The Royal Travelling Wardrobe

Queen and Commonwealth: The Royal Tour a special exhibition at this years Summer Opening of Buckinham Palace Photos: EDDIE MULHOLLAND –
The Royal Travelling Wardrobe – Some of Queen Elizabeth II’s exquisite dresses are go on show on Sunday to mark the summer opening of the State rooms at Buckingham Palace.

The exhibition Queen and Commonwealth: The Royal Tour evokes some of great journeys of her reign, beginning with the longest, from November 1953 to May 1954, to the West Indies, Australasia, Asia and Africa.

Also going on display are some of the strange gifts she has received on her travels.

Some of the magnificent dresses she has worn and the strange gifts she has been given on a prodigious 175 royal tours to 53 countries go on show tomorrow [Sunday] at Buckingham Palace to mark the summer opening of the State rooms.

She wore many of the dresses during her extensive travels around the Commonwealth and the world.

Original sketches for her travelling wardrobe by the great British couturiers, Norman Hartnell and Hardy Amies can be seen alongside their translations into bead-encrusted duchesse satin, gold lame or silk crepe studded with pearls. Many of the dresses pay coded compliments to a country’s own traditions.

A star of the show is the grey silk organza evening gown that caused a sensation on the Queen’s six-week tour of Canada in 1959. It is a ravishing Hardy Amies crinoline embroidered with mayflowers (emblem of Nova Scotia) and apple blossom and swagged with broad pink bows.