A former royal dressmaker has revealed that even the late Queen wouldn’t turn her nose up at a charity shop gem.
Maureen Rose fitted Queen Elizabeth II for occasions over 30 years, including her Golden Jubilee in 2002.
The now-retired dressmaker shared the late monarch’s sharp sense of humour, revealing the Queen often cracked jokes while looking down at her fitter with pins in her mouth.
‘She would joke, “Be careful you don’t swallow them”,’ Ms Rose, now 89 and who, at 5 ft 1 inch, was three inches shorter than the Queen, recalled.
On another occasion, she remembered the Queen returning ‘giddy’ after taking a phone call with her eldest grandson, Prince William, after he had specifically asked for Marmite sandwiches for dinner.
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Ms Rose explained how she once found the sovereign a handbag to match a gold dress from a charity shop.
After taking the upcycled fashion accessory to the Palace, the Queen was amused at learning its provenance.
The dressmaker said: ‘When I told the Queen where it had come from, she just laughed and said, “Well at least I am doing my bit!”‘
As well as designing a white and silver embroidered dress worn by the Queen during her Golden Jubilee celebrations, Ms Rose created the cream and gold coat the monarch wore when she opened Parliament following Tony Blair’s landslide victory in May 1997.
The seamstress referred to the Queen by her first name during fittings and was even personally congratulated by the monarch on becoming a grandmother.
‘It makes me cross when the Queen is portrayed as austere because she was one of the warmest and funniest people I ever met,’ she said.
‘Of all my customers over the years, she was the very best.
‘She was so easy to work with and down to earth and always thanked you for your work.’
Ms Rose added that as well as phone calls, the Queen’s fitting sessions were often interrupted by visits from her eldest son, the King, then the heir apparent, and her daughter, Princess Anne.
‘They were every bit as warm with each other as any other family’, she recalled.
Detailing the process for fitting a garment for the UK’s longest-serving monarch, Ms Rose said the Queen would practise sitting down before walking around and studying herself from several angles with the help of three mirrors.
She also used a magnet on a string to remove any stray pins to prevent her corgis from accidentally treading on them.
Ms Rose’s remarkable route into royal dressmaking began after she started out making underwear for wealthy women in the 1950s.
She was headhunted by couturier Norman Hartnell, who spotted an evening gown she had created at a London nightclub.
‘I thought it was a prank when I discovered he was trying to track me down,’ the seamstress reflected. ‘I couldn’t believe it.’
After accepting a job on the condition that she continued to freelance, she worked for Mr Hartnell for nine years until his death in 1979.
Ms Rose came to the attention of Buckingham Palace while working for Mr Hartnell’s protégé, Ian Thomas.
Despite being ‘petrified’ ahead of seeing the Queen for the first time, the sovereign immediately put her at ease.
Her first royal commission was four long evening skirts and blouses for the Queen with fabrics gifted by the King of Thailand.
Following Mr Thomas’s death in 1993, Ms Rose continued to make clothes for the Queen, with the pair creating the monarch’s wardrobe between them.
‘After some time, she [the Queen] said, “Well, we seem to be managing quite well with our inventions,” so we carried on.’
She helped to simplify the Queen’s garments after suggesting she try her dresses without belts ahead of a state visit to Russia in October 1994.
On her retirement in 2003, Ms Rose was sent a gift by Her Majesty: a photograph showing herself alongside European heads at Windsor Castle wearing another one of her creations, a sumptuous ivory gown.
The letter read: ‘The Queen is most grateful to you for all the work you have done for her and much appreciates the loyalty and support you have given her over the years.’
Following her service to the Royal Family, Ms Rose turned to making dresses for her dolls, which are expected to fetch hundreds of pounds at auction.
Hansons Auctioneers’ head of fine dolls, Janet Rawnsley, said: ‘Maureen is an incredible seamstress, and the clothes she made for some of her collection of dolls are every bit as intricate as her finest work reserved for the late Queen.’
The collection goes under the hammer at Bishton Hall in Stafford on October 20.
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