Hello lovely,
If you’ve ever gasped at the elegance of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation gown or dreamed of a dress made from whispers of silk and stardust, then you’ve felt the touch of Norman Hartnell.
The name may not twinkle in popular memory quite like Dior or Chanel – but oh, it should. Hartnell was Britain’s answer to Parisian glamour. A master of embroidery, a dreamweaver for queens and debutantes, and quite frankly, a man who helped stitch dignity and dazzle into 20th-century British fashion.
Let’s take a little step back in time, shall we? We’ll follow him from the streets of London to the drawing rooms of Buckingham Palace.
Early Life: From modest roots to Mayfair dreams
Born on 12 June 1901 in Streatham, Southwest London, Norman Bishop Hartnell was the son of a publican. Not exactly the typical beginning for a man destined to drape monarchs in hand-sewn crystals.
He grew up in London and won a scholarship to Cambridge University, where he studied modern languages at Magdalene College. But his true calling wasn’t in books, it was in sketchbooks. While at Cambridge, he designed costumes for theatre productions, and it was there that he found his flair for romantic, dramatic clothing.
After leaving university, he worked briefly for the famed costumier Lucile, Lady Duff Gordon, before opening his own couture house in 1923 at just 22 years old. He would go on to sue Lucile for damages when several of his sketches appeared unattributed in her weekly fashion column in the London Daily Sketch.
Imagine it. A young man with a pencil, a dream, and a few bolts of fabric. That’s how legends begin. His business was opened at 10 Bruton Street, Mayfair with the financial help of his father and first business colleague, his sister Phyllis.
From London Season Debutantes to Leading Ladies
Thanks to his Cambridge connections, Hartnell quickly found himself dressing débutantes and their mothers, all keen for fashionable, original designs to suit a busy social life built around the London Season. Some clients began to see him as a chic London alternative to the great Parisian houses or the older London dressmakers, and the London press loved the novelty of his youth and his gender.
His work captured the spirit of the Bright Young Things and the Flappers, but he softened those sharper, modern silhouettes with a fluid sense of romanticism in the details and construction. This was especially clear in his evening and bridal gowns, his gowns for court presentations, and the elegant afternoon dresses worn by guests at society weddings. His success brought international press coverage and a thriving trade with women who were no longer satisfied with “safe” London clothes based on Paris designs. Hartnell soon became a favourite with younger stars of stage and screen, dressing leading ladies such as Gladys Cooper, Elsie Randolph, Gertrude Lawrence, Jessie Matthews, Merle Oberon, Evelyn Laye and Anna Neagle. Even celebrated French stars Alice Delysia and Mistinguett were said to be impressed by his designs.
One beautiful glimpse of his style is captured in Magnolia (1931) by William Bruce Ellis Ranken, which shows a dress by Hartnell. The painting was later given to Hartnell at Ranken’s death in 1941.
When sales began to worryingly dip, his sister Phyllis stepped in and insisted that Norman turn his attention from mostly evening wear to more practical day clothes. Hartnell responded by using British woollen fabrics in subtle and inventive ways. Although these wools had been largely sidelined by London dressmakers, their use in women’s daywear had already been proved successful in Paris by Coco Chanel, who showed a keen interest in his 1927 and 1929 collections.
Hartnell successfully followed the example of his British predecessor and hero Charles Frederick Worth by taking his designs to the heart of world fashion. He became known for expensive, often lavish embroidery that formed an integral part of his most exclusive clothes, and he also used this intricate work to discourage exact ready to wear copies. His in house embroidery workroom was the largest in London couture and continued to operate until his death in 1979. During the quieter August days it even produced embroidered Christmas cards for clients and the press, a charming and very practical form of publicity that Hartnell handled with real flair.
Court presentation gown, Hartnell 1931
The originality and intricacy of Hartnell’s embroideries were frequently highlighted in the press, especially in coverage of the wedding dresses he created for socially prominent young women during the 1920s and 1930s. Simply delightful, really.
A Mayfair Townhouse for Modern Couture Dreams
By 1934, Hartnell’s success had quite literally outgrown his space. He moved just across the road into a grand late 18th century Mayfair townhouse, complete with several floors of workrooms leading back to Bruton Mews. On the first floor, an ultra modern salon awaited his clients, all glass and mirrors in a gleaming Art Moderne style, created by young architect Gerald Lacoste (1909–1983). It became the perfect stage set for each new Hartnell collection, and those interiors are now preserved as one of the finest examples of pre war Art Moderne commercial design in the UK.
At the same time as this elegant move in London, Hartnell treated himself to a weekend retreat, Lovel Dene, a Queen Anne cottage tucked away in Windsor Forest, Berkshire. Lacoste remodelled the cottage for him, extending Hartnell’s taste for modern design into his country life. His London home, The Tower House in Park Village near Regent’s Park, was also transformed, furnished with a fashionable blend of Regency pieces and modern furniture.
A Royal Beginning: The Gloucester Wedding
It was the turning point of my career.
Hartnell on designing the wedding dress and bridesmaid dresses for Lady Alice
In 1935, Hartnell’s career entered a new royal chapter. He received the first of many commissions from the British royal family when he was asked 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 Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret. Both King George V and Queen Mary approved the designs, and Queen Mary herself became a client. The Duchess of York, who had previously favoured Elizabeth Handley Seymour, attended fittings at the Hartnell salon with her daughters and met Hartnell for the first time.
Although Hartnell’s designs for the Duchess of Gloucester’s wedding and trousseau received worldwide publicity, the death of the bride’s father brought a period of mourning. A planned large state wedding at Westminster Abbey was replaced by a private ceremony in the chapel at Buckingham Palace. Hartnell regretted losing the full scale global exposure such an event would have brought. Even so, huge crowds watched the new Duchess of Gloucester depart from Buckingham Palace in a Hartnell ensemble for her honeymoon, and this visible royal endorsement brought a surge of new business.
Dressing a Queen: Coronation and Beyond
For the 1937 coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, the Queen chose Hartnell to design the dresses for her maids of honour, while remaining loyal to Handley Seymour for her own coronation gown. Until 1939, most of the Queen’s orders went to Hartnell, and from 1946 onward, with the exception of some country clothes, she continued as his client even after his death.
Hartnell showed a particular gift for adapting contemporary fashion into a distinctive royal style. For day and evening wear, he created designs with a slimmed down fit that gave the Queen, who was short, extra height and presence. Her public day outfits often featured a long or three quarter length coat over a slim skirt, sometimes with fur trimmings or a detail around the neckline. Evening wear ranged from simple, unembellished slim gowns to dresses richly embroidered with sequins and glass.
For grand state occasions, Hartnell introduced something truly dramatic, reintroducing the crinoline to world fashion. This shift came after King George showed Hartnell Winterhalter portraits from the Royal Collection and suggested that the style once worn by Queen Victoria would enhance the new Queen’s presence.
Friends, Critics and Couture Standards
Another figure on the edges of this royal world was Wallis Simpson, later Duchess of Windsor, who was also a Hartnell client in London for a time before turning to Mainbocher, who created her wedding dress. Mainbocher himself was a friend of Hartnell’s and had given him blunt but valuable advice when Hartnell showed his 1929 summer collection in Paris. Then working as a Vogue editor, Mainbocher told Hartnell that he had rarely seen so many wonderful dresses made so badly. Hartnell took the criticism seriously and hired the Parisian “Mamselle” Davide, reputedly the highest paid employee of any London couture house, along with other skilled cutters, fitters and tailors. By the 1930s, his designs were made to the highest international couture standards.
Making Headlines in Paris
In 1929, Hartnell presented his clothes to the international press in Paris. After a decade of ever rising hemlines, the floor length skirts of his evening dresses were hailed as the beginning of a new fashion and widely copied, as contemporary press reports show. The response was so strong that Hartnell opened a house in Paris so he could take part in the Paris collections.
The 1938 Paris Visit and the White Wardrobe
Royal dress must never be pedestrian. It requires a style outside the prevailing conventions of modishness. It must, in fact, reflect as little as possible if it is to retain its dignity.
Norman Hartnell on Royal dress
Within a decade, Hartnell reshaped the fashionable evening silhouette once again. The crinoline gowns he designed for Queen Elizabeth to wear during the State Visit to Paris in July 1938 caused a worldwide sensation, seen in press photographs and newsreels.
The death of the Queen’s mother, the Countess of Strathmore and Kinghorne, shortly before the visit brought court mourning and a brief delay to the trip, which was of great political importance at a moment when Germany threatened war in Europe. Royal mourning required black and shades of mauve, so all the colourful clothes planned for the original June dates had to be remade. Hartnell’s workrooms laboured long hours to produce an entirely new wardrobe in white, which he remembered had a precedent in British royal mourning protocol and was considered suitable for a younger queen.
Influence, Inspiration and International Fashion
Hartnell was honoured by the French government and admired by his friend Christian Dior, creator of the post war New Look with its full skirts. Dior later said that when he thought of beautiful clothes, he thought of the gowns Hartnell designed for the 1938 State Visit, which he had seen as a young aspirant in the fashion world.
The crinoline trend for evening wear soon influenced international fashion. French designers quickly picked up on the romantic image of the Scottish born Queen and the many kilted Scottish soldiers in Paris during the visit, and the next season’s Paris collections featured daywear in plaids and tartans.
King George VI and Queen Elizabeth on the platform of the Royal Train which carried them across vast parts of Canada during their 1939 royal tour
The Queen ordered another extensive Hartnell wardrobe for the Royal Tour of Canada and visit to North America in May and June 1939. Taking place at a critical point in world history, the tour strengthened ties of friendship with North America in the months before the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939. The King and Queen were greeted everywhere by large and enthusiastic crowds, and the Queen’s dignity and charm were undoubtedly enhanced by her Hartnell wardrobe. Adolf Hitler reportedly described Queen Elizabeth as “the most dangerous woman in Europe” after seeing film footage of the tour.
London Ascends as a Fashion Capital
“I despise simplicity. It is the negation of all that is beautiful.”
Norman Hartnell
By 1939, London had earned a reputation as an innovative fashion centre, visited by American buyers who often stopped there before travelling on to Paris. Hartnell already enjoyed strong American sales to shops and copyists, which were an important source of income for designers.
Several French couturiers, including Anglo Irish designer Edward Molyneux and Elsa Schiaparelli, opened London houses with a glamorous social life that revolved around the Court. Young British designers such as Victor Stiebel and Digby Morton, formerly of Lachasse where Hardy Amies became designer after 1935, established their own houses, as did Peter Russell, attracting a younger clientele. Older, more conservative clients remained loyal to established London houses such as Handley Seymour, Reville, and the British owned London branches of Worth and Paquin. Before Hartnell rose to prominence, the only British designer recognised worldwide for originality in design and finish had been Lucile, whose London house closed in 1924.
A Royal Warrant and a Lasting Legacy
In 1940, Hartnell’s close royal connection was formalised when he received a Royal Warrant as Dressmaker to the Queen. His place at the very heart of British fashion and royal style was firmly sealed, and oh, what a story it is to look back on.
Style Under Rationing: Wartime Couture
During the Second World War (1939 to 1945), Hartnell, like other couture designers, had to work within strict government trading and rationing rules under the Utility scheme. There were detailed regulations on how much fabric could be used in each garment, as well as limits on the number of buttons and fastenings. Even the amount and components of embroidery were carefully calculated and controlled.
Hartnell joined the Home Guard during the war and sustained his career by sponsoring collections for sale to overseas buyers. He was competing with designers in Occupied France and Germany, as well as an increasingly confident group of American designers. Private clients continued to order new clothes within the Utility restrictions or had their existing garments altered. This included the Queen, who appeared around bombed areas of the country wearing her own often re worked clothes.
Utility Fashion and Ready to Wear
Hartnell received the Queen’s endorsement to design clothes for the government’s Utility campaign. These garments were mass produced by Berketex, with whom he entered a business relationship that continued into the 1950s. Through this partnership, he became one of the first leading mid twentieth century designers to create mass produced ready to wear clothing.
There was a precedent for this kind of collaboration. In 1916, the British designer Lucile had shown the way during the First World War by designing an extensive line of clothes for American catalogue retailer Sears, Roebuck.
IncSoc and Uniforms of Service
In 1942, Hartnell was among the founders of the Incorporated Society of London Fashion Designers, known as IncSoc, created to promote British fashion design at home and abroad.
During the war he was also commissioned to design women’s uniforms for the British army and medical corps. Later he went on to design service uniforms for nurses and female officers in the City of London Police and the Metropolitan Police.
New Worlds, New Clients: South America and Beyond
In 1946, Hartnell took a successful collection to South America. Among his clients there were Eva Perón and Magda Lupescu.
The newlyweds with Queen Elizabeth II wearing Norman Hartnell
The following year, 1947, he received the Neiman Marcus Fashion Award for his influence on world fashion. In the same year he created an extensive wardrobe for Queen Elizabeth to wear during the Royal Tour of South Africa, the first Royal Tour abroad since 1939. The wardrobe included both slimline and crinoline styles. Hartnell also designed clothes for the young Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret for this trip, while Molyneux provided some of their daywear.
Although he worried he was too old for the task at 46, Hartnell was commanded by the Queen to design the wedding dress of Princess Elizabeth for her marriage to Prince Philip, later the Duke of Edinburgh. The gown featured a fashionable sweetheart neckline and a full skirt, and was richly embroidered with some 10,000 seed pearls and thousands of white beads.
Hartnell also created the going away outfit and the Princess’s trousseau. He became her main designer, later joined by Hardy Amies in the early 1950s, and his work began to appeal to a whole new generation of clients.
Embroidered Elegance: A 1951 Wedding Gown
Hartnell’s love of embroidery and careful proportion is beautifully shown in a 1951 wedding dress he created for Hermione S. Ball, worn for her marriage to Mervyn Evans on 23 July 1951. He added a band of embroidery to elongate the body and give extra grandeur to the back of the full skirt. The gown is now in the collection of the V&A Museum.
A Coronation Gown for a Young Queen
I complained I would be dressing a beautiful young woman in vegetables if compelled to embroider leeks on to the dress. However, Garter stood firm and the decision was final: leeks.
Norman Hartnell on the Welsh leek emblem on the Queen’s Coronation gown
Following the early death of George VI in 1952, Queen Elizabeth II asked Hartnell to design her coronation dress for 1953. Many versions were sketched by Hartnell and his new assistant Ian Thomas, then discussed in detail with the Queen herself.
Queen Elizabeth II in her Coronation Gown
At her request, the final design echoed her 1947 wedding dress with a similar sweetheart neckline. This time, it was paired with a fuller, heavy silk skirt, richly embellished with varied embroideries. These included depictions of the national botanical emblems of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth countries, in the tradition of earlier coronation gowns.
In the end, by using lovely silks and sprinkling it with a dew of diamonds, we were able to transform the earthly Leek into a vision of Cinderella charm and worthy of mingling with her sisters Rose and Mimosa in a brilliant Royal Assembly, and fit to embellish the dress of a Queen.
Hartnell on the end result of the Queen’s coronation gown
In his autobiography, Hartnell described the complicated construction of the supporting undergarments and the many frustrating hours of work they demanded. The weight of the dress made it difficult to achieve just the right balance, with a gentle forward swaying motion rather than the lurching movement of the first prototypes. The development of these prototypes was handled by his expert cutters and fitters. Hartnell himself did not sew, but he understood construction and how different fabrics should be handled.
Dressing the Abbey: Royal Tableaux and the “Silver and Gold Collection”
Hartnell’s role did not end with the Queen’s gown. He also designed the dresses for the Queen’s maids of honour and for all the major royal ladies attending the ceremony, creating carefully composed tableaux in Westminster Abbey. In addition, he made outfits for many other guests who attended the coronation.
His summer 1953 collection, featuring around 150 designs, was named “The Silver and Gold Collection”. This title was later used for his autobiography, which was illustrated largely by his assistant Ian Thomas. Thomas went on to open his own establishment in 1968 and, together with Hardy Amies, created many designs that became part of the Queen’s wardrobe.
As the Queen began to undertake an increasing number of State visits and Royal tours abroad, as well as numerous engagements at home, her need for clothing grew to a scale that was too great for a single House alone. During 1953 and 1954 she made an extensive Royal Tour of most of the countries in the British Commonwealth. The coronation dress was worn again for the opening of Parliament in several countries, and her varied wardrobe attracted international attention in the press and on newsreels.
Cotton dresses worn on this tour were widely copied around the world, many of them ordered from specialist wholesale company Horrockses. Hartnell’s designs were complemented by gowns from Hardy Amies, who had been her secondary designer from 1951 onwards. Most of the women of the royal family used Hartnell, alongside other London designers, to create their clothes for both home and abroad.
Princess Margaret’s Wedding: The Last Great Tableau
Hartnell’s design for the wedding dress of Princess Margaret in 1960 marked the last full State occasion for which he created an impressive tableau of dresses. It also marked the swan song of lavish British couture.
Princess Margaret in Hartnell on her wedding day to Anthony Armstrong-Jones, 1960
Princess Margaret wore a multi layered white princess line gown, completely unadorned, but constructed from many layers of fine silk. It required as much technical skill as the complex coronation dress, and echoed its outline in a more modern, pared back way. The Queen wore a long blue lace day dress with a bolero, echoing this design with a slight bolero jacket, and a hat trimmed with a single rose, a subtle nod to the Princess’s full name, Margaret Rose.
Victor Stiebel designed the going away outfit for the Princess. The wedding and the couple’s departure from the Pool of London aboard HMY Britannia received worldwide newspaper and television coverage.
Quiet Royal Elegance in the 1960s
Fashion changed rapidly in the 1960s. By the time of the investiture of the Prince of Wales in 1969, Hartnell’s designs for the Queen and for Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother had become short, simple looks that reflected their personal style. His royal clothes created an impeccably neat appearance that managed to be stylish without making a bold fashion statement.
Norman Hartnell, Spring / summer collection, 1964
Hartnell became increasingly focused on royal orders. He was assisted in this by Ian Thomas, who left to establish his own business in 1966, and by the Japanese designer Gun’yuki Torimaru, who also went on to build a highly successful label of his own.
Fame, Publicity and the Changing Fashion Landscape
In the mid 1950s, Hartnell reached the peak of his fame. The business employed around 500 people, along with many others in associated trades. Yet, like all couture houses of the era, it faced rising costs and changing tastes in women’s clothing, warning signs of difficult times ahead.
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Hartnell’s name appeared regularly in the press. He produced two collections a year, maintained close links with theatre and film stars, and showed a real flair for publicity. He created a full evening dress from pound notes for a newspaper stunt, staged touring fashion shows at home and abroad, and experimented with the latest fabrics and man made materials.
Memorable evening gowns were worn by concert pianist Eileen Joyce and television cookery star Fanny Cradock, underlining his high profile as an innovative designer even in his sixth decade, which was then considered a great age.
Smaller Collections, Scent and Stockings: The Later Years
Hartnell continued to design and create collections on a smaller scale until 1979, with his work for the Queen and for Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother still commanding much of his time and attention. The business struggled with overheads, like many couture houses, and various merchandising ventures were introduced to help support the finances.
The sale of his scent “In Love” and other fragrances was re introduced in 1954, followed by stockings, knitwear, costume jewellery and, in the late 1960s, menswear. However, these efforts were not enough to counter the rise of youthful fashion on the high street. Eventually, Hartnell had to sell his country retreat, Lovel Dene, in order to finance the Bruton Street business.
The First Fashion Knight
At the time of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977, Hartnell was appointed KCVO. When he arrived at Buckingham Palace to receive the honour, he was delighted to find that the Queen had asked Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother to invest him herself.
Prudence Glynn, the sharp eyed fashion editor of The Times, dubbed him “The First Fashion Knight” and described his life’s work as “The Norman Conquest”. It was a wonderfully fitting tribute. Hartnell continued to design and create collections on a smaller scale until 1979.
Farewell to a Couturier
Hartnell died in 1979 and was buried on 15 June that year next to his mother and sister in the churchyard at Clayton, West Sussex.
A memorial service in London was led by the then Bishop of Southwark, Mervyn Stockwood, who was a friend. Many models, employees and clients attended, including one of his earliest supporters from the 1920s, Barbara Cartland, and Margaret Whigham, who had once been Deb of the Year in 1930. Wearing a spectacular Hartnell dress, her wedding to Charles Sweeny had famously stopped the traffic in Knightsbridge. As Margaret, Duchess of Argyll, she remained a loyal client.
Keeping the House of Hartnell Alive
After Hartnell’s death, Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother continued as a steadfast client, along with other long standing customers. To keep the business going, John Tullis, a nephew of Edward Molyneux, designed for the House until it was sold.
A consortium headed by Manny Silverman, formerly of Moss Bros., acquired the company. Guest collections were created by Gina Fratini and Murray Arbeid, and the Bruton Street building was completely renovated under the direction of Michael Pick. He restored its original Art Moderne splendour, including the famous glass chimney piece from Gerald Lacoste’s original scheme, which led from the ground floor to the first floor salon. This was returned by the V&A to form the focal point of the grand mirrored salon once more.
The house reopened with an acclaimed collection designed by former Christian Dior designer Marc Bohan. However, the Gulf War and the recession of the early 1990s brought the venture to an end, and the house closed its doors in 1992.
On 11 May 2005, Hartnell’s Bruton Street premises were honoured with a blue plaque at 26 Bruton Street, marking the place where he had spent his working life from 1934 to 1979.
Personal Life: Private, devoted, and utterly himself
Hartnell never married, and he moved through life in a quiet, discreet way at a time when homosexual relationships between men were illegal. He thought of himself as a confirmed bachelor. His closest friends stayed well away from the public eye and he was always careful never to do anything that might jeopardise his position as a leading designer to the women of the British royal family or to the aristocratic and “society” clients on whom his success depended. He rarely socialised with any of them.
The younger Hardy Amies, also a designer for Queen Elizabeth II, was pleasantly surprised in 1959 by how much he enjoyed Hartnell’s company in Paris. They were both there for the State Visit to France, watching their creations being worn. Hartnell had been known to refer to Amies as “Hardly Amiable”. In later years, long after Hartnell’s death and in a more liberal climate, Amies became noted for his off the cuff remarks in interviews. In explaining his own business success compared with Hartnell’s near penury at the end of his life, he more than once referred to Hartnell as a “soppy” or “silly old queen”, while describing himself instead as a “bitchy” or “clever old queen”.
Hartnell also had many women friends. His designs were worn by another former Streatham resident, ex Tiller Girl Renée Probert Price. A Hartnell evening ensemble is part of the collection of vintage dresses she left behind, later inherited by her great niece after her death in 2013.
Legacy: A name stitched into British history
Hartnell passed away in 1979, but his legacy is everywhere, in the ceremonial garments still worn by the royal family, in vintage boutiques that occasionally whisper his name on a label, and in evening and bridal wear across the decades.
His gowns are held in major collections at the Victoria and Albert Museum and Museum of London. They are still referenced in exhibitions about royal fashion and 20th-century couture. More recently, his work saw a revival of interest after being portrayed in shows like The Crown, where his designs for the Queen and Princess Margaret were recreated with loving detail.
So the next time you see an image of a coronation gown or a 1950s debutante in a full-skirted wonder, spare a thought for Norman, the man who brought fantasy to the fittings room, who loved a little extra embroidery, and who helped Britain look its very best.
Until next time, stay delightful, darling. And don’t forget, a touch of satin and a well-placed pearl can still turn an ordinary day into a royal one.