Noble Blood - The Clothes that Make the Queen (with Kate Strasdin)

Episode Date: October 13, 2026

How does a queen show her power through her clothing? In her book DRESSING THE QUEEN, historian Kate Strasdin traces two hundred years of the most important garments that a royal can wear. Support Noble Blood:—ORDER 'THE ARCANE ARTS'— Bonus episodes, stickers, and scripts on Patreon— Order Dana's book, 'Anatomy: A Love Story' and its sequel 'Immortality: A Love Story'See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast, guaranteed human. Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of IHeart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky. Listener discretion advised. I'm so happy to be here today for a very special episode of Noble Blood. I'm joined by Dr. Kate Strasden, who's the author of the new Dressing the Queen, 200 years of craft, couture, and monarchy. I found this book so fascinating because I can't. imagine a historian taking more time to go into more depth to find the stories of the people that are so often forgotten, the people who actually craft these garments that are seen by

millions, billions of people around the world and throughout history. Dr. Straston, thank you for joining me. Oh, my pleasure. It's great to be here. I love talking about these people, so it's a treat. So what inspired this book? What made you want to dive into the actual process, stories behind these garments? So I did my PhD a long time ago now back in the sort of mid-2000s and was working as a part-time curator of dress and textiles. And the collection that I was working with, we were actually given a collection of objects from a maker called John Redfern. And I had never heard of this maker. And it just, they were such spectacular objects. They were these kind of Edwardian gowns. So the more I looked into his,

origins as a maker, a name kept cropping up and it was Alexandra Princess of Wales, who was Queen Victoria's daughter in your. So I ended up seeing these incredible photographs of her as a woman that was really renowned for her style and her appearance and how she used dress very strategically. And that became the subject of my PhD, her kind of approach to dress. But in doing that PhD, I think what I realised more than anything was that the kinds of things I was encountering, as well as exploring her life through dress, it became as much as anything about the makers who supplied her wardrobe and the dresses and the laundry maids and all of the people who were far less well known, are often invisible. And that kind of really sparked my interest.

That's wonderful. Before we get into those stories, I just want to ask you, in your opinion, on a macro level, what is the importance of what a queen or a monarch wears? Well, it's soft power. I mean, certainly in terms of the British monarchy, you're looking at a monarchy that doesn't have any actual teeth in terms of power. It doesn't have political power or it doesn't have that kind of value. But it kind of carries such a lot of weight in terms of its historical associations. And then the impact that what monarchs and their consorts were, it makes a massive difference. And you only have to look back to. centuries to see that sartorial power is not to be dismissed lightly. You know, it carries great weight. And I think as a dress historian, I've always been subject to all the many times that people have said, oh, well, dress and textiles, you know, they don't really matter. They're kind of ephemeral and superficial. And I think this is a great example of not only it being about the power of the wearer, but also the labor and the economic power that supported that.

And so, yeah, I think it does mean that we retain this kind of interest in what these people have worn as the first celebrities, I guess. Before my lifetime, I can identify certain dresses that, say, Princess Diana wore, even when I wasn't conscious of clothes just because they've lasted in this way. Yeah, exactly. I know specific items that she wore, even though I wasn't aware. at the time. Yeah, yeah, exactly that. You know, she was somebody that, like many of her predecessors, recognize that often when she didn't necessarily have certainly a political voice or even a public voice that was easily expressed, she could use dress really successfully to convey all sorts of

things. And that really matters, you know, and I think it's something that we all do. Although this is about high status dress and it might be about garments that are perhaps inaccessible to us in terms of their worth or their value. But in fact, it's what we all do every day in our self-presentation and the way we navigate the world with how we're embodied and the way we do that through dress. That's very well said. One chapter of this book I was fascinated by was by the regalia, the royal robes that a monarch might only wear ceremonially at a coronation or something. Can you walk us through what would go into making the sort of royal robe that a monarch might wear? Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think it's a good example of a garment that's really visible at a public level. I think, you know, you see postcards of kings and queens wearing these extraordinarily anachronistic kind of robes. They don't have any other function in any other walk of life. They're made from velvet and then they are usually trimmed with fur and they have different embroidered sections on them. So they have these kind of constituent parts. The first job is to,

weave the velvet. And when I was undertaking the research into that, I had no idea how complex weaving silk velvet is. And it just kind of blew my mind. I was shocked by how many threads and how much effort goes into velvet. Can you tell us a bit about that process? Yes. So whereas plain weaving, as you will know, you have your warp and your we're weaving the weft back and forth and, you know, that's, we can kind of understand that process. But with a velvet loom, you have to create the surface of velvet being that soft nap, the pile of velvet, is created by having, I mean, tens of thousands of fine silk threads, which are then woven with a very, very tiny wire going through as it's being woven. So it creates a loop. And this wire is like

two millimeters thick. And so when the loop has been created, that means that the fat loop can then be cut and that's what creates the nap, the soft weave of the velvet. But that's done on a scale of, I mean, it took the very experienced silk weavers at the factory at Warner's in Braintree in the early 1950s. It took them, well, they were able to weave six yards in a very, very long period of time. You know, it just took them forever to do, you know, so many inches per day in order to create the what would become the really long robe. And that's before it even becomes embroidered. It's like a whole other thing.

I found it extraordinary because a velvet robe is something a child might imagine a king wearing, but I don't think we attach it to how luxurious it truly is to have all of these skilled laborers making this garment by hand. Yes. And it's those various processes because once you've made the velvet, then you have to source the embroidery and that gets embroidered by any number of incredibly skilled workers in spaces like the Ladies' Work Society or the Royal School of Needlework and they are commissioned to create the embroideries but then the whole of it has to be made up into a wearable robe by robe makers like

Eden Ravenscroft and there you have a different skill set to do with the tailoring so yeah it comprises just a whole set of skills and people who often and remain nameless. There were many moments where I was mind-blown by this. One anecdote I found was very charming was the young woman who was Queen Elizabeth II's body double for fittings, because of course the Queen isn't going to stand there for hours while a garment is being fitted. No. But it's very interesting to me. The Queen obviously cannot just go to a mall to buy a dress. You can't go to a department store. So how, how, does a queen's wardrobe come together? Well, very often it starts with building strong relationships

with the makers. And this is something that through things like the Royal Warrant of Appointment, where you have people that have made objects for the Royal Wardrobe for a long time, and then they are granted the Royal Warrant, which gives them a kind of access in terms of what they're making. They're seen as a very reliable kind of trusted maker. And it's a public mark on the outside of the door. Sorry to interrupt. So everyone can see this is a place where the Royal Shop. Yeah, yeah. It's the coat of arms that says you've got the Royal Warrant. And of course, for makers, it's a big part of their marketing and publicity and things like that. Yeah. The way it works often is that in building up these trusted relationships,

makers from these establishments will have patterns. So dressmakers, for example, would have a dress form for the queen, whichever queen it might have been, they would have a set of draft patterns that they can work to. And then often what happens is that the maker and the fitter or the designer and the fitter would travel to one of the royal residences to liaise with the queen, whether it was Queen Victoria or Queen Alexandra or Queen Elizabeth, and have these conversations about the garments that they were bringing to be fitted. And often it's a very fluid interaction in that the queen will make her suggestions. She'll say what she likes, what she doesn't like. The designer and the fitter will make their observations and then it will go

back and forth. So you don't, you very rarely have that kind of what we would see as a more normal kind of retail opportunity where you go into the premises and you, you know, not that many of us are buying couture. But yes, it happens that the makers tend to travel to the rural residences themselves. And then is the queen sort of selecting what gowns she wants to build a wardrobe? Yeah, absolutely. And often they will annotate both Queen Alexandra and Queen Elizabeth, just as examples, would make very clear annotations on sketches about the things that they thought needed changing, whether they thought that they needed to be a different colour or whether they wanted to try a different trim. So they would have a very active role in participating in the construction of that wardrobe.

And I think that's because they understood, as well as anybody, what their public appearances meant and how what they wore made a difference to, certainly it coincides with a much more active press and all of those kinds of things that meant that they would come under scrutiny. And so that became a big part of how they functioned. I think someone like Queen Elizabeth II isn't known as a fashion plate. I don't think many people hold her up as a fashion inspiration, but she did spend a lot of time and consideration, as you mentioned, thinking about what she was going to wear. How do you sort of reconcile that? I think it goes right back to, well, certainly Queen Victoria was mindful of the fact that to appear too fashionable.

you opened yourself up to charges of flippancy and changing with trends. You know, you're meant to appear as this figure that is consistent and stable. And so giving into the kind of vagaries of swift trend changes, that was something that certainly the British monarchy felt that it had to remove itself from slightly. And by the early 20th century, royal women were widely regarded as kind of being preserved in Aspic in a way, you know, they're they might. have a certain kind of style, but they certainly wouldn't have necessarily been considered fashionable. Yeah.

But so what they developed was in a sense a uniform. And I think you could look at Elizabeth, Queen Elizabeth, for sure, and say that although she went through different kind of periods of style, if you like, in different decades, it certainly evolved into a uniform that worked for the way that her kind of public calendar worked and she often said about having to be seen to be believed because she was short in stature. The color and the hats and everything came into play in order to present this kind of vision that everybody came to expect. I'm glad you brought up the hats because I'm American. I don't think hats are part of the culture in America the same way they are in the UK.

But you, of course, mention how much work goes into crafting hats. For people who don't quite understand the culture of hats that are handmade, couture. Can you explain sort of how that goes into a royal wardrobe? Well, hats are really interesting because they're another sign of time stopping really, because certainly up until the 1950s in the UK, everybody wore hats. And then in the 60s, they fell out of fashion, but royalty continued to wear them and have done so ever since. So the kind of art of the milliner is another one of those where it feels like you are, not only are you dealing with the raw materials of something like the straw in the 19th century, which had to be platted, and that was a whole other industry, of women and young

girls plaiting straw for the very fine braided hats that were made. In the 20th century, you have a whole host of incredible makers working in studios, often around the southeast, but certainly in London for the big makers. And you have the steaming, you know, you have the hat blocks, You have the steaming. You have the creation of the silk flowers. You have just this whole plethora of different stages and different skills that go into the creation of those hats. Yeah. There are some amazing, anybody that would like to have a look, have a look at British Pathay,

which is the website for old newsreel footage. And you can find some amazing videos of these kind of 1950s workshops. They're a lot of fun to watch. These hats really are works of art. They're their own sculptures. They are sculptures. I had great conversation. I think one of the things I enjoyed about this book was that it had the historical research, which I love anyway, but also there were opportunities to talk to more recent makers. And so one of the people that I really enjoyed talking to was Stella McLaren, who was the Queen's kind of milliner in residence, if you like. She had her millinery workshop above the Queen's bedroom in Buckingham Palace. and told me about how she would be working on a hat for a particular upcoming event, and she would just trot down the stairs. The queen would be having a cup of tea in bed,

and she would plump the hat on her head, check that it was fitting, and then she'd go back up to her workshop. You know, she really missed the queen. She wasn't able to carry on with her millinery after the queen died, and so that was a kind of period of her life that she really loved. Now, in the last probably 50, 60 years, especially with modernization, factories, fast fashion, really, what has happened to this culture? Because it's not as if these people just learn their trades by themselves. There are these larger cultures where people are, for lack of a better word, interns and apprentices learning these trades in these big structures. What happens when there's not a market for these handmade beautiful objects? Well, I think you kind of hit the nail on the head there in terms of, I think, you know, we might look at something like the monarchy and think that it is anachronistic and that it doesn't

serve a valuable purpose anymore. And there's an argument for its extravagance. But if you look at the kind of numbers that are still employed in creating these things which are so rarefied and so specialized, I think that is a great argument for the maintenance of it. I think because people are starting to feel more aware of really bad textile and dress practices like fast fashion and waste and overconsumption, I think there's a growing interest in maintaining skill sets. So in the UK, for example, we have an organisation called Heritage Craft Association, which looks at preserving endangered skills and finding ways to encourage people to learn about them or even learn to do them.

And they have all sorts of initiatives. And there is a broader, globally, there is the intangible cultural heritage organization that looks at preserving these kind of skills as well. I'm also curious for the next generation of royals, Queen Camilla, but also Princess Catherine. Are you noticing a change in how they're approaching dress? Yeah, I mean, interestingly, only a few months ago,

the Princess of Wales, Catherine, announced that she would no longer be offering details, of what she's wearing for her public events. And I think that's quite a significant announcement. In some ways, I get it. It's the rationale for that. She wanted her roles to be at the forefront of what's being discussed rather than what she's wearing.

But I also think traditionally, the way that that information was disseminated often did give a space for some of these smaller makers to get some attention. When her daughter, Princess Charlotte wore, I think as a toddler, some little smocked dresses, they were very traditionally. British with the smocking at the floral dresses. And it was a small British maker. You know, her business kind of took off on the back of that recognition. So I think it's a shame if it goes altogether because I think people are genuinely interested. I also think there's such a power to highlighting designers in a way that very few people can. I think people identify when she

wears a British or English designer. I remember maybe the closest equivalent we have in America is I still remember how Michelle Obama at her first inauguration wore this gown by Jason Wu, who was a name that wasn't familiar to many of us, but then, of course, became nationally famous for an instant, for longer than an instant. We still know. Yeah, exactly. I think that's true. And I think that's ever been the case. I mean, that's basically what happened with Alexandra and John Redfern. He was just a draper on the Isle of White, and his star kind of rose. He had then branches in New York and his whole kind of career took off the back of the way it was reported in the press that he was clothing the Princess of Wales. And so I think there's great value in recognizing that work and those skills.

So I have a very soft place in my heart for Queen Victoria as just a prickly fascinating character. There are a lot of misconceptions about her wardrobe. specifically I hear the rumor, possibly true or false. I'd love you to talk about that she was the one who popularized the white wedding dress. I mean, I agree. I always think Victoria is fascinating. I think she has all sorts of, and particularly when you look at her clothes, because again, there are all sorts of assumptions made about her.

Sartorially, she's such a kind of distinctive figure. So people had been wearing white wedding dresses for a very long time before she married in 1840. And so if you look in collections of surviving wedding dresses, there are many, many white gowns. I think what she did was that she, as this kind of young queen, and it was a real love story at the time, she was deeply in love with Albert. And I think what the kind of visibility of that, and it was the first time that a royal wedding, there was a photograph of her wearing the dress as well as a portrait. So again, it was that kind of modern media. And it really made it visible. So it had definitely been fashionable, but she perhaps gave it more visibility.

I've heard it because white is such an expensive fabric to maintain. If you're someone who doesn't have very many dresses, it would seem very indulgent to have a white dress that's so easily stained. Is that true? Is that sort of the origin? No, that is true. And certainly there are many instances of people who either would dye their wedding dress, their white wedding dress after they'd worn it. Which my mother did. Yes, there's a long precedent of this. Or people would wear a coloured dress that they could wear then for, it would become like their best dress for church.

So yes, there is that kind of association with status with a white wedding dress because it's out of the ordinary. My mother died her wedding dress like a peach color and had it hemmed shorter so she could wear it, which I find very charming, even if I will never wear that dress. It is. And I think that's, you know, there is, they're special. I think what, you know, dress lives long in people's memories.

We all have memories of clothes that are, even if we're not that interested in fashion. You know, we all have memories of garments that are significant in our lives for a whole host of reasons, whether it's family, whether it's our own kind of associations. I think that's why it's so powerful. The other Queen Victoria sort of startorial story is, of course, after her beloved Prince Albert died, that she wore black for the rest of her life. What did that mean for a queen to do? Well, it created a lot of angst in amongst the British establishment because she essentially went into, she went into mourning, which obviously manifested itself through her clothes,

and she wore crape, the kind of very crinkled matte fabric for many years, as well as black silk, and that became her kind of the most notable part of her appearance. And it did cause a lot of anxiety because she suddenly became invisible. And without a visible monarchy, you have rumblings of, well, what are you even for if you're not performing any of the duties that you would imagine? And there was a great story that I found of Princess Alexandra, her Princess of Wales, her daughter-in-law, trying to persuade her to wear just a tiny crown for the occasion of one of her. jubilees just to give the people a kind of taste of royalty and this is what they've come out to see and she point blank refused and drove out in a bonnet. So yeah, the expectations of what monarchy should look like, I think were really important. One of my favorite photographs. And of course,

it's fascinating that we get photographs of a figure like Queen Victoria is at her son Edward's wedding to Alexandra. And I think you might know the photo I'm referring to where, Victoria is in a full hood, full morning outfit in this beautiful wedding portrait and she's staring at Albert's bust. It's sort of is a... It's a snapshot of a moment, isn't it? I love that. The stories that you could tell of poor Alexandra at that point thinking, because I think Victoria refused to come down to the actual wedding service in St. George's Chapel and stood up in a little kind of viewing area above where she cried, loudly throughout, apparently. And so, yeah, it's not the happiest of wedding photos.

And poor Alexandra is just fully, she looks like a, like a cupcake, like she's been dipped in icing. She's just full veils, full lace trimmed Victorian bride. She was clever in the way that she manoeuvred things. So Alexandra had wanted to wear a dress of Brussels lace, which was very fine European lace. And she was Danish. And she had been given this European lace dress is a gift. But Victoria said, absolutely not. You have to wear a dress of British lace. And so what you see in that photograph is Alexandra wearing a dress trimmed with honiton lace, which is British lace. But what I found when I studied that dress, which is in the Royal Collection now in London, was that on the inside of the dress is a panel of European lace that's been

stitched inside. And I have no evidence. It's completely my own kind of speculation. but I like to think that it was Alexandra's way of kind of just having the last laugh on the day with a piece of lace next to her skin. I love that. I think your book is fascinating, the book Dressing the Queen, which is, I think, such a well-researched, beautiful rebuke to people who think that clothes are frivolous and ephemeral. It goes into the details about these incredibly skilled workers and artisans, really, who made these clothes. Before I let you go, is there, and this is possibly like asking you to pick a favorite child, do you have a favorite garment of any queen throughout history that stands out to you in your heart? I do, and it relates to Alexandra because I think I studied her garments for so long, and I often thought she would probably have hated what I was doing, which was kind of

interrogating all these pieces that she wore. But we found a gown of hers in the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, and it's this beautiful Edwardian court gown. It's a kind of pale yellow chiffon, covered with rhinestones and hand-painted irises. So it's kind of mind-blowing to look at. But what I found the most interesting, and this for me, is where I'd closed, tell you stories that you can't find any other way, was that the gown at the back just didn't fasten in the way that you would imagine. It just kind of sat really strangely on the dress form. And by a process of interrogation via curators who had worked with her things, before and also an orthopedic surgeon, it turned out because I said, well, what would happen?

She had scoliosis in her 20s. What would happen to her? She'd had a fever and she'd been very sick. And yeah, the orthopedic surgeon confirmed that it likely would have been scoliosis, that she had hidden away from, she wouldn't want anybody to know that. And this dress would have worked for her body and very cleverly disguised any kind of physicality that she didn't want to share. And so I found that really remarkable because it just shows that dress can tell us these kinds of stories. That's so beautiful. Dr. Stresden, thank you so much for this conversation. Absolutely fascinating. Again, the book is Dressing the Queen. Really appreciate your time. Pleasure.

Noble Blood is a production of IHeart Radio and Grim and Mild from Aaron Manky. Noble Blood is hosted by me, Dana Schwartz. Writers for Noble Blood are Hannah Johnston, Hannah Zwick, Paul Jaffy, Natasha Lasky, and me, Dana Schwartz. The show is edited and produced by Jesse Funk and Nome's Gripen, with supervising producer Rima Il Kali, and executive producers Aaron Manke, Trevor Young, and Matt Frederick. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. This is an I-Heart podcast, guaranteed human.