Fashioning Alexandra: a sartorial biography of Queen Alexandra 1844-1925

Abstract

In the second half of the 19th century, Alexandra Princess of Wales and later Queen Consort to her husband Edward VII became one of the most recognizable women of the period. Her image was circulated around the globe by the million and her every movement recorded daily in The Times. Despite her contemporary celebrity, she has become a lesser-known figure in modern history. With little in the way of political influence, Alexandra recognized that her appearance in public was powerful. She used clothes throughout her life to both display and disguise herself. despite the centrality of dress in her life, no other study has ever examined her remaining items of clothing until now.

This thesis considers in detail those garments that have survived from Queen Alexandra’s wardrobe, most of which, owing to their geographic spread, have never been studied before. This object-led approach allows an analysis of a life, which has been considered before in more traditional biographies. However, the close examination of the garments and of Alexandra’s approach to her clothing reveals aspects never before considered. It has also prompted the consideration of previously under researched areas such as royal laundry, the role of the dresser and the logistics of 19th century royal travel. As a multi-disciplinary project it has shed new light onto Alexandra’s life and dispelled certain apocryphal stories which only the material culture itself could reveal.

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Identifiers

ORCID for M.A. Hayward: orcid.org/0000-0002-3299-4383

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