An exhibition showcasing the clothes of the late Queen Elizabeth II will be hosted at Buckingham Palace next year.
The 200 items will comprise the largest ever display of Elizaebth’s clothing say the organisers.
Elizabeth II: Her Life in Style will open in the King’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace in spring 2026.
The items on display are held by the Royal Collection Trust, and items from the Queen’s public and private lives will be on display.
Highlights include Elizabeth’s wedding dress, made for the then Princess Elizabeth for her marriage in November 1947 in Westminster Abbey. The silk for the gown, designed by long-time Royal favourite Norman Hartnell, was bought with ration coupons.
The Queen moved with the times as these bright, relaxed 1970s dresses show. The exhibition will show decades of the best British design. Image courtesy Royal Collections Trust.
The dress played a big role in establishing the young princesses public image. It toured the UK in shows after the wedding.
There are also items from the late-Queen’s childhood, including a bridesmaid dress, in silver lamé and tulle, that she wore for the wedding of the Duke of Kent, her uncle. She was eight.
The relaxed, bright dresses worn by the Queen during the 1970s might surprise some. Hacking jackets, head scarves and tartan skirts are more easily associated with the monarch who reigned for 70 years from 1952 to her death in 2022.
The plainly political message of a dress in the colours of Pakistan for a visit show the Queen was always on duty.
“In the year that she would have turned 100-years-old, this exhibition will be a celebration of Queen Elizabeth’s uniquely British style and her enduring fashion legacy,” said the exhibition’s curator, Caroline de Guitaut.
The British Royal Family are valued by a large collecting community and Queen Elizabeth II’s record-breaking reign and generally popular public personal make her a favourite.
However, the Monarch’s status as a quasi-public/private figure mean most personal items from her life remain in Royal or official state collections.
In July 2024, one of the bridesmaid’s dresses from her wedding to Philip (they were married for 73 years) was auctioned by Christie’s. It sold for £37,800 against a £50,000 top estimate.
Diana Princess of Wales is the most valuable royal measured by recent sale prices. She was born outside the Royal Family and left it when she divorced Charles (then Prince of Wales) in 1996 so many more of her personal possessions have come onto the market.
In 2023, Princess Diana’s black velvet evening dress, by Jacques Azagury, was auctioned for £904,262 ($1.15 million). That remains the record for Diana clothes, though a major sale earlier this year saw a colourful “caring” dress realise $520,000 in an LA sale.
Almost any item from next year’s Elizabeth II show would surely rival those prices were they ever to come to auction.