For many years, members of the royal family have promoted the British textile and fashion industries by wearing British-made clothes. From the very beginning of her reign, Queen Victoria (1837-1901) was careful to wear British-made silks and lace for important public events, casting aside her early love for French textiles and accessories. She also encouraged her children and grandchildren to follow her example, thus establishing a tradition still practised by the royals today.
As industrial progress revolutionised printing technologies during the 19th century, images and descriptions of the royal family became increasingly accessible. In 1814 The Times newspaper was printed on a steam press capable of printing 1,100 sheets an hour. By the late 1850s, the newspaper was being produced on Hoe rotary machines, which printed nearly 20,000 sheets an hour. These improvements, along with the creation of the Daguerreotype (the first publicly available photographic process) in 1837 and subsequent advances in photography, enabled a mass production of royal imagery.
By the mid-19th century, images of court fashion were readily available through women’s magazines such as The Queen, and illustrated weekly papers such as The Illustrated London News and The Graphic. This increased publicity made royal sartorial choices even more political than they had been in the past. Queen Victoria’s garments and their fabrics were commented upon widely. This provided her with a means to show her support for the British industry and design. Journalists reported repeatedly that ‘Her Majesty’s dress was of entirely British manufacture’.
Public awareness of royal patronage provided an enormous boost to business. Dressmakers, tailors, accessory designers and textile producers were eager to be associated with royal clients. In 1879, Princess Alexandra’s preferred tailor, John Redfern, advertised the firm as ‘Inventors and makers of the celebrated jersey gowns by RH. the Princess of Wales’.
Certain members of the royal family have the authority to formally recognise suppliers of high-quality goods and services with a Royal Warrant. This highly desirable accolade was sought even by cheeky non-royal suppliers; the accounts of Queen Victoria’s Office of the Robes reveal that the Office even had to refuse large numbers of bogus requests.
The intense coverage that Queen Victoria and her clothes received from the press allowed her to promote many fashion trends. For example, during their first visit to Scotland in 1842, she and Prince Albert developed a taste for all things Scottish. They purchased Balmoral Castle in 1852 and filled it with tartan carpets and soft furnishings. Albert wore a kilt regularly during these visits, while Victoria dressed in tartan silk and Paisley shawls.
The royal tradition of donning tartan when visiting Scotland was started by the Queen’s late uncle, the flamboyant King George IV (1820-30). However, the eagerness with which the young couple adopted this Scottish staple encouraged the tartan trend among fashionable men and women in England and France. Dresses made of woven silk in plaid patterns to imitate tartan, like this one from Queen Victoria (above), were very popular in the mid-19th century.
The Queen also used her popular image to help boost British textile industries when fashions went against them. In 1842 Paisley shawls (fine woollen shawls with Indian-inspired motifs produced in the city of Paisley, in Scotland) had fallen out of fashion and the city was struggling. To help the weavers, Victoria famously bought 17 shawls at once and wore them on special occasions, such as the christening of the Prince of Wales that same year.
She was so fond of these types of shawl that she continued to wear them even into old age, including to her Golden Jubilee in 1888. Members of her family also regularly received them as gifts. Alexandra, Princess of Wales received one as a wedding gift in 1863.
Victoria lent her support to the silk industry, too, in decline since the end of the 18th century as heavy silks went out of favour. Not only did the Queen wear many gowns made of Spitalfields silk, including her wedding dress and the dress she wore for the opening of the Great Exhibition (above), but she also threw a series of court costume balls in the 1840s, encouraging guests to wear silk.
For the first ball, in 1842, Queen Victoria attended as the medieval English Queen Phillipa of Hainault, with Prince Albert as Edward III (1327-77). The blue and gold fabric for Victoria’s kirtle and underdress was ‘of Spitalfields manufacture’ and Albert’s costume was of ‘British Manufacture executed specially for the occasion’.
In 1845 the Queen organised the 18th-century themed Bal Poudré, where she wore Queen Charlotte’s lace. The final ball in 1851, was inspired by the glittering courts of Charles II (1660-85) and Louis XIV of France (1643-1715). Prince Albert wore a coat of orange and gold brocade ‘of Spitalfield’s manufacture, completed in twelve days from the order being given’. Victoria’s glamorous dress was inspired by the French court and although the brocade on the underskirt was woven in Benares, India, the lace of the bertha collar was probably made in Ireland and bought at the Great Exhibition.
Queen Victoria liked lace, and throughout her reign supported many lace producers around the UK. For her wedding dress, the press noted:
‘The lace intended for her Majesty’s bridal dress, though popularly called Honiton lace, was really worked at the village of Beer, which is situated near the sea-coast, about ten miles from Honiton. It was executed under the direction of Miss Bidney, a native of the village, who went from London, at the command of her Majesty, for the purpose of superintending the work. More than 200 persons were constantly employed upon it from March to November during the past year. These poor women derive a scanty subsistence from making lace, but the trade has latterly so declined that, had it not been for the kind consideration of her Majesty in ordering this dress, they would have been destitute during the winter.’
No comments:
Post a Comment