Has it really been seven years since we started reliving the Windsor dynasty in binge-TV form? This week, the final episodes of The Crown will air and with it our royal soap opera enabler ends (until Harry or Meghan write another book, at least). I might be biased, but aside from Mustique-era Princess Margaret, the clothes have been the best bit.
If we’re honest, most of us were hanging on for the Princess Diana cosplay years — the Instagram-catnip revenge dress, slogan sweatshirts, Lady Dior bag etc. They are still playing out in more art imitating life scenarios — for the premiere last week Emma Corrin (who played young Diana) was styled by Harry Lambert in a look referencing a Jasper Conran suit Diana wore in Florence in 1984. But, in the show, earlier character portrayals did allow other HRHs to have their moment. Take Erin Doherty’s Princess Anne, who inspired endless ruminations on whether or not the King’s sister was actually the fashion fox we’d all overlooked. Although as one commentator recently offered: “Stop trying to make Princess Anne happen.” Fair.
Yet if anything, what her Seventies prints and jaunty neck scarves showed was an underscoring that the point of existing as a royal means that you are there to be replaced. As youth fades, another will step into the spotlight in front of you. Kate and Meghan are merely the current style-fancies of the monarchy, roles which will diminish once Charlotte and Lilibet come of age.
The lynchpin visuals of the Diana years were her wardrobe, an obsession which never seems to wane. But then the fervent raking-over of dead blondes (see a recent book on the late Carolyn Bessett-Kennedy’s style) is a pastime which show the entrenched Western beauty ideals we can’t seem to escape from.
In September, Diana’s famous “black sheep” knitted sweater sold at Sotheby’s for $1.1 million (the knitwear brand Rowing Blazers has itself had something of a resurgence, selling a new version of this and the “I’m a Luxury” sweater also worn by Diana). The Crown again illustrated how her style painted a narrative of its own — from the flimsy-frocked naive Sloane to the Versace-clad power woman. Although her appearance is fleeting in this final series, the cashing-in isn’t. In a somewhat macabre move, Gottex has reissued the leopard one-piece she wore in her final weeks in the south of France (worn in the show, of course, by Elizabeth Debicki).
Stylistically, the last episodes — set in the bad taste era of the early Noughties, aren’t going to inspire too much, besides Kate’s sheer dress student runway moment. Amy Roberts and Sidonie Roberts, who headed up the show’s costume department, explained that among the jeans and Ralph Lauren sweaters of William and Harry, there are a couple of blinders to come. Namely from unexpected sources. “There’s an extraordinary outfit, when Charles takes William to St Andrews for the first time,” says Amy. “A tweed brown suit jacket with almost white buff-coloured trousers, his slip-on brown shoes, and a green and brown diagonal stripe tie. A wild outfit, but absolutely cracking.”
Sidonie sums up royal style as “bold, odd choices [but] with a kind of oddness that is sartorially genius. The thing that surprised me the most [was] how cool they are.” A case in point, having to justify Princess Anne’s predilection for Oakley wrap-around sunglasses. “I had to show the director that she wears them in real life. He was like 'why the f*** is she wearing these skiing sunglasses when she’s on the balcony having a conversation with Prince Philip'.”
But perhaps Amy speaks for some of us at least when she reflected, “I wasn’t a royalist. I was brought up in a family that was quite the opposite, my grandma would be horrified if she’d seen the show. But they look extraordinary, bold and brave and I absolutely love them now”.
