Lit on Tour: In Conversation with Jennifer Robson

Photo credit: Toronto International Festival of Authors and Girl Well Read.  Do not use without written permission.

As part of the Lit on Tour series, Jennifer Robson read from her newest enthralling novel, The Gown, which is about the real-life wedding of Princess Elizabeth to Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten.

In conversation with professional costume designer, Delphine White, Robson spoke about her inspiration for the novel, the wedding gown, and her time in England. She even brought an embroidery sample she made to give context of the work that went into the dress. A question and answer period, as well as a book signing followed.

In the beginning of the novel, the women were working on the wardrobe for the Royal Family's visit to Australia.

How did the Royal Family justify new clothes? 

Quite simply, they didn't ask. They went on a grand tour of South Africa to cement their diplomatic relationships. In 1941, there was a clothing ration and you had to buy garments with coupons where you were given a one-time coupon for a summer wardrobe. The recovery period from this was felt for a long time.

"The Royal Wedding was used to lighten up," Jennifer said. 1947 was an exciting year for fashion (the house of Dior was founded). Fashion designer Norman Hartnell and Christian Dior had a relationship—he dressed the Queen Mum who always wore crinolines.

"Women from this time dressed stark, almost like they too were in the military with boxy, plain garments," Robson explained. "Dior was exciting, he was using yards of fabric in his skirts which could not be sold in England because they had too much fabric." His designs were very structured and featured the waist rather than hide it.

Elizabeth's gown was flattering—it was more defined at the waist and skimmed the more anxiety areas (hips) and aged her a little bit (she was only 21 when she got married). As dictated by the King, the gown did not have short sleeves. It was opposite to the Queen Mum's 1923 wedding gown which was rather shapeless and Robson described as resembling a pillowcase.

Hartnell was a conservative designer, but for the wedding gown, he used lots of embellishments and the train was fifteen feet long. Jennifer estimates that there were about 350 people involved in making the gown (which includes the fabric makers). There were also bridesmaids gowns to make, as well as gowns for the duchesses. 

For her research, Robson interviewed Betty Foster, the last surviving seamstress that worked on the Princess' wedding gown. Betty started her work day at 8:30 a.m. and worked until 6:00 p.m. After eight hours, there are diminished returns in that the peau de soie would mark if you were to make a mistake. Betty also worked on Greer Garson's gowns. (Eileen Evelyn Greer Garson, CBE, was a British-American actress who was popular during the Second World War, as one of America's top ten box office draws from 1942 to 1946.)

What was the timeline for making the gown?

"It was three months from [the] commission awarded to the wedding," Jennifer said. Betty told Robson that the timeline was reasonable, they were used to it. She also said the the 1953 Coronation gown was more important that the wedding gown. 

With the world's press at their doorstep, these women had tremendous pressure and coped extremely well under the circumstances.

Six different women were responsible for the embroidery on the gown, yet it looks like it was done with one hand. The women would not have had a pattern to work from, just sketches. There are also no known samples of the wedding gown in existence, just of the Coronation gown.

Symbolism

Hartnell was inspired after seeing Botticelli's La Primavera, and the gown is full of flowing lines, leaves, swags, and vines that are reminiscent of the painting. The Princess' gown also had symbols of rebirth, growth, and fertility (roses, orange blossom, ears of wheat). The star flower is the most noticed motif, as well as roses which symbolize purity and the monarch.

Elizabeth was originally going to wear her ATS uniform to get married in. The Princess became a member of the Auxiliary Territorial Service in 1945. She was the first full-time female member of the Royal Family to join the Armed Services. During her time in the ATS, Princess Elizabeth learned to drive and to maintain vehicles.

Controversies 

How could she afford the gown? Even though she was the future Queen of England, the Princess did not have an unlimited budget. Wartime rationing was still in place for everyone, including the Royal Family. Jennifer explained that people started sending in their ration coupons, but legally they could not be used. The Princess' ladies-in-waiting opened the envelopes, wrote thank you notes, and sent them back. In addition to the coupons Princess Elizabeth had saved, the government ended up granting the bride 200 extra clothing coupons.  

There was also a debate as to where the silk worms were from—were they from the enemy, Japan, or from the ally, China? It was determined that they were indeed from China.

10,000 seed pearls were imported from the US, and they had to pay the duties on the pearls.

How much impact did Elizabeth have?

Robson explained that it was actually the King and Queen Mum who decided on the design of the gown based on the ten sketches that Hartnell did.

The Gown

London, 1947: Besieged by the harshest winter in living memory, burdened by onerous shortages and rationing, the people of postwar Britain are enduring lives of quiet desperation despite their nation’s recent victory. Among them are Ann Hughes and Miriam Dassin, embroiderers at the famed Mayfair fashion house of Norman Hartnell. Together they forge an unlikely friendship, but their nascent hopes for a brighter future are tested when they are chosen for a once-in-a-lifetime honor: taking part in the creation of Princess Elizabeth’s wedding gown.

Toronto, 2016: More than half a century later, Heather Mackenzie seeks to unravel the mystery of a set of embroidered flowers, a legacy from her late grandmother. How did her beloved Nan, a woman who never spoke of her old life in Britain, come to possess the priceless embroideries that so closely resemble the motifs on the stunning gown worn by Queen Elizabeth II at her wedding almost seventy years before? And what was her Nan’s connection to the celebrated textile artist and holocaust survivor Miriam Dassin?

Robson takes us inside the workrooms where one of the most famous wedding gowns in history was created. Balancing behind-the-scenes details with a sweeping portrait of a society left reeling by the calamitous costs of victory, she introduces readers to three unforgettable heroines, their points of view alternating and intersecting throughout its pages, whose lives are woven together by the pain of survival, the bonds of friendship, and the redemptive power of love. For this novel, she traveled to England to speak with the last surviving woman who worked on Queen Elizabeth's gown and was greatly inspired by all the stories the seamstress remembered.

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JENNIFER ROBSON is the internationally bestselling author of Somewhere in France, After the War Is Over, Moonlight Over Paris, and Goodnight from London. She studied French literature and Modern History as an undergraduate at King’s University College at Western University, then attended Saint Antony’s College at the University of Oxford, where she obtained her doctorate in British economic and social history. While at Oxford, she was a Commonwealth Scholar and SSHRC Doctoral Fellow.

Robson lives in Toronto with her husband and children.