My experience of being the Queen's Dressmaker

The designer Norman Hartnell is synonymous with royal glamour with the late Queen Elizabeth II and fellow royals among his clients. As the nation remembers our late Queen, grandmother Jean, 72, who is currently being cared for on the ward at Saint Francis Hospice, reminisces about her time working as a dressmaker at Norman Hartnell’s workshop in Mayfair, London from 1964 to 1974. Jean has some surprising revelations about the late monarch to share.

When I was at school, they decided to stop our needlework class and do more Maths and English. I didn’t want that as I wanted to learn to sew properly.

My dad rang up the dressmaker’s fashion house Norman Hartnell and asked if I could have an appointment to see him. I was 15 years old when I left school on a Friday and started to work in Mayfair on a Monday morning.

It was so exciting at the time and I loved it because you never stopped learning. I completed a three-year apprenticeship in dressmaking and became what was known as ‘a hand’. This meant you were full on with everything and you had a junior under you learning.

Dressmaking for Her Majesty The Queen

I was very aware that we were making dresses for the Queen. Norman Hartnell held two fashion shows a year. A Spring/Summer collection and an Autumn/Winter collection. Around 30 dresses were designed and we would make them for the models to show off two times a day for all the clients coming in.

The Queen had her dresses designed especially for her so nobody else could have them. As well as her own private collection, a special date would be arranged at the end of the year so she could come in and watch the fashion show herself and if she liked any of dresses, she would buy the actual dress that was worn by the model for half price.

People used to say she only wore something once, believe me that isn’t true. She used to send dresses back time and time again to have them readjusted with a new neckline or a different sleeve or a different panel to make it slightly different.

I never actually met the Queen. My boss used to go to Buckingham Palace all the time to fit her dresses. She would then bring them back to the work room and tell us the next step that was needed to do to alter and readjust the dress.

The Queen would have at least three fittings as there always was with couture. Every single thing, apart from the seams themselves, was done by hand. We sat for days and days sewing so the seams did not fray. We loved doing it but it made you so tired because it was so repetitive.

So many memories

I have so many memories and there were some that weren’t funny at the time but are great stories when I look back now.

I remember one time I was ironing a velvet dress the Queen was due to wear for a Remembrance Sunday Service. I was holding it on a hanger with one hand and ironing inside when the iron went straight through the dress. It was due to go to the palace in half an hour and I didn’t know what I was going to do. I had to tell my boss and she contacted the palace to say the late Queen wouldn’t be able to have the dress and she would need to arrange something else to wear.

Once I married, I worked from home three days a week and two days in the workshop. One day my mother-in-law came over to visit and asked to try on one of the outfits I’d made for the Queen. I let her and after admiring herself in the mirror, she started smoking and I quickly get her to stop!

I left Norman Hartnell in 1974 after my son was born. But when he was six weeks old and we were in a routine, I thought, I cannot sit here doing nothing and let my apprenticeship go to waste. So, I started working from home and have been doing alterations ever since. I still have people coming to me for 40 odd years.

Seeing my dresses on display at the Palace

You don’t often see the dresses the Queen wears as she always wears a coat over the top. I went to Buckingham Palace with my husband when the Queen celebrated her 70th birthday and there was a display of 70 dresses on mannequins in all different colours around a hall.

There was a plaque with the designer and when I saw one that said Norman Hartnell, I took a quick peek inside the dress to read the label and knew it was one of the dresses I had made.

It is different when you are working on the dresses on a table in a workshop to seeing them inside the palace. It was an amazing feeling.

Making replicas for my family

I made a copy of one of the Queen’s dresses for my mum in fuchsia pink and she wore it to my brother’s wedding. I also made a copy of the dress for me in navy which I wore to a wedding.

My mum passed away in 1999 and when I was clearing out her cupboard, I gave the dress away to charity so someone is walking around with the replica of a dress that the Queen wore for the investiture of the Prince of Wales in 1969.

Remembering Her Majesty

I cried when I heard the news that the Queen had died. I feel so sorry for Charles and Anne and all the family as after all is said and done, it is their mum and they still have to be in the limelight. It is so sad for them.

Some fashion house somewhere must be rushing to do so many outfits.