Queen Alexandra’s coronation dress is going on display for the first time in 30 years.
The coronation dress will go on display today with more than 300 other items at The King’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace as part of the new exhibition The Edwardians: Age of Elegance.
The exhibition focuses on two royal couples – King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, and King George V and Queen Mary – at a time of profound change.
The golden coronation dress broke with tradition, as a coronation dress would usually be a plain white or cream gown. Queen Alexandra chose this dress from the Parisian fashion Morin Blossier. The dress is sewn with thousands of small gold spangles. It was the first royal outfit to include the national emblems of Britain, and this new tradition has continued on subsequent coronation dresses.
The dress is very fragile, and conservators have spent more than 100 hours preparing it for display.
Exhibition curator Kathryn Jones said, “While it has darkened over time, Alexandra’s choice of a shimmering gold fabric would have been incredibly striking at the coronation; there are descriptions in contemporary newspapers of moments in the ceremony where the Queen appears in an extraordinary blaze of golden light, the dress glowing in the new electric lighting. It’s a powerful example of Edward and Alexandra’s attempts to balance tradition and modernity as they stood on the cusp of the 20th century: a shining moment of glamour before the world was at war.”
Queen Alexandra’s coronation jewels, the Dagmar necklace and earrings, which were a wedding gift, are also on display. Also on display is the well-known Kokoshnik Tiara.
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