House of Wind-sor! How the Queen’s seamstress used a £1.50 hack to maintain her modesty on windy days
Royals should be the epitome of grace and composure as they travel the world on official outings.
But even the most sophisticated members of the royal family are confused after their skirts are blown up in an unexpected gust of wind.
In an effort to maintain the late Queen’s modesty while battling the elements, her personal seamstress continued to look for a solution.
Stewart Parvin, the late monarch’s favorite couturier, revealed that he would sew curtain weights into the hems of the Queen’s dresses to keep them in place.
The Queen would have curtain weights sewn into the hems of her dresses so they wouldn’t blow up in the wind
On her first royal tour, the thin skirt of Kate’s yellow Jenny Packham dress fluttered in the wind around the runway of Canada’s Calgary Airport
The Queen nearly lost her hat in high winds during a welcome ceremony during a state visit to Oman in 1979
Measuring just over an inch in diameter and weighing less than an ounce, the handy weights came from Peter Jones department store in Chelsea for just £1.50 for four.
Speaking to the Daily Mail, Stewart previously explained: “I just put some weights in the hemline of her dresses and coats and they hang beautifully.
“If there’s a flap in the jacket, I’ll sew one on each side of the slit to even it out.
“And sometimes when she’s wearing a lightweight chiffon skirt, I’ll sew in a smaller lead weight the size of a pea or even a piece of chain.”
The Queen was also photographed holding her hat in stormy weather, but Stewart explained why the hats don’t blow off: “We make old-fashioned hatpins with the heads covered in the same fabric as the hat itself, so you can’t see them.”
Other members of the royal family have not been as lucky as the Queen in her quest to avoid blowing skirts and the Princess of Wales has been caught in a ‘Marilyn moment’ on more than one occasion.
The Princess of Wales had to fight repeatedly to keep her dress from flapping in the wind when she laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Delhi in 2016.
The giggling princess held onto her pink dress as she attended Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank’s wedding in 2018
Kate holds onto her dress as she steps off a plane at Wellington Airport, New Zealand in 2014
The princess has since moved away from the shorter, thin skirts that can cause “wardrobe disturbances.”
During her first royal tour, the thin skirt of Kate’s yellow Jenny Packham dress fluttered in the gusts of wind around the runway at Canada’s Calgary Airport, prompting the designer to say she’d also start using weights in her designs.
“I had a little handwritten letter from a lady in Wisconsin who passionately criticized me for the primrose yellow shirt dress I made for the Duchess,” Packham told the Evening Standard at the time.
She said, didn’t I know how to put weights on the bottom of a hem so it can’t blow up?
“Well, I didn’t know it would be worn on a windy runway — but I did think I might add more weight in the future, just in case…”
Queen Camilla’s sapphire dress was whipped up by the wind as she stepped out of her vehicle this year to attend the Commonwealth Service at Westminster Abbey
She had a similar problem when she arrived for Princess Charlotte’s christening in 2015
Princess Anne couldn’t help but notice her dress floating in the wind in 1992
The Duchess of Edinburgh’s skirt fluttered as she attended the celebrations marking the 60th anniversary of the Queen’s coronation in 2013
Lady Sarah Chatto held on to her long flowy skirt as she attended Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank’s wedding in 2018
Princess Diana’s pink Catherine Walker dress with a pleated skirt fluttered in the wind as she stepped out of a helicopter in 1985
This wasn’t the only time the wind was distracting from the princess’s dress style. In 2013, her polka-dot Topshop dress flew up in the wind at the Warner Bros Studios in Hertfordshire, before performing the same breakdown at a wedding the following month.
Not sure what to save first, the princess was pictured holding her hat as her skirt fluttered in the wind.
Queen Camilla got caught up in a similar mistake at the Commonwealth Service at Westminster Abbey this year, when her Fiona Clare sapphire coat dress was whipped up as she stepped out of her vehicle.
Meanwhile, Kate’s form-fitting midi skirt from Erdem made her less prone to exposure at the event.
The Duchess of Sussex’s hair fluttered in the wind at a bridge opening ceremony in Widnes in 2018
Zara Tindall’s white dress floated in a gust of wind as she spoke to her husband Mike and the Duchess of Edinburgh at Ascot in 2017
The colorful dress of Queen Maxima of the Netherlands was blown away by a gust of wind during a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the D-Day Landings in 2014
Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden (center right) had to hold her skirt down in the wind during a celebration for her 30th birthday in 2007
The Duchess of York (left) and her daughter, Princess Eugenie (right), have had to make it because their skirts have been blown in the wind
In 2014, it was reported that the Princess would be wearing dresses with lower hemlines in a royal makeover backed by the late Queen to promote her image as a senior royal.
Etiquette expert Myka Meier revealed that Kate and Meghan Markle use the trick of wearing undergarments that static cling to their skirts to keep their skirts from flying up.
She said The sun: ‘Often they wear bodysuits and clothes that increase static, so it’s very difficult for anything to fly up.
“So you have an undergarment that looks almost like a bodysuit, that’s a tactic that’s being used.”