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When Angel Elizabeth and Prince Philip affiliated in November of 1947, the bells served as an escape from post-WWII acerbity in the UK.
Two years afterwards the war was over, the British government was still convalescent from the Blitz and administration was in aftereffect for everyone, alike the aristocratic family; the approaching Queen adored up accouterment coupons to acquirement her bells dress.
She was accepted 200 added allowance coupons for the celebration, but admirers of the adolescent aristocratic anticipation that wasn't enough, and bound beatific her endemic through the mail. Each one was alternate with a note, as it was actionable to alteration them, and the angel fabricated her post-War account work.
Elizabeth was article of a last-minute helpmate by avant-garde standards. The architecture of her dress, a beauteous clothes fabricated from ivory cottony and busy with 10,000 berry pearls, was accustomed alone three months afore the wedding. Couturier Norman Hartnell capital it to be “the best admirable dress I had so far made."
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And it was beautiful. The dress was fabricated cottony from China (as against to Japan or Italy, accustomed it was still so anon afterwards the war) and its 15-foot alternation was aggressive by Bottielli's painting of Primavera from 1482, and covered in aerial floral designs including "jasmine, smilax, seringa, and rose-like blossoms."
According to the Aristocratic Collection Trust, it was meant to betoken "rebirth and growth" in Britain afterwards the war.
In total, the clothes took 350 women seven weeks to make. "I had abandoned how admirable it was, with that admirable train—and how baby the Angel was," Betty Foster, who formed on the dress told the Telegraph afterwards attractive at the clothes on affectation at Buckingham Palace ins 2007.
"On my way home from the bells celebration, I bethink anybody on the alternation was talking about the dress and I acquainted so appreciative to accept formed on it."
On the big day, the queen commutual the dress with bizarre glassy heels fabricated by Edward Rayne. Her crown, which captivated in abode a cottony tulle veil, had burst as she was accepting accessible for the ceremony; a aristocratic jeweler was brought in beeline abroad to accomplish the repairs.
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"With her conjugal dress and adornment on her bells day, she was a knockout," her bridesmaid, Lady Pamela Hicks, told People.
“And, of course, Philip was every girl’s dream Viking prince.”
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