Queen Elizabeth pays people to wear in her new shoes, her stylist has revealed.
Stewart Parvin, who has been designing dresses for the queen for 11 years, has revealed some of her style secrets in an interview with the UK’s Sunday Times.
While it seems almost Dickensian to force your servants to get blisters so you don’t have to, Parvin insists the queen has a “right” to have someone else break-in her new leather footwear.
“[The shoes] have to be immediately comfortable … she does get someone to wear them,” Parvin said. “The Queen can never say ‘I’m uncomfortable, I can’t walk any more’. She has the right to have someone wear them in.”
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Elizabeth is famous for her immaculate clothes and personal grooming but Parvin says the secret behind her perfect look is simple: she doesn’t sweat.
“I am somebody who creases all their clothes,” he said. “I’m always hot, the queen is very lucky, she doesn’t crease her clothes.
“The clothes are always impeccable. But it is also that she doesn’t glow. If you are a cold person your clothes don’t crease.”
Parvin also revealed the queen has an extra shoulder pad sewn into the right side of all her outfits to mask a slight imbalance, and that she has a team of people recording every outfit she wears — including details of her hat, gloves, handbag and jewellery — on a spread sheet to avoid embarrassing fashion faux pas.
“The team catalogue where it has been worn, so if she was going to meet President Obama she wouldn’t wear the same dress,” Parvin said.
Parvin says the queen prefers dresses to skirts because she hates having to “adjust herself” and that she favours bright colours because she knows she’s small and wants people to be able to spot her in a crowd.
The queen’s immaculate dress sense was on full show on Friday, when she hosted a lunch for international royals at Windsor Castle.
The monarch — wearing a pale green dress and matching coat — was joined by the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge at the event, held to celebrate her Diamond Jubilee.
Catherine also chose a pastel colour palette, choosing a pale pink £1200 Emilia Wickstead dress with a pleated skirt.
Monaco royals Prince Albert and Princess Charlene also attended the lunch, with Charlene choosing the occasion to show off her new blonde crop.
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The event was also attended by 24 kings and queens, one emperor, a grand duke, a sultan, eight princesses, an emir and an empress.
It was the largest gathering of crowned heads of state since Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953.
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