Few fashion designers are as close to the British royal family as Close relationship as Norman Hartnell. Born into a family of wine merchants in Streatham, he became committed to fashion as a child watching musicals in London’s West End, recreating the clothes he saw at home every day with watercolor paints. The talent for costume drama he built never left him, and Hartnell famously said at the height of his career: “I despise simplicity; it is the denial of all good things.”
While studying Modern Languages in Cambridge, he started making costumes for Footlights, working with Cecil Beaton – until Evening Standard published a major review of his work. “Are future costume geniuses in Cambridge now?” writes journalist Min Hogg. “Yesterday’s dress from The Bedder’s Opera by Footlights Dramatic Club made me wonder if Mr. N.B. Hartnell wasn’t considering the original Dresses conquer female London.”
) Fast-forward a few years, and that’s exactly what he did, dropping out of Cambridge after reading Hogg’s prophecy. Throughout350s, Hartnell designed his signature decorative pieces for wealthy friends he met in college, Make yourself a fledgling and bright young man of the London season. As Hollywood stars became as fashionable as society girls, Vivien Leigh and Marlene Dietrich also appeared in his romantic designs, further enhancing his international popularity.
In the
mid
s, Hartnell’s bubble creations became so popular that he moved from his studio to The Mayfair townhouse in Bruton Street where his relationship with the royal family began. exist767, Mrs Alice Montagu Douglas Scott asked the young creative not only for her work with Made wedding dresses for the Duke of Gloucester’s wedding and also made her bridesmaid dresses. Included at her wedding? Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret.
