Every year, from July to September, the State Rooms at Buckingham Palace are open to the public, tourists, and measly commoners alike.
It’s interesting that the public must pay £30 to get inside a building that their tax dollars, erm, pounds are paying for – but there you have it. I suppose the grand ticket price is to keep the chavs and council estate princesses out of the palace and the hell away from One.
While for the most part I would stay away from any touristy exhibition through fear that I would be trampled by tourists or suffocated by groups of American students, there is a rather exciting exhibition going on in the State Rooms called Queen & Commonwealth: The Royal Tour.
This year marks the 60th anniversary of the modern commonwealth, and to celebrate, the Queen & Commonwealth exhibition showcases the 28 dresses worn my Her Majesty on the commonwealth tours, as well as many of the extravagant gifts she was given by her loyal subjects, and the pricey jewelry she wore.
While the gifts were all well and good and the Flame Lily Brooche she wore to Africa in 1947 is quite impressive –what I really wanted to see was her dresses.
Your modern day Queen is known for her mu-mu-esque dresses, her boring hats, and her corgis. But back in her prime, Her Royal Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, was pretty damn foxy. And her dresses – O! The Dresses! -and her sense of style was absolutely superb, if not breathtaking.
Her wardrobe was simply oozing with all things gorgeous, regal, and stylish.
My favourites from the exhibition are:
The evening dress the Queen wore in Nigeria in 1956, designed by Norman Hartnell.
The evening dress she wore to New Zealand in 1954, also designed by Norman Hartnell.
Another evening dress designed by Normal Hartnell in 1972 that the Queen wore on a State Visit to Singapore and Malaysia.
And, perhaps in one of her most daring and trendy dresses, the Queen sported a short bright green day dress on her same trip to Singapore and Malaysia in 1972 that was designed by Norman Hartnell.
The combination of the above leg baring green dress, and then the cloche shaped hat designed by Simone Mirman was absolutely gorgeous.
Being inside Buckingham Palace is a treat. It looks as expected: polished, golden, bright, royal, over the top, with that hollow feeling that most enormous houses have.
Perhaps one of the most exciting aspects of this tour aside from gawking at the dresses, was the Buckinham Palace Café that overlooks the enormous back garden that the Queen gets to stare at and the rest of us only know about if we’re actually in the palace. I assume this “garden” is part of St. James Park, but this section of it obviously being for royals only.
The Buckingham Palace gift shop is also quite exciting, and is filled with the most expensive bits of souvenir shopping you’ll ever see. From shortbread tins to DVDs about The Queen, to bath towels with the words Buckingham Palace embroidered on them – you’ll have plenty of trinkets to waste your money on.
However, I did fall in love with this GORGEOUS £35 teacup from the Victoria china collection....
If you do plan on visiting the State Rooms at Buckingham Palace and the Queen & Commonwealth exhibition before it closes on September 30th– I have some advice.
Go mid-week, and go in the late afternoon. The last admittance for the tour is at 15:45, but stays open until 18:00. If you go at any other time, you will not enjoy yourself.
I had the misfortune of going on a rainy day, not-mid week, and I spent my entire time tripping over pensioners.
Even worse, as you walk into to Buckingham Palace, they offer FREE AUDIO GUIDE TOURS. I did not pick up the audio kit as I figured it was optional, and, well I hate those things.
Had I known that every single person inside the palace was wearing one, I might have picked one up, as every person in every room would stand in front of the same paintings, the same sculptures, the same views, completely oblivious tot he world around them.
It’s like that scene in Doctor Who when everyone else has those fancy schmancy Bluetooth headsets that allow them to “download” the news. Everyone is stopped, listening to something you can’t hear, while you’re trying to navigate round them. It’s a bit creepy.
Add on top of this, most of the people using the audio headsets were well into their 60s and 70s, had on far too much cologne and perfume, and (bless them) were a bit clueless as to the hustle and bustle of other people around them.
Add an audio tour into the mix and you’ll spend your entire time enraged and annoyed that you can’t even ask someone to move a bit so you can get around them, because they can’t hear you.
Trying to get near the dresses or jewellery or gifts to the Queen when there are hordes of tourists wearing headsets is impossible. And if momentarily people do take their headphones off, it was only so they could talk.
If you were a woman over 60, it was apparently a rule that you must stop and quibble to your friend or husband about how “One certainly expanded over the years” and “my just look at the waistline on that! HUGE compared t that one! Oh my.”
While I may be a cynical bitch, have some damn respect for the Queen when you’re in her house. It just felt incredibly rude to be bitching about another (old) woman’s weight while you’re standing in her house, staring at her wardrobe. Sure you had to pay thirty-god-damned-quid to get in there, but still.
Oblivious Pensioners and Audio Tour Zombies aside – I do recommend going to see this exhibition. It’s a great way to spend a day out, and if you love fashion, you’ll love gawking at the Queen’s old dresses.