Royal Style in the Making at Hillsborough Castle exhibition review

25 May 2025, by Charlotte McReynolds

Costume Society member and Curator of Art, National Museums NI Charlotte McReynolds reviews the Royal Style in the Making exhibition at Hillsborough Castle.

Royal Style in the Making in Hillsborough Castle, Northern Ireland is an abridged version of the extremely popular Royal Style in the Making exhibition first seen at Kensington Palace in 2021. It is shown in the newly established Stableyard Gallery space near the entrance of the impressive Hillsborough Castle and Garden estate. This the first fashion exhibition held at Hillsborough and could be the start of many such exhibitions in future. The Stableyard Gallery at Hillsborough is a newly developed exhibition space and presents an opportunity to make the Royal Ceremonial Dress Collection more accessible to those outside of London.

With room for three floor-level costume cases, this display gives a taste of the full exhibition, as well as marvellous 360 degree views of the expertly mounted garments on show. Indeed, given the scale of the full Royal Ceremonial Dress collection (some 10,000 items), visitors coming to Hillsborough purely for this exhibition may be surprised that only three full items of dress are on show, but given the size of the Stableyard space, this edited display is extremely well-chosen. In other words, it is small, but perfectly formed.

“Royal Style in The Making offers a rare insight into the creative partnerships that have defined British royal fashion. This exhibition not only celebrates the artistry and ingenuity of five extraordinary designers, but it also examines the unique and exacting requirements of dressing royalty that reveals the close personal relationships between designer and royal client. Visitors will gain an intimate perspective on the design process, from initial sketches to finished garment, that helped define the visual identity of the royal family over the past century,” Claudia Acott Williams, Curator at Historic Royal Palaces said.

The exhibition itself explores the complex relationship between fashion designer and Royal client, in this case through the display of three key garments – a rare toile for the Coronation Gown of Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother), a fancy dress gown made for Princess Margaret, and a silk kaftan worn by Queen Elizabeth II on state business.

The star piece in the Hillsborough exhibition is probably the Coronation toile designed by Madame Elizabeth Hendley-Seymour, a favourite court dressmaker whose services were called upon frequently by several members of the Royal Family. The floor-length calico toile accented with gold detailing was crafted by Handley-Seymour for the coronation of George VI and Queen Elizabeth (later the Queen Mother) on 12th May 1937 at Westminster Abbey.

The toile features handpainted designs that would later be embroidered in gold on the final gown by the skilled Royal School of Needlework. Curator Claudia Alcott Wilkins explained to me during my visit that this was the most technically challenging piece to display and mount given the tendency of the delicate gold paint on the calico surface of the toile to flake during movement or when touched. The interpretation around this piece is enhanced by images of the embroiderers in Hendley-Seymour’s atelier working assiduously on what would be the final gown.

In contrast to the tradition of reliable and technically accomplished court dressmaking represented by Hendley-Seymour’s work, the 18th century inspired fancy dress costume displayed nearby conjures a sense of whimsy and theatrical glamour. This is the domain of Oliver Messel, the second designer represented here and referred to by his Royal client, Princess Margaret as the “magic maker”. 

This silk eighteenth-century-style blue and gold ballgown costume was worn by Princess Margaret to a charity costume ball at London’s Mansion House in 1964, and a nearby panel shows a photograph of her wearing it at the time, the centre of attention and clearly thrilled. There is even a framed sketch by Messel of the original design. As the label acknowledges Messel, who was originally a stage designer, was gifted in evoking fantasy, but the makers tasked with actualising this whispy watercolour may have found it difficult to decipher.

The final effect, however, was achieved, and Princess Margaret was obviously very taken with Messel’s style, calling him a “genius” and later having him design her home on the Caribbean island of Mustique.

The final garment, a colourful peach silk kaftan designed in 1979 by Sir Hardy Amies for Queen Elizabeth II, is a useful vehicle to explore what it means to dress a Royal woman in a public role. The kaftan was worn by The Queen to meet the Emir of Bahrain, and she re-wore it on several other official occasions. The exhibition makes clear that Amies was keenly aware of the tightrope between fashion and functionality the Queen needed to walk and is quoted “The Queen needs clothes that help her in what I can only describe as her work…I would deem myself a disloyal subject…if I offered the Queen any clothes that were difficult to wear.”

The small scale of the display space does not allow for any pieces worn by arguably the most stylish Royal of all time, Princess Diana, to be shown, but her close relationship with the design due Belinda Bellville and David Sassoon of Bellville Sassoon is represented through sketches and interpretive panels. Like Amies, David Sassoon was also very aware of how the public nature of Royal dressing was a different experience from dressing other clients. He is quoted recollecting that “Diana understood what the public wanted from the clothes she wore.” He elaborates that, for example, she would consciously choose bright, colourful prints for visiting children in hospital, as she felt “young children related to it.”

The exhibition also features an excellent video showcasing the Royal Historic Palaces textile conservators at work. The gowns are exquisitely mounted on invisible mounts that would have taken many hours to make and are first for this type of costume display in the North of Ireland, to my knowledge.

With so much potential for further displays of the Royal Ceremonial Dress collection in Hillsborough, the only Historic Royal Palaces property outside of London, Royal Style in the Making is both an excellent distillation the Kensington exhibition, and a tantalising preview of, I hope, much more to come.

The exhibition is open until 4th January 2026.