Norman Hartnell

“As a rule, ladies of the Royal Family wear light coloured clothes because such colours are more discernible against a crowd”. He gained the Royal Warrant as Dressmaker to Queen ELizabeth II in 1940 and in 1957. His first commission (for the ladies of the Royal Family) was to design the wedding dress and bridesmaids dresses for the marriage of Lady Alice Montagu Douglas Scott to Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester. The two bridesmaids were the Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret. His most famous design was the Coronation dress of Elizabeth II. He was Norman Hartnell.

Born in 1901 in Streatham, south-west London, Norman was an undergraduate at Cambridge University. With financial help from his father and his sister Phyllis ( his first business partner), Norman opened his own business at 10, Bruton Street, Mayfair, in 1923. Norman acquired a clientele of debutantes and their mothers, who desired the latest designs for the London Season. He designed gowns for evenings, weddings, afternoons and for Presentations at Court. Film stars (Anna Neagle, Evelyn Laye, Alice Delysia) also came to Norman for his latest designs.

CoCo Chanel showed a keen interest in Norman’s designs, starting with his 1927 and 1929 collections. Norman specialised in expensive and lavish embroidery, having the largest ‘in-house’ embroidery workroom in London. The embroidery of “his” wedding dresses were reported in the press between the 1920s and 1930s. Hartnell emulated Charles Frederick Worth, who was his hero.

Needing bigger premises, Hartnell moved into a large Mayfair town house which had been designed by Gerald Lacoste. It was at this time that Hartnell came to the attention of the Royal ladies. For the Coronation of George VI and Queen Elizabeth, Hartnell was commissioned to design the dresses for the maids of honour. Up until 1939, Hartnell received most of the Queen’s orders, and with the exception of country clothes, she remained a Harntell client (even after his death). The young Queen commissioned Hartnell to design her wardrobe when she went on many Royal tours, and when her mother died in 1938, Hartnell had all of the tour dresses altered in colour to white, which was a suitable mourning colour for a young Royal Queen.

London became known as an innovative fashion centre, largely due to Hartnell’s influence. Before going onto Paris, American buyers would go to London and visit Hartnell, which gave him substantial American sales to various shops and copyists, which is a lucrative source of income for any designer. Hartnell became the first leading mid-20th Century designer to design mass-produced ready-to-wear clothing.

Hartnell was among the founders of the Incorporated Society of London Fashion Designers (IncSoc), which was established in 1942 to promote British fashion design at home and abroad. Interestingly, Hartnell was commissioned to design women’s uniforms for the British army and medical corps during World War Two. He went on to design service uniforms for nurses and female officers in the City of London Police and the Metropolitan Police.

Hartnell designed the then Princess Elizabeth’s wedding dress, when she married Prince Philip. Also, (as already mentioned), he designed the Coronation dress when the Princess became the Queen. The wedding dress featured a sweetheart neckline, full skirt and 10,000 seed-pearls and thousands of white beads. The Coronation dress ‘mimicked’ the wedding dress when it came to the neckline and the skirt, and the design incorporated embroidery of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth countries.

Hartnell also designed Princess Margaret’s (the Queen’s sister) wedding dress in 1960. It was a beautifully layered silk dress with a simple princess line silhouette.

Hartnell wrote his autobiography “Silver and Gold” which was first published in 1955. Here is an extract, from the book, which describes the most momentous commission he was given — to design the Coronation dress:

“One October afternoon in 1952, Her Majesty the Queen desired me to make for her the dress to be worn at her Coronation.

I can scarcely remember what I murmured in reply. In simple conversational tones the Queen went on to express her wishes. Her Majesty required that the dress should conform in line to that of her wedding dress and that the material should be white satin.

When my first exhilaration was over, I settled down to study exactly what history and tradition meant by a ‘Coronation dress’. I visited the London Museum and the London Library and leafed through authoritative tomes.

Altogether, I created nine differing designs which began in almost severe simplicity and proceeded towards elaboration. I liked the last one best, but naturally did not express my opinion when I submitted these paintings to her Majesty”.

Hartnell became the first fashion designer to be Knighted, which he received in 1977. Two years later, in 1979, Norman Hartnell died, leaving his mark on The Fashion World.