A captivating new exhibition invites visitors to explore Queen Elizabeth II’s enduring legacy through her wardrobe, from the christening gown commissioned by Queen Victoria to the cherished tartans and tweeds she favored in her later years.

This remarkable showcase, featuring over 300 items from the late monarch’s collection—more than half of which are debuting for public view—opens at the King’s Gallery in London this Friday, commemorating what would have been her centenary.

The exhibition includes iconic attire from pivotal moments in her life, such as the glamorous Norman Hartnell-designed wedding and coronation gowns, and the salmon pink outfit she famously wore during the theatrical stunt for the 2012 Olympics. Additionally, it offers a glimpse into more intimate selections.

Among these personal items is a specially crafted maternity evening dress from 1948, ingeniously designed to conceal her pregnancy with the future King Charles III, a pair of check trousers worn at private estates like Balmoral and Sandringham, and a rare transparent plastic coat from the 1960s, which curators have yet to find photographic evidence of her wearing.

Curator Caroline de Guitaut, leading the Royal Collection Trust team as Surveyor of the King’s Works of Art, was granted full access to Queen Elizabeth’s extensive wardrobe, consisting of 4,500 meticulously preserved pieces accumulated over her extraordinary lifetime.

This exceptional display, 18 months in the making, stands as the largest exhibition ever dedicated to the late Queen and her fashion, offering a preview to the Daily Mail earlier this week before welcoming the general public.

The first few weeks of the exhibition ‘Queen Elizabeth II: Her Life In Style’, which opens its doors on Friday, are already a sell-out.

The late monarch, de Guitaut concedes, was not a woman obsessed with fashion, but after finding herself hailed a style icon became determined to make it work as a tool of her trade.

‘Queen Elizabeth took a deep and thoughtful interest in every aspect of her wardrobe, using fashion as diplomacy while consistently championing the UK’s fashion industry,’ she says.

Commissioned by Queen Victoria in 1841 and worn by 60 royal babies over 130 years, the royal christening robe that baby Elizabeth herself was once dressed in is on show for the first time, alongside several patched and darned youthful hand-me-downs, fancy dress outfits and bridesmaid dresses.

In the 1930s and ’40s, as she developed into a young woman, the young princess (as she then was) had a much stronger idea of how she wanted to present her public image, favouring ‘New Look’-style suits with nipped-in waists to show off her own tiny figure.

An impeccably tailored white ‘yachting suit’ from her South Africa tour of 1947 needed special permission from King George VI to have naval buttons sewn onto it. He agreed, on the understanding they were removed later.

Even the young Elizabeth clearly wasn’t immune to a little youthful rebellion, however, and those buttons remain there today.

Covering her years as a wartime worker, wife and mother, the exhibition provides a fascinating insight into Elizabeth’s style development.

In the 1940s she began to insist that details of her outfits were given to press in advance or at the time of her visits and tours so that their predominantly British designers could be properly acknowledged and benefit from the public exposure, de Guitaut reveals.

It’s an interesting insight given that in recent years the Princess of Wales has insisted that details of her outfits are not given out to the public any more, as she is concerned about being seen as just a ‘clothes horse’.

Among the exhibits are Elizabeth’s breathtaking wedding and coronations gowns, including, for the first time, the fan she used in 1953.

Her wedding gown is reunited, for the first time in more than 20 years, with the glittering Queen Mary’s Diamond Fringe tiara (although the arms of the dress have since been replaced as the material had sadly deteriorated).

There are eye-catching items, too, such as the Queen’s ‘poodle skirt’ worn for a square dance in Canada, an extraordinary embroidered coat and matching slippers which she wore in Malaysia in 1989 and a purple dress that actually conceals, extraordinarily, a pair of culottes.

A maternity evening dress made by Hartnell, dating from around 1948, is a rare example of its type. De Guitant says she was ‘very excited’ to have found it and that the tailoring is so clever that from the front you wouldn’t even have known she was pregnant. ‘It’s quite a rare survival,’ she says.

The display of evening gowns and day dresses for State Visits and banquets is almost overwhelming, many featuring specific colours or national symbols in honour of the countries she was visiting, as well as accessories from her many tours over the years including binoculars, sunglasses and suitcases.

The Queen was apparently very much involved in the process of creating her outfits, examining sketches submitted to her and commenting back on the silhouette, or sleeve or skirt length.

‘The Queen would want to see the fabric samples too, she was absolutely insistent on having at her fingertips every single piece of information about how this finished garment might look,’ de Guitaut explains.

‘She became an active master at dressing in a very appropriate way, paying compliments to the host country, honouring the craftsmanship of the place she was visiting.

‘The wearing of this wonderful couture on the global stage was really the greatest possible advert for British production, design and manufacture.

‘She took diplomatic dressing to a whole other level of sophistication which no other monarch had really done to the same degree. She was a trailblazer.’

The accessories are equally spellbinding, including a selection of dazzling jewellery – the highlights which are two tiaras and a bracelet designed for her fifth wedding anniversary by the Duke of Edinburgh – much of which is on display for the first time.

Visitors can also see examples from Queen Elizabeth’s ‘off-duty’ wardrobe – still fairly formal by today’s standards – featuring tweed jackets, tartan skirts and even a rare pair of trousers, as well as riding outfits, shoes, boots and, of course, headscarves.

The pièce de résistance for visitors, however, is a double-height array of jewel-coloured outfits arranged like a glorious regal rainbow, alongside a display of more than 50 hats, Cornelia James gloves and Launer bags, the accessories for which she was, perhaps, best known.

‘Some of her choices of headwear were very, well, bold,’ de Guitaut smiles, something of an understatement given some of the eye-popping designs she wore over the years.

‘I think it was the Queen’s way of quietly stretching the rules.’

Queen Elizabeth II: Her Life In Style is at The King’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, from April 10 to October 18, 2026.