Like a storybook character come to life: why the Queen is a style icon

From eggy yellow dresses to pointless handbags, there’s more to dressing like a monarch than meets the eye. Ours avoids chic and makes sure she doesn’t clash with grass. Though she did once sport a polka-dot turban

Her governess, Marion Crawford, once said of the young queen that “Lilibet never cared a fig” for clothes. And insofar as we can deduce anything about a public but unknowable person, this still feels true. In 63 years of appearances as a monarch, personal vanity has never seemed to take up much bandwidth; what the Queen cares about, instead, is the art and science of being Queen. But she understands perfectly how clothes pay a key role in this. As she once put it: “I have to be seen to be believed.”