Why Queen waited until her mother died before insisting on pockets in off-duty wardrobe
ok.co.ukThe Queen insists on pockets on her outfits after years of being told to keep her hands out of them, it has emerged. As a child, the monarch's family told her it was considered rude to use pockets and had them sewn up to stop her from being photographed with her hands inside, according to a new book However, decades later, she achieved her dream of being snapped in the informal pose - thanks to the help of her personal dresser.Throughout her childhood, the Queen's elders, in particular her grandmother, George V's wife Queen Mary, insisted she keep her hands out of her pockets and they were sewn up on all her clothes, Andrew Morton says in his new book on the monarch. "Even after she grew up, the Queen Mother as well as the Queen’s own advisers had insisted that being seen with her hands in her pockets was not a good look" Andrew said in an extract published in the Daily Mail. "Yet for years Elizabeth had longed to make a childhood dream come true: to be photographed doing just that" he said.
The Queen confided her "secret wish" to her dresser Angela Kelly in 2012, ten years after the death of the Queen Mother, he said.
In her own 2019 book The Other Side Of The Coin: The Queen the Dresser and the Wardrobe, and as reported by Newsweek, Angela said: "Her Majesty wanted to be photographed more informally and have the freedom, for example, to pose with her hands in her pockets. "The Queen Mother and her advisors had always advised against this, suggesting it would not be appropriate." As a result of what she had been told by the Queen, Angela sprung into action.
She brought in photographer Barry Jeffery, who shot Her Majesty in a number of professional model posses used in the 1960s.
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