Fashioning The Crown – Justine Picardie

The pair were christened as a result of a poll conducted by Le Journal, which announced that Marianne, a brunette, was the elder of the two, and that France was a blonde whose eyes sometimes looked ‘a little sad’. In the words of Le Journal, their ‘godmother’ was Madame Georges Bonnet, wife of the French foreign minister, but they were also ‘our daughters, the ambassadresses’, preparing for a new life in England as ‘the best- dressed dolls in the world’.

Their wardrobes were made by many – although not all – of the leading couture houses in Paris, including Jeanne Lanvin, Lucien Lelong, Maggy Rouff, Jeanne Paquin, Jean Patou, Robert Piguet, Marcel Rochas and Madeleine Vionnet. (The notable exceptions were Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli.) Louis Vuitton supplied their luxurious luggage; Cartier crafted the enchanting coral and lapis lazuli jewellery; Hermès contributed elegant handbags, purses and gloves; precious perfumes in crystal flacons came from Bourjois, Coty, Guerlain and Lancôme.

The dolls – along with their sumptuous belongings – were exhibited at the Marigny Theatre in Paris on 16 and 17 July 1938 (the weekend before the royal visit). The following day, Le Journal reported: ‘an endless procession of admirers had patiently queued to see, at last, the trousseaux, possessions and the two “ambassadresses” about which they had read so much’.

So popular proved the exhibition – with adult visitors far outnumbering children – that the opening hours were extended on the Sunday, from eight in the morning until eight at night; all the while, ‘impassively, the dolls of France watched the crowds go by with wide- open eyes’. Marianne and France had been constructed in the famous Jumeau doll workshops; or as Le Journal put it, more whimsically, ‘a cheerful- looking factory where every day of the year little porcelain girls and boys are born’.

But their custom-made wigs were fashioned out of human hair by the coiffeur Valentin, and their eerily spectral gaze was the work of Monsieur Peigne, a manufacturer of artificial eyes for human patients.

‘I Have to Be Seen to Be Believed’ The House of Windsor ‘She Has Set the Babe Fashion for Yellow’ ‘That Woman in My Own House!’ Sandringham Time ‘My Striptease Act’ Hard Chic Royal Command Performance The White Wardrobe The Dolls Fairy Queen Battle Camp The Menagerie ‘Fashion Is Indestructible’ Queen, Couturier, Soldier, Spy Theatre of War In Uniform Princess Bride Consecration Acknowledgements A Note on Names A Note on Sources Bibliography Picture Credits Index About the Author Copyright OceanofPDF.com Princess Elizabeth, July 1951. Photograph by Yousuf Karsh. OceanofPDF.com T ‘I HAVE TO BE SEEN TO BE BELIEVED’ he first time I met Queen Elizabeth II – who will always be ‘the Queen’ for me – I was lost for words, as so many people were in those circumstances.

She was accustomed to this; indeed, my husband, who had known her since childhood, said that even the most sophisticated individuals often ‘talked gibberish’ when they were introduced to the Queen. As a consequence, she tended to ask simple questions, but on this occasion, her generic opener – ‘Have you come far?’ – would not help, given that she already knew the answer. We had been invited to dinner at Balmoral, just a few miles from my husband’s family home in the Scottish Highlands, and when the Queen greeted me, I somehow managed to curtsey without falling over, while feeling utterly awestruck by the power of her presence.

Awe is not conducive to conversation; like countless others before me, I became tongue-tied and inept. I had not grown up in a monarchist household – on the contrary, my father espoused Marxism during my 1960s childhood; nor had I become an ardent royalist in adulthood. Insofar as I ever thought about the Queen, it was as a reassuringly consistent, grandmotherly figure in the background of our national life, although marginal to my own day-to-day existence.

Yet suddenly here she was before me, dazzling in an array of diamond jewellery and an exquisitely embroidered silver evening gown, the magnificent manifestation of her own adage, ‘I have to be seen to be believed.’ The Queen was in her early eighties at the time, but her age seemed immaterial.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

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