashion designers and, more important for a woman compelled to wear a hat every time she makes an appearance, new milliners, gave her back a real sense of style. Looking through thousands of images of her, it is apparent that the Queen likes to wear bright colours or, perhaps protocol dictates that she needs to wear colour so that she can be easily seen. Whatever the reason, she really suits colour: she looks terrific in mid-tone pastels; but super bright, vibrant shades and wishy-washy pastels not so much.
Also, the Queen is really quite tiny, so when she wears a coat and a hat all in one colour, she looks taller (and slimmer), while a dress (or skirt) and jacket with all its horizontal lines makes her appear shorter.
As she reaches this great milestone of 90, we thought we would take a look back at The Queen’s fashion looks through the years. There have been some fashion faux pas, too, but as a mark of respect, your majesty, SoSensational will gloss over those.
So, here are our Top 10 Queen Elizabeth Looks through the ages…
1 – In the early 1950s –she is stunningly on-trend (for then and now) in that cream feather hat and those tortoiseshell sunglasses.
2 – A new Queen in a full-length, Dior-influenced gown for a State occasion. Note that white mink stole which adds exponentially to the glamour quotient.
3 – Early 1960s: We all think of Jackie O as owning the 60s and as setting the style agenda for the 60s, but The Queen got there first – or at least at the same time. The pink petal hat and neat little coat were pure 60s glamour.
4 – Still in the early 60s, The Queen is rocking another neat little 1960s coat – note the signature ‘60s details of Peter Pan collar and bold buttons. We’re not loving that hat, but it was very much of its day.
5 – The 1960s were a difficult time for formal dressing because the era’s ethos was all about informality and fashion rebellion. In this blue print dress-and-coat ensemble, the Queen did her best to blend fashion’s requirement for informality with protocol’s requirement for the diametric opposite. That ensemble was almost certainly envisaged by its creator to be worn with long, shiny, swingy Cathy McGowan-style hair rather than that hat. But she was The Queen, not a TV presenter, and she did her best…
6 – This is how The Queen feels most comfortable – in a Burberry raincoat (a Classic Burberry, that is) and a headscarf. This picture is from the early noughties, but there are similar photos of The Queen down the years wearing almost identical clothes if not the same clothes.No paintbox colours or feather-trimmed millinery, just simple, practical country clothing… and don’t we love her for being herself.
7 – We are moving swiftly through the 70s and 80s; if there were notably stylish outfits and great fashion moments, we have missed them… It was in the 90s that The Queen got it together again, fashion-wise: all her favourite designers had either retired or had gone to the great Atelier in the Sky. That, and the fact that a new Lady-in-Waiting encouraged her to look for new designers and milliners, meant that she started to look terrific again. Also, she had grown into her age… The mix of lemon and pink is a bit dizzying, but the two shades work really prettily together and that hat finishes the look perfectly.
8 – We love the pink coat and matching hat; that shade of coral pink is perfect for the Queen’s complexion. This was around the time the Queen found exactly the right fashion formula for her and kept reworking it. But cleverly she subtly updated it so the formula stayed the same but the outfits evolved every few years.
9 – And we think she looks pretty good in green, too. Again, it is the right tone and shade of green for her colouring.
10 – Here she is again in pink – more a fuchsia than coral this time, but it still suits her because it is not too vibrant. It is easy to see how her formula for successful dressing has been subtly updated.
What do you think of the Queen’s style over the years? Which is your favourite look?
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