6 tips on how to dress for royal occasions, from royal history to now

On the way to a Buckingham Palace Garden Party, an investment on Windsor Castle or a state dinner alongside Royals and wants to know what to wear?

The curator for a new exhibition in the former home for Princess Diana have some of the answers.

Using some of the clothes from the show Opening on March 13 at Kensington PalaceHistorical Royal Palaces Curator Matthew Storey gives people to people about how history and convention – and some written rules – have ruled how to dress royal.

Storey says he and his team had been looking for an imaginative way to showcase some of the 10,000 articles that Charity Historic Royal Palaces takes care of, so they were content with the theme of dress codes. While the rules may seem “quite unclear, they are actually related to something we can all understand, because we all dress every morning,” Storey tells people. “We all think of the clothes we will wear, the messages we send with them.”

“We often dress to mark certain moments in our lives,” he says. “And it struck me as a theme that everyone could relate to and also to express who we are, what stage of life we ​​are at.”

So they have collected a selection of clothing worn by royalty and others to show how conventions and rules have been developed. Fittingly, when she lived there with her sons Prince William and Prince HarryThere are three dresses famous by Diana, including a green silk velvet tuxedo dress by Catherine Walker. There are also some from another resident of Kensington Palace Princess MargaretThe late Queen ElizabethYounger sister, who died in 2002. (Another highlight is a pair of floral dresses of freedom that the two young princesses bore in 1936.)

Here are some of Storey’s tips:

To get it right for culture and environment

Princess Dianas Scarlet Silk and embroidered Bruce Oldfield dress she wore privately in Saudi Arabia in 1987 “shows how beautiful Diana understood the rules for royal associations,” says Storey.

Official visits abroad is one of the most important activities that the members of the royal family carry out, says Storey. The full dress “is beautifully decorated, so it is absolutely perfect for evening clothes.”

“You have to think about practical things like weather and climate and what kind of activities you will do. All this is planned in advance, but you must also think about the country’s culture. So it is a form of diplomacy through a dress too, ”he adds.

“She had to show respect for the Middle East’s culture. And this is where you also have the high neckline and the long sleeves, “he continues.” So it’s also modest. ”

“Comes from being a teenager who grew up in the country who was not particularly interested in clothes, Diana enters public life when she becomes a member of the royal family, and she works with the best of British design to dress for her new life,” says Storey. “This shows how perfect she does it.”

Complies with rules in investment – with a twist.

For her day dress when she became a Dame 2006 at the palace, designer Vivienne Westwood made some bold additions to the written code. “She complies with the code on the invitation to wear the day dress. But she does it in her own way,” says Storey. “She would have known the historical rules for court associations, which included having a train attached to the shoulder and she makes it nod to history with a train attached to the shoulder.”

“But she also does it in her own way. So the design of the dress has the deconstructed punk look. She also wears this incredible hat on the back of the head, which has an AR, which refers to her active resistance to the propaganda campaign. And she also thought it would remember a Che Guevara hat.”

“So she comes to the palace by referring to a communist revolutionary Che Guevara with brand, which she refers to her campaign.”

“So she sends her political message when she does, and she has also been wonderfully subversive because she carried it with a tiara, who has two little devil horns in her temple.”

Following the written rules

A judicial dress from Reville is carried by Annie Lady Holcroft in 1928 when she was presented to the court in the same way as a debutant. That custom was “normally associated with younger women who went into adulthood and society for the first time. But Annie Lady Holcroft was about 59 or 60 when she wore this dress,” explains Storey.

Lady Holcroft went through the ceremony because she wanted to present her daughter at the court – and it could only be done by someone who had also been presented.

Now clothes worn by the elites at the court had “been regulated and codified,” says Storey. “This shows the hope between the 1700s and what happened in the 19th century to get you to the early 1900s. She would have to wear clothes that corresponded to written regulations and these regulations could have seen in a book published by Lord Chamberlain’s office called Dress carried by court. ”

So the rules that she – and her daughter – followed were evening dress, with a train that must be attached to her shoulders and her hair a veil on which she included “three ostrich springs in a prince of Wales plum.” She had to wear gloves and choose to carry a bouquet of flowers or a fan – she chose the latter. Everything would also be checked.

“She could not have gained access to it if her clothes did not correspond to both regulations,” Storey adds.

Gain entry through wealth as shown in clothing

The court from 18^Th Century is the oldest paragraph of the exhibition and is from a time before any written rules on specific codes. Polite, royal society was ruled by conventions.

“Wearing the right clothes gets you through the door and then you get all these network opportunities to meet the right people, see and see, and if you are lucky, access to the king and gets the king’s ear,” says Storey.

“It sounds egalitarian as if someone could wear the right clothes and go in. But in fact, the right clothes were so expensive that it is not egalitarian at all. Only those people who could afford to dress correctly and have the knowledge to dress properly. ”

This suit is made of ivory bench, which was brok with silver metal wire and completed with small ivory, pink, green and black “rosebud” spots. There were also thin blue floss silk brocade bands. The stylish cuffs were decorated with three buttons and cream silk knot sleeve.

This “beautifully embroidered, cutway -cap is the right style, but it is also about the right cost level,” says Storey. “It literally has silver thread, real silver woven through the fabrics. So effectively you carry money when you carry this. And then with metallic embroidery. ”

“It’s about showing your wealth and position in society to gain access.”

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Fits in at Royal Celebrations

Storey and his team did not want the show to be just about members of the royal family or their servants. So he introduced something from the public. “Everyone can use clothes to participate or feel part of a royal occasion,” he says.

They picked a young girl’s back from Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation in 1953 was decorated in red, white and blue with some of the scenes from the long -awaited crown in central London.

“The coronation was an optimistic moment that came after World War II and the years of rationing and austerity that existed beside it. Now a young queen came to the throne,” says Storey. “It has a lovely little freezing along the skirt showing the crown process, the queen of the throne, Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace.”

The dress showed what it was like if you “dress for maybe as a street party or something similar to be part of this great royal event,” he adds. “The patriotic images and red, white and blue are the codes there.”

Grief dress can continue for several years after a death

Queen Alexandra’s chiffon and lace dress from Claire Collins is worn at the Royal Ascot Race Meeting 1911 or 1912.

“In the codes for the 20th and early 1900s warning, you had different stages of mourning dress,” says Storey. In the immediate aftermath of a sleep it would be black. Some, like Queen Victoria, may choose to continue with it for the rest of her life.

“But you can also go into half -grinding, and this is where you wear white and mauves and gray. Or you can go back to wearing regular clothes in any color, says Storey.

Queen Alexandra, who lost her son Prince Albert Victor in 1892, wore these semi -moring colors of white, grinded gray and black for the rest of her life (although she had gold at her coronation from 1902). “These muted colors are what she tends to go for from 1892 onwards to show her feeling and devastation after loss of her son,” says Storey.

Tickets for the dress code exhibition at Kensington Palace, from March 13 to November 30, 2025, are available here.