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One of the most striking images of the future monarch depicts her not in a sparkling tiara or flowing gown, but in a military uniform. Photographed at Aldershot, Surrey, in 1945, then-Princess Elizabeth at 18-years-old stands before an L-plated truck during her service as a Second Subaltern in the Auxiliary Territorial Service (the women’s branch of the British Army), where she trained as a driver and mechanic and later received a promotion to honorary Junior Commander. While military service has long been a royal tradition, Elizabeth was the first female member of the British royal family to serve full-time in the armed forces.
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Queen Elizabeth’s wedding dress might be one of the most famous in history, and in post-World War II Britain, it symbolized hope and optimism for an entire nation. Amid austerity and strict rationing, the then-Princess Elizabeth saved 200 ration coupons, but people across the country started sending in their own, worried for her that it wasn’t enough. However, given it was illegal to transfer them, each ration coupon was politely returned with a note.
When Elizabeth walked down the aisle in 1947 for her wedding to Prince Philip at Westminster Abbey, she wore a custom ivory silk gown decorated with 10,000 seed pearls that required 350 women and seven weeks of work to make. Designer Norman Hartnell later said he wanted it to be “the most beautiful dress [he] had so far made.”
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For Prince Charles’s christening portrait in 1948, Princess Elizabeth wore a structured, long-sleeved coat dress with a prominent folded collar and large buttons, topped with an elaborate sculptural hat featuring an upswept brim. The most notable accessory was Queen Mary’s Dorset Bow Brooch, made by London jeweler Carrington & Co. in 1893. It was given to Queen Elizabeth’s grandmother, Mary of Teck, as a wedding present alongside the Girls of Great Britain and Ireland tiara when Mary married George, the Duke of York.
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Also designed by Hartnell, Queen Elizabeth’s ivory silk gown for her 1953 coronation featured a sweetheart neckline and delicate lattice design, embroidered in pastel silks with the national emblems of the United Kingdom— the rose (England), the thistle (Scotland), the daffodil (Wales), and the shamrock (Northern Ireland)—alongside symbols representing Commonwealth nations including Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, India, and Pakistan, all decorated with seed pearls, sequins, and crystals. The finished gown weighed 30 pounds. She completed the look with gold pumps by Roger Vivier featuring a jewel-encrusted heel and fleurs-de-lis pattern, and wore a diamond necklace and earrings originally made for Queen Victoria.
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There are few figures from the 20th century who produced photos as iconic as Marilyn Monroe. But in 1956, Queen Elizabeth proved no one outshines the Crown. “There’s a famous picture of the Queen with Marilyn Monroe,” Stewart Parvin, a fashion designer and one of the Queen’s most trusted dressmakers, told The Telegraph this month. “Marilyn is wearing a very revealing dress but you look at the Queen, who’s in an amazing black [Norman] Hartnell gown and a tiara and your eye in the picture goes to her, not to Marilyn.”
For the royal premiere of the war film The Battle of the River Plate, Queen Elizabeth wore something simple but striking: an off-the-shoulder black velvet gown with a fitted bodice and full skirt. She paired the gown with the Grand Duchess Vladimir Tiara, with the emeralds installed, along with a diamond necklace and white opera-length gloves.
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One of Hartnell’s most celebrated creations was this ballgown the Queen wore on her state visit to Paris in 1957. Known as “The Flowers of the Fields of France,” the ivory duchesse silk satin gown was designed specifically for the occasion, with embroidery that served as a deliberate act of diplomatic flattery. The lavish gold and white beadwork, worked in relief across the fitted bodice and full floor-length skirt, incorporated miniature bees—the emblem of Napoleon—alongside wheat, grasses, and wildflowers rendered in faceted glass, gold beads, brilliants, pearls, and mother-of-pearl petals. A dramatic self-fabric bow extended down the back of the skirt. The gown was worn once and is now held in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
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The Queen never dressed down for the theater. She wore this heavily embellished, floral patterned gown with a white fur stole, a metallic clutch, and the Girls of Great Britain and Ireland tiara while attending a West End premiere in 1973.
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Seen here walking with then-Finnish President Urho Kekkonen, Queen Elizabeth wore this vibrant green, sequined gown with the Grand Duchess Vladimir tiara for a state banquet in Helsinki in 1976.
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Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip embarked on a royal tour of New Zealand in 1977 as part of her Silver Jubilee celebrations. Her stylists worked overtime for this trip, and there are a number of memorable looks to choose from. But this mid-century style, cobalt blue and ivory suit, with the Cambridge Pearl Pendant brooch pinned to it, felt both true to her style while being exceptionally chic for the time period.
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The late Queen’s signature fashion accessory was not a tiara, but a silk headscarf. Here, Elizabeth is bundled up in a red wool cape with a pink and purple patterned scarf at the Royal Windsor Horse Show, one of her favorite annual events over the course of her life, in 1979.
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Puffy sleeves were all the rage in the 1980s. Only Queen Elizabeth could find a way to make them look elegant in this cream satin gown with a smattering of sparkles on the frills, while delivering a speech at a banquet in San Francisco in 1983.
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Queen Elizabeth really leaned into the iconic bright hues and patterns of the ‘80s with this yellow skirt suit featuring a distinct black “splatter” print at the Epsom Derby in 1987. For the summer event, she completed the look with a wide-brimmed hat but also white gloves and pearl earrings.
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Queen Elizabeth looked like a movie star when she stepped out onto a red carpet in this flowing white gown embroidered with silver for a banquet with the Amir of Kuwait at Claridge’s Hotel in London 1995. She also looks to be wearing the Belgian Sapphire Tiara and the George VI Sapphire Parure.
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Following royal protocol for traditional mourning attire, Queen Elizabeth wore a black long-sleeved dress and a matching hat to Princess Diana’s funeral in September 1997. She also wore the Pearl Triangle Brooch, a narrow, Art Deco-style piece set with two pearls and a central canary yellow diamond, one of the more distinctive and personally meaningful pieces in her collection. She had worn it just days earlier for her televised address to the nation on the eve of the funeral, making it the brooch most visually associated with that week of national mourning. (A re-creation also appears during the final season of The Crown.)
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The Queen was known for her love of color, but she never wore anything quite like this. In November 1999, Elizabeth arrived for the Royal Variety Performance in Birmingham wearing this “Harlequin” dress, featuring a multi-colored ensemble comprised of a top made of rainbow sequins and a bright yellow skirt.
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Dressed casually in countryside attire for the 2002 Royal Windsor Horse Show, this outfit shows Queen Elizabeth at her core. Here she’s wearing a quilted vest, known as a body warmer, over a dark top, with a patterned wool skirt, a headscarf, and black Wellington boots. Thanks to her, it’s since become known as “Balmoral style,” referring to the royal family’s summer retreat in the Scottish Highlands, which requires practical clothing in rural settings.
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One of Queen Elizabeth’s regularly scheduled formal occasions was at the State Opening of Parliament. It’s hard to pay attention to any other detail of a look when one is wearing the State Diadem, as seen here in 2006. Elizabeth certainly looked glamorous in this white beaded column gown covered in crystals, while draped in a luxurious white fur stole. Later, Queen Elizabeth would became the first royal to ban the use of fur in all of her new outfits.
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Walking with then-Slovak President Ivan Gašparovič in the High Tatras Mountains while on a state visit in 2008, Queen Elizabeth was après-ski ready in this wintry mix of a tweed coat with a fur collar and cuffs, paired with a sparkly structured hat.
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Rachel King (she/her) is a news writer at Town & Country. Before joining T&C, she spent nearly a decade as an editor at Fortune. Her work covering travel and lifestyle has appeared in Forbes, Observer, Robb Report, Cruise Critic, and Cool Hunting, among others. Originally from San Francisco, she lives in New York with her wife, their daughter, and a precocious labradoodle. Follow her on Instagram at @rk.passport.
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