05/06/2010 - Sir Norman Hartnell

Norman Hartnell was born in London in 1901, the son of a publican and trader in wholesale wines and spirits. After studying architecture at Cambridge, Hartnell designed costumes for a production of The Beggar's Opera, attracting the attention of the Evening Standard, which described him as 'the British dress genius of the future'. In 1923, following unsuccessful efforts to find employment in the fashion industry, he used family money to set up his own business in Mayfair.

He had started off making clothes for the mothers and sisters of his Cambridge friends, and came to specialise in expensive and lavish embroideries. Hartnell heeded the advice of his French fitter, Germaine Davide, who explained to him: “Every English lady wishes for something that is French. If it were not for the pure beauty of your dresses, you would not sell a single one.”

His first exhibition in Paris was a disaster and future American designer Mainbocher said: “I have never seen so many incredibly beautiful dresses so incredibly badly made.”

Hartnell went back to London to learn his craft and when he returned to Paris in 1929 it was with his own new look and he became credited with introducing the longer-length skirts that brought about the end of the flapper era. Instead of remaining in Paris he set himself up in London as a couturier, moving into large premises at 26 Bruton Street.

A fortuitous visit from Lady Alice Montagu-Douglas-Scott, who was about to marry the King's youngest son, the Duke of Gloucester, led to a commission to dress not just the bride, but also the bridesmaids who included the young Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret. He would continue to dress the future Queen and her mother and sister for most of his career.

Hartnell's Royal clients were constrained by the severe limitations of their office, but the Queen Mother, in particular, loved clothes. Hartnell always dressed her in the pastels in which she felt most comfortable, and as a result it has been said her wardrobe lacked the formal elegance of the black cocktail dress. Indeed, her husband, King George VI, specifically wanted his wife's appearance to contrast with the simple chic of Wallis Simpson. To inspire Hartnell, the King took him on a private tour of the Royal Collection, showing him paintings of earlier queens. The look he wanted for his wife was to be regal, traditional and timeless.

Hartnell designed the Queen Mother's complete wardrobe for her 1938 Royal tour, a commission of 30 dresses that were to inspire Christian Dior, when he put together his 'new look' nine years later. Both designers greatly disliked the so-called silhouette invented by Chanel. In an interview in 1968 Hartnell said: “'I'm sick to death of the saying, 'Elegance is utter simplicity.' I think it's a hoodwink. Some designers just lack the inventiveness to make it non-simple.”

The point of couture is the fineness of its workmanship rather than novelty or the setting of trends. Hartnell's lavish clothes were about romanticism and exquisite quality. They were hand-made garments made from the finest materials and sewn from the finest thread money could buy. He got his big opportunity when he was commissioned to design first Princess Elizabeth's wedding dress and then her Coronation outfit.

The wedding dress had a fashionable sweetheart neckline and a softly folding full skirt and train and it was embroidered with 10,000 seed-pearls and thousands of crystal beads in garlands of lilies and white York roses. The decoration was inspired by Botticelli's figure of Primavera, suggesting rebirth and growth after the drabness of war. Hartnell wanted it to be "the most beautiful dress I had ever made." The garment and train took 350 girls seven weeks to make.

Hartnell subsequently became one of the principle designers employed by both princesses and so gained a new worldwide generation of younger clients. Princess Elizabeth began to take on more duties and visits abroad and the younger Princess Margaret became the obsession of the press and news-reels with her Hartnell clothes given similarly huge publicity.

The 1953 Coronation dress, was one of the most intricate and lavishly embellished garments of the 20th century. Modelled on the silhouette of the Queen's wedding dress, his lavishly embroidered and decorated gown included all the botanical emblems of the United Kingdom such as shamrocks and thistles and those of all the British dominions such as the New Zealand fern, Canadian maple leaf and lotus flowers representing India and Ceylon were somehow also included.

Hartnell wrote in his autobiography: “I thought of lilies, roses, marguerites and golden corn. I thought of altar clothes and sacred vestments; I thought of the sky, the earth, the sun, the moon, the stars and everything heavenly that might be embroidered on a dress destined to be historic.” The time-consuming and complicated construction of the various supports forming the undergarments is fully described by Hartnell in his autobiography, the weight of the dress having to be perfectly balanced to give a gentle forward swaying motion. The iconic dress came to be recognised by millions throughout the world and was the high point of Hartnell's career.

Throughout the 1950s he designed for many royal tours and his clothes represented Britain, as the young queen and her party travelled the world and in the following decade he dressed the Queen and the Queen Mother in modest mini-skirts in a gentle attempt to bring them up to date. But the fashions of the 1960s were in revolt against everything Hartnell represented and by 1968 he had reduced his staff numbers, which had peaked at around 550 in the 1950s, by nearly 50 percent.

At the end of his life and career Hartnell realised his designs were old fashioned, but he felt he could not afford to be innovative or to take on radical young students for fear of alienating the Royal Family and other society clients. At the time of the Queen's Silver Jubilee celebrations in 1977, Hartnell was knighted and he was delighted to find that The Queen had arranged for the honour to be bestowed by the Queen Mother at Buckingham Palace.

Sir Norman Hartnell was designing collections right up to his death in 1979 and his House was still selling its popular ready-to-wear range which had first been introduced in the 1950s. Furthermore, merchandising products varied from scent to stockings and from bags to costume jewellery and Hartnell menswear was for sale around the world. His career, which had begun in 1920 at Cambridge, spanned six whole decades. It is unlikely that there will ever be such a fashion house in London again.