The special bond between the late Queen Elizbaeth and Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh has been well documented. Today, on King Charles III’s Coronation, the royal took the opportunity to make another touching tribute to the monarch she was famously close to.
Underneath her regal robes, the Duchess is wearing a cream gown by her go-to dressmaker Suzannah London. Designer Suzannah Crabb tells The Standard: “The dress features a beautiful hand embroidered train inspired by gowns and regalia from the Queen’s Coronation in 1953.”
The sophisticated trained dress is made of a sustainable crepe, Crabb explains, and features natural floral embroidery that is hand embroidered onto tulle using a traditional Irish technique. “The embroidery was chosen as a beautiful representation of British meadow flowers intricately stitched onto tulle, inspired by the work of ceramist Rachel Dein,” Crab continues.
The Duchess, formely Countess of Wessex, finished the look with a white feathered headpiece by Jane Taylor, made of handmade satin leaves and cast silver snowdrops of Swarovski crystal. She arrived alongside her husband, Prince Edward, Duke of Edinburgh, her son, the Earl of Wessex, and daughter Lady Louise Windsor who was also dressed by Suzannah London, wearing the Kumiko Iris silk dress and a bespoke Jane Taylor hat.
Having lost her mother Mary Rhys-Jones, to a stomach cancer in 2005, the Duchess began calling Her Majesty ‘Mama’, and is said to have been like a second daughter to the UK’s longest reigning monarch.
It comes after the Duchess relided on Crabb to make her the black dress worn to the Queen’s state funeral on 19 September. She simiallry chose to pay tribue using symbollic emboridery, Lily of the Valley flowers, the beautiful woodland plants which were famously Queen Elizabeth II’s favourite, were stitched into the dress.
