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Norman conquest

Words | Joanna Hunter

From the 1920s to the 1970s Sir Norman Hartnell created famously glamorous, trend-setting dresses for British royalty and high society. His influence can still be seen today, including at this month’s London Fashion Week

Hartnell displays designs for Queen Elizabeth II’s 1953 Coronation Dress and those of the other Royal Ladies THE LATE FRENCH couturier Christian Dior said: “Whenever I try to think of something particularly beautiful, I think always of those lovely dresses that Mr Hartnell made for your beautiful Queen when she visited Paris.”

This is not an accolade that many English dress designers might hope to extract from a French rival. Then again, it wasn’t simply that Sir Norman Hartnell, born in 1901, was one of the first designers to create statement frocks and a strong bond with the British Royal Family – in particular Queen Elizabeth II and the Queen Mother. Arguably, he could be credited with making London a couture capital in a way that only Paris had been considered beforehand.

A Norman Hartnell red velvet dress designed for Princess Margaret, c. 1948 Yet, it is quite possible that you have never heard of him, which is why a new book celebrating the designer’s life and works, Be dazzled! Norman Hartnell: Sixty Years Of Glamour And Fashion by Michael Pick, a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, is a perfect introduction to him.

The coffee table tome is a glossy collection of outstanding photographs, newspaper cuttings and diary entries (showing appointments with the Queen, whose intricately decorated wedding dress and Coronation gown he most famously designed, the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret all in one week), as well as invitations, stills from films for which he designed the costumes and colour swatches.

Queen Elizabeth II in 1954 wearing a crinoline gown with a low-cut bodice and fully gathered embroidered skirt Pick charts Hartnell’s progression from his early years growing up in the south London suburb of Streatham, the son of publican parents, to his establishment as the darling of the upper classes and beyond.

A dress designer almost by accident (he had gone to Cambridge to read modern languages with the aim of becoming an architect, but spent more time devising costumes for the Footlights Review drama club than studying – leading to him being ejected without a degree), Hartnell could neither cut nor sew, yet he was able to design frocks – particularly evening gowns and later wedding dresses – with such grace and attention to detail that women swooned. “He was the designer who made every woman look like a fairy queen,” remarked the late romantic novelist Dame Barbara Cartland, one of his longest-standing clients.

With Hartnell seated at her left-hand side, the Queen views his collection in 1950 Most of all, Hartnell understood the power of glamour. “When I gulped hot chocolate with Mistinguett [the French musical star] in her Piccadilly hotel boudoir and sipped weak tea with Mae West at the Savoy,” Hartnell noted, “I found that both these glamorous women were intelligent and charming, but I realised how much of their great fame and fortune they owed to an excess of sequins and dazzle.”

An early evening dress from 1925 with draped panels at the back and a fine gauze wrap weighted with ostrich feathers. It was this very love of abundant sparkle that made him a designer fit for a queen. Hartnell’s first royal commission came when he dressed the young Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret Rose as bridesmaids for the wedding of the Duke of Gloucester to Lady Alice Montagu-Douglas-Scott in 1935. It was the beginning of a relationship that was to blossom and encompass most of the major events in the Royal Family’s life, as chapters entitled The Queen’s Dressmaker, From Princess to Queen, Coronation Couture, The Royal Tours and The Younger Sister show. Hartnell’s creations were also instrumental in shaping the royals’ image, both at home and abroad, a role that was recognised with a knighthood in 1977, two years before his death.

A short-sleeved, fur-cuffed, floor-sweeping evening coat from the 1960s. Yet Hartnell’s influence was by no means restricted to the rarefied upper circle. Pick writes: “Eventually, his name appeared on belts, bags, knitwear, dress and embroidery patterns, cosmetics, nylon stockings, nightwear, menswear, jewellery, sunglasses and hairspray.”

A show-stopping design shows how Hartnell excelled at creating evening dresses for grand occasions Today, Hartnell’s influence is not forgotten – as witnessed by the strengthening presence of glamorous evening dresses on the London fashion scene.

Be Dazzled! Norman Hartnell, Sixty Years Of Glamour And Fashion by Michael Pick (£60, Pointed Leaf Press) is out now

A new frock star

Words | Robina Dam

Red-carpet glitz is more popular than ever and just as Sir Norman Hartnell took glamour to a different level, now a raft of UK-based talent is continuing the wave, including dress designer Ashley Isham

AMONG THE NEW generation of fashion designers specialising in glamorous evening wear is Ashley Isham (left), whose frocks have been worn by celebrities such as Kylie Minogue, Camilla Rutherford and Myleene Klass. Tagged the “darling of drapery” by fashion pundits because of his lavish use of flowing jersey swathes, Isham takes inspiration from the stars of Hollywood’s heyday and gives them a contemporary twist. For example, for his current Spring/Summer 2008 collection, which he showed at London’s Royal Opera House last season, he took a sci-fitheme to his designs. Born in Singapore, Isham studied at Central St Martin’s and London College of Fashion and quickly decided that high-octane glamour was going to be his signature. Although only 29, Isham’s new collections for the Autumn/Winter 2008 season, which he is showing during this month’s London Fashion Week, show that he has developed into almost a veteran since his debut collection in 2000. And now his fashions are going further afield, as younger royals from both the British and international royal families are turning to him for red carpet occasions.