What Queen Elizabeth was really thinking.. decoding the Royal Wardrobe

And what her dresser Angela Kelly thought of my play, By Royal Appointment

Queen Elizabeth II had the most famous poker face in the world. Apart from a few rare moments of genuine emotion ( beaming at the Derby, weeping as she said goodbye to Britannia) the late Queen was always in control of her expressions. She kept her face under control whether she was being fondled by Trump or enduring Idi Amin or the Ceacescus.. Yes she sometimes looked a bit grumpy but never tetchy or exasperated – qualities our current monarch has difficulty keeping in check ( remember the fountain pen at his accession). His mother understood that her primary duty was to be an impartial head of state, floating serenely above the fray, keeping us guessing at all times.

But if the late queen was officially impartial that didn’t mean she didn’t have opinions or that she didn’t express them in public. She just didn’t do it verbally. In fact she had a highly sophisticated way of conveying meaning to her subjects : through her clothes. Take the 2016 the State Opening of Parliament in 2016 when she had to read out the Brexit Bill , the Queen chose to wear a blue coat topped with a blue hat with yellow rosettes. The resemblance to the European Union flag was unmistakeable. As one courtier remarked to a journalist who rang up to find out if the resemblance was deliberate, “ nothing is left to chance.” I think that the Queen’s choice of millinery was an attempt to rebut the newspaper stories put about by prominent Brexiteers that the Queen had expressed pro Brexit views at a Buckingham Palace lunch. A hat is more than a piece of straw – on the Queen’s head it could be skilful piece of propaganda.

The EU hat features in a scene in my play By Royal Appointment which tells the story of fifty years of the queen’s reign through sixteen frocks and their accompanying hats. I have read umpteen biographies of the queen but her wardrobe choices are almost never referred to except as a piece of scene setting – yet if you ask anyone to describe the Queen they will always start with her clothes : the shocking pink coat and hat she wore to her silver Jubilee, or the bright orange she wore to her golden one. When we think of the Queen we think of a bright block of colour punctuated by a handbag in black or white, pearls round her neck and on her shoulder a whopping great brooch. Even when clad completely in black for Prince Philip’s funeral save for the complexion enhancing white edging to her black mask, she still wore a huge diamond brooch designed to sparkle under the television lights. The Queen’s wardrobe has always been as carefully crafted as any of her public announcements.

The Queen meeting the Irish President in Dublin

When she made her historic trip to the Republic of Ireland in 2011 the Queen wore a particularly vibrant shade of Kelly green – a choice as diplomatic as the sentence she spoke in Irish at the state banquet given in her honour, where she acknowledged the troubled relationship between the two countries and her desire to make amends.

Unlike the last two Princesses of Wales , the late Queen was emphatically not interested in fashion. She was happiest wearing country clothes: barbour jackets, kilts and of course her signature headscarf- a look which hardly changed throughout her reign. But her work clothes were a different matter. They were designed to make a statement.