Queen Elizabeth II famously left nothing to chance. Her meticulous attention to every detail remains customary in the British royal family, but it reached its zenith with her care with her wardrobe.
Indeed, one cannot count the tricks and stratagems implemented by the royal to ensure a public presence and image that was always distinctive, fitting, and never out of place. Weights were inserted in her skirts to prevent them from fluttering; her shoes, always the same model, were broken in with a shoehorn by her trusted Angela Kelly; her trademark black Launer handbag was used to send incognito messages to her staff by simply moving it from one hand to the other.
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Now, ahead of the April 10 opening of Queen Elizabeth II: Her Life in Style at the King’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace, the largest-ever exhibition dedicated to the late royal’s fashion, another curious habit has emerged. Pockets are a negligible detail for many, but certainly not for the beloved queen. Especially during institutional engagements, she did not want to worry too much about her outfits, and tended to opt for clean options without too many frills or extra details that could get in her way.
But pockets, when they were there, had a practical function. “There was a hierarchy of pockets,” Caroline de Guitaut, curator of the exhibition and deputy surveyor of the queen’s works of art at the Royal Collection Trust, recently told Hello!. She noted that these pockets had different materials fit for their various purposes.