"I have to be seen to be believed"

[click any photo to enlarge]

The sumptuous exhibition Queen Elizabeth II: Her Life in Style, that we went to see with our mother on Saturday was everything one could have asked for, and more.

Frocks and outfits that traced the life of the late, dearly departed Queen - from her childhood and teenage years to debutante, to her marriage [gown #3, above], accession [Coronation dress, #4 above], through all stages of her long reign, formal and informal, from the most sparkling ballgowns and outfits from her myriad Royal tours and Silver, Gold, Diamond and Platinum Jubilees, to the headscarf-and-tweeds she wore on her estates, right through to her latter "Rainbow Queen" years with her famous bright coordinated single-colour outfits ["I have to be seen to be believed", was her quote] - everything was on display [in the relatively small series of rooms that comprise The King's Gallery at the rear of Buckingham Palace]!

..and then there were the tiaras!

It was a fantastic exhibition! What an indelible legacy HM The Queen left us...

I need to be seen to be believed

From Elle magazine:

The Queen’s most well-known quote about her image is her assertion that she “needed to be seen to be believed.” They say your brand is defined by what a person sees if they close their eyes and hear your name, and the image that comes to mind of the Queen – cheerful in bright colours, her regal diamonds and pearls counterbalanced by the eminently practical handbag and shoes – sums up what she stood for.

Rather than take traditional deference to monarchy for granted, she won the respect of the public through hard work. Long before resilience became a buzzword during the pandemic, she was modelling what resilience looked like with her dependably rainbow-hued wardrobe. She showed up, as the young people say. Her clothes were never the main event, but they were a steadying mood music which set a certain tone.

A "Rainbow Queen", indeed:

..in red.


...in orange.


...in yellow.


...in green.


...in blue.


...in indigo.


...in violet...


...and in pink!

Nobody did it better.

RIP, Her Majesty the Queen Elizabeth II, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of her other realms and territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, Queen of Scots, Duke of Lancaster, Duke of Normandy, Lord of Mann, Royal Lady and Sovereign of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, Sovereign of the Imperial Order of the Crown of India, Dame Grand Cross and Sovereign Head of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, Lady of His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, Sovereign of the Royal Victorian Order, Sovereign of the Order of Merit, Sovereign of the Order of the Companions of Honour, Sovereign of the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle, Sovereign of the Most Illustrious Order of Saint Patrick, Sovereign of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, Sovereign of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George, Sovereign of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, Sovereign of the Distinguished Service Order, Colonel-in-Chief of the UK's armed forces.

Arise...

...DAME Joanna Lumley!

At last...

HM The Queen's New Year Honours List 2022

Gracious

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Her Majesty The Queen of the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize, Antigua and Barbuda, and Saint Kitts and Nevis, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith, Queen of Scots, Duke of Lancaster, Duke of Normandy, Lord of Mann, Royal Lady and Sovereign of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, Sovereign of the Imperial Order of the Crown of India, Dame Grand Cross and Sovereign Head of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, Lady of His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, Sovereign of the Royal Victorian Order, Sovereign of the Order of Merit, Sovereign of the Order of the Companions of Honour, Sovereign of the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle, Sovereign of the Most Illustrious Order of Saint Patrick, Sovereign of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, Sovereign of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George, Sovereign of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, Sovereign of the Distinguished Service Order, Colonel-in-Chief of the UK's armed forces, and so much more besides...

...is ninety-five years old today.

Understandably, this milestone birthday is a somewhat muted and low-key affair, but nevertheless, we salute Our Gracious Queen in the traditional manner...

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conductor Sir Thomas Beecham - The British National Anthem

Gawd bless, you, Ma'am!

If there’s a duke there, he can sit somewhere opposite me

Lady Elizabeth Anson, who recently departed for Fabulon, was a cousin of Her Majesty The Queen on her mother's side - and by all accounts sounds as if she was quite the hoot. It's not every royal who counted Paul O'Grady as a best friend, or could have had the nickname for Her Maj of "Shirley Temple"...

Lady Anson's forte - her career - was as a party planner, not just for royal events such as HM's 80th and 90th birthday parties and Wills and Kate's wedding reception, but also Sting's wedding, Margaret Thatcher's 70th birthday party and events for clients such as Tom Cruise and Sacha Baron-Cohen, among many others in her 50 year career. All of them had such nicknames, to ensure confidentiality when the Lady was making her arrangements.

From an interview with The New York Times in 2016, here are a few of her tips for success, dear reader, when planning your next dinner party for several hundred people including Baronets and Earls:

• The invitation sets the tone.
  If you have a cheap-looking invitation, she says, “you imagine there’s going to be acidic wine and miserable food.” Simple and elegant are preferable to invitation one-upmanship: “Someone wanted me to do ‘save the dates’ with Swarovski crystals costing no less than £2,500 a card, and that’s just vulgarity.”
• Good parties don’t have to be extravagant.
  “A party with good table wine and good pasta or good sausages and mash can be just as much of a success as one with Krug, caviar, oysters and lobster,” Lady Elizabeth says. “It’s not about expensive ingredients. It’s about people.”
• Good lighting is essential.
  After the guests, the single most important element of a party is proper illumination. “Lighting makes or breaks it. You can use it to make people look nice and to divide a big room up.”
• Getting everyone seated.
  If you’re trying to get guests to take their seats, tell them it’s a soufflé. “I’ve never had anyone come back to me later and complain that it wasn’t,”.
• Seat all the bores together.
  “They don’t realize they’re the bores, and they’re happy,” she says. “It’s my biggest tip.”
• A round dining table is best
  When entertaining at home, Lady Elizabeth is always glad she has a round dining room table so she can dispense with protocol - no worries about determining who is the most important guest and thus seated in the middle. “It makes life easier. If there’s a duke there, he can sit somewhere opposite me if I think there’s somebody more amusing that I want to sit next to.”
• Pick up the phone.
  It’s the fastest way to get organized, and there are fewer misunderstandings. “It’s old fashioned but it’s instantaneous. I don’t want endless emails and bits and bobs.”
• End a party when there’s at least 20 people on the dance floor.
  “If you let it peter out, it’s death,” she says. “I made one mistake in the whole of my career, which was being persuaded to restart the band. It was a flop.” Announce (or have the band say) that it’s the second to last dance, and then stop the bar from serving. “People leave fast when they can’t get a drink.”.

RIP, Lady Elizabeth Georgiana Shakerley CVO (née Anson, 7th June 1941 – 1st November 2020)

A toast

It's HM The Queen's 94th birthday today...



Cheers, Ma'am!

Arise...

...Dame Emma Thompson!

"I have a nervous breakdown in [one film] and in one scene I get to stand at the top of the stairs waving an empty sherry bottle which is, of course, a typical scene from my daily life, so isn't much of a stretch."

"My husband is here and I'd like to thank him, for many things, but first of all for pointing out that I had a big hole in my frock and then that my nipples were pointing in different directions. It's good to have an expert there to help you with that sort of thing."

(On period costume posture coaching:) "We all stand about like parboiled spaghetti being straightened out.”

"Maybe I don't take myself so seriously any more. And I don't care how I'm judged. I'm past all that."



All hail.

HM The Queen's Birthday Honours

This weekend, I am mostly dressing casual...

...like Her Majesty the Queen, on the occasion of her 92nd birthday.

Gawd bless ya, Ma'am!

The wearing of the green

Loretta Young


Nicole Kidman's green parrot frock from the Screen Actors' Guild awards 2017


Jackie Kennedy wearing a pale green Givenchy dress


HM The Queen in 1954


Vivien Leigh's green "curtain" dress from "Gone With the Wind"

Happy Paddy's Day!

Arise...

...Dame Darcey Bussell!

A class act, you will agree (as is the divine Mr Solymosi):

Darcey Bussell and Zoltan Solymosi - Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux

Dame Darcey Andrea Bussell (born Marnie Mercedes Darcey Pemberton Crittle, 27th April 1969)

[My Damehood obviously got lost in the post...]

Seventy bleedin' years, Lilibet?

Congratulations to HM The Queen and HRH Prince Philip on the occasion of their 70th wedding anniversary!

Our Rainbow Queen

..in red.


...in orange.


...in yellow.


...in green.


...in blue.


...in indigo.


...in violet...


...and in pink!

Congratulations to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, nee Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Battenburg-Windsor, who after 63 years on the throne has surpassed her great-great grandmother Queen Victoria as as Great Britain's longest-serving Monarch.

We salute you, Ma'am!