What Queen Elizabeth II's Baby Clothes Reveal about Royal Childhood
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 5 ก.พ. 2025
- Queen Elizabeth II and her sister Princess Margaret grew up in their family home in Mayfair before moving to Buckingham Palace in 1936. In this video, we look at several items from Elizabeth and Margaret’s childhood wardrobe: a pale pink silk baby coat and two matching summer dresses in a Liberty print. Curator Matthew Storey explores the value of preserving these historical garments from the Queen’s early years, and what these dresses can tell us about Elizabeth II’s childhood and this moment in the Royal Family's history. Conservator Katica Laza shows us how we care for and conserve unique items such as these.
See Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret’s childhood clothes on display in ‘Dress Codes’ at Kensington Palace from 13 March - 30 Nov 2025: www.hrp.org.uk...
Read more about the Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection: www.hrp.org.uk...
Thanks to such films we can better understand the history and appreciate the value of preserving these unique objects. Conservators are real magicians!
I love the Liberty fabric!❤
How interesting! I love anything about Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret! I guess my sister and I were “royal” too! My Mother made all of our clothes and dressed us alike until I was 12 or 13. Then my sister had to continue to wear my hand me downs. I admire conservators! I’d love to watch a garment be restored!
These clothes are simply precious. I thought of Liberty of London fabrics at the first glance of the sister dresses. I did not know the company has been around since Elizabeth II was a girl (I make doll clothes out of Liberty lawn in some of the small scale prints). The alterations on the clothes makes them so much more personal to the lives of the princesses, as opposed to a once worn item. ❤❤
Such sweet dresses made with the Liberty fabric. Royals of all periods resused their clothing, things were not "thrown out" They were styled into something new, or cut down for a daughter.
My two younger sister's and I were born in three years in the early 2000's and we wore lots of matching or identical clothing as we grew up. Probably because it was cheaper to buy three of the same clothes in descending size for us. By the time the youngest was through with the largest outfit it wouldn't be very salvageable because of all the shenanigans we got up to.
A costume/clothes restorer would be a fascinating job!
Crazy to think that these dresses are around the 100 year old mark! Also just want to say that the presenters voice is so incredibly soothing! I would happily watch a whole documentary with his narration
Fabulous thank you for sharing with us. I could have watched for another hour or so! Please bring us more❤
We also had matching clothes with my sisters in the 60s. It was very common, even keeping your clothes.
So did I two years apart with my big sister expecially when going out wearing long dresses
It wasn't THAT unusual. In the 1950s, my younger sister and I, almost three years apart, dressed alike until I was thirteen and she was 10. We were local wedding singers, and dressed alike for each wedding at which we sang until we quit the gig (my sophomore year in college and her wedding). When my baby sister was born, my mother ordered from Sears a matching dress set for her, me, my younger sister, and the new baby. We were not royal or aristocratic.
Growing up, my sister, step sisters & I were all dressed. In identical patterned dresses but different colours, & this was in the 1980's
@itwasagoodideaatthetime7980 In the 1980s, I had a son and a daughter. I could coordinate them, but not make them "matchies."
I have pictures of myself and my two sisters all in the exact same clothes in the 60's and 70's.
Exactly! I dress 1950s, and will dress my babies that way when I have them (I’m 16 😅) until they want me not to. They act as if it’s otherworldly
Our mother made our clothes & made 3 sizes. She said it also helped her spot us by our dresses...
Imagine being so famous that people actually want to preserve the clothes you wore as a child.
I think in that generation it's more a question of how big the wardrobe was.
My grandmother, who was the same age as Queen Elizabeth, came from a wealthy farming family. But I don't think she had more than 3 pairs of shoes and 6 dresses at a time as a child, one for church, 2 worn-out ones for home (one in summer, one in winter), 3 for school (one for summer, one for winter and one for spring/autum ). And when she grew out of it, everything passed to the two younger sisters.
The future Queen certainly had 3 dresses for every day of the week and 7 more for official occasions, all of best quality. And all washed using the most modern means, not rubbed every second week over the washboard with cheap soap, and treated with a root brush.
No thanks
My baby dress was preserved and is in my cedar chest. I was born in 1947. It was not unusual for that era to keep clothes. My sister and were 2 years apart and mother dressed us alike until we were about 6 or 7.
We also had matching clothes my 3y younger sister and me. Till the day when I was about 14 and insisted on having my own style 🙂
Lovely video, thank you.
The dresses remind me of how the Romanov sisters were all dressed the same and as they grew older, Olga and Tatiana were matched while Maria and Anastasia were similarly matched.
And their grandmother on their father’s side;, Alexandra (Dagmar), and her sister Princess (then Queen) Alexandra wore matching clothes throughout adulthood
My siblings and I would also wear matching outfits that were sewn by my mother. It was not that unusual in the 1960’s.
Repurposing garments is a dying art and I wish that you could’ve shown more of the restoration techniques from Ms Laza.
Thank you for such a lovely presentation.
Prince George has been photographed wearing Prince William's clothes. King Charles wears his father's or possibly grandfather's overcoat. Some of his suits have been mended.
Beautiful video, Katica is such an articulate expert
Clothes Queen Elizabeth childhood so cute.
See below. In the 1950's & 60's my sister and I were often dressed alike, especially for "dressy" occasions ... I think it was a "thing" for a long time ... by the 70's, when we were older (and the times, they were a-changin') we stopped being dressed alike very much ... although there was the occasional outfit! :-) Either exactly the same or "coordinated" ...
You can tell his young these people are. In the past, it was very common for siblings to be dressed alone - especially for Sundays and special occasions. And guess what - I dressed my daughters alike ever year when they were little and went to Disney - so much easier to keep track of them!
This process of saving these dresses of Queen Elizabeth II and her sisters dresses reminding me of process of saving a purple and golden oriental gown of Empress Elisabeth Amalie Eugenie from Austria Queen of Hungary with a mind-boggling precision and painstaking effort to protect it from destruction and the very carefully displaying in a special constructed glass box with a mirror underneath that the gorgeous backside of this gown can be seen! There is a video here in TH-cam from this process of it - just look after it and see it for yourself!
I want to learn that!
Che meraviglia ❤
Straordinaria regina, sua Maestà Elisabetta II
REST IN PEACE 🙏
Two of my grandchildren dress the same but now they are growing up they don’t always dress the same
Do you know who actually made those dresses? …. the seamstress not the fashion house
Even today it’s rare for a fashion house to give credit to the seamstresses. In the early 1930’s when these were made it simply wouldn’t have been done. And that’s assuming they were made by a fashion house. Children’s clothes were often made by the family’s servants as the alterations to the dresses would have been.
If clothing left the Royal Family ownership (via gifting to wet nurses or nannies) one cannot make assumptions about the preservation, alterations or the possible re-wearing of the garment. Presuming Royal hand-me-down habits is not conclusive given that the dress could have been altered by the recipient for their own family use.
They were talking about the baby outfits not about the dresses.
Lovely. Clara rhymes with Sarah, by the way.
Only in America. Everywhere else in the world, it's said the way he does in this video
@ Except in Britain.
@@marchellabrahams My British family all say it clah-rah
@ That doesn’t make them right!
@@marchellabrahams There is no objectively 'right' answer. Name pronunciation differs according to region, and they are both legitimate. However, it is factual that the most common way Clara is pronounced in Britain is the way he said it. I have literally never heard an English person say it any other way. Name websites like Nameberry and Behind the Name agree with me 🤷
How does a little dress give such a fascinating insight into future Queens 👸🏻 extremely long reign? What if I gave them a beautiful externally well made hand stitched pastel yellow silk dress that was made for my mother when she was only three years old. It is a very similar silhouette with incredible tiny silk daffodils in a bunch on the points of the collar. Stunning little mother of pearl heart shaped buttons with a pretty trimmed in hand made lace underdress and matching under garment covered tiny strips of handmade lace. The same lace was tucked just inside the tiny puffed short sleeves. She and her four sisters all wore similar garments growing up until the family financial crisis destroyed their world. All these perfect dresses were sold for money as my great grandmother struggled to keep her family sheltered and fed. But what fascinating insight would that perfect little dress provide into my mother’s and all her sisters nightmare marriages? Kind of a silly statement.
Baby clothes given to the nanny? I love this.
Are the buttons made of plastic?
Pure gold
Likely pearl.
Glass was the standard material for faux pearls at the time.
@@lady_sir_knight3713 I had begun to say mother-of-pearl (or shell), but then thought to propose the more generic: 'pearl'. I have a variety in my button-box; perhaps rarer nowadays, yet not wildly exceptional in QEII's childhood.
"pearl buttons"... it is mentioned in the video.
These clothes are just so beautiful and I love them, but I can't help think of my own mother who wore dresses made of flour sacks while she got only one pair of shoes a year and had to perform manual labor in the cotton fields of Alabama, as a child. I don't begrudge Queen Elizabeth at all. Just comparing and contrasting lifestyles during the same time period. That's all.
👍🏻
What do they tell us ....some are born into very very privileged lives