Rose tinted handiwork

Maureen Rose, dressmaker to HM The Queen, needle and thread at the ready in her jacket

Millions of people all over the world have seen Maureen Rose’s handiwork, yet only a comparative handful know her name. However that handful includes some very distinguished names, none more so than Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

For Maureen spent 30 years as dressmaker to the Queen, achieving a Royal Warrant, the very pinnacle of recognition. In that time she made and, latterly, also designed countless garments for State occasions setting off from the home near Ringwood she has shared with husband Malcolm for 40 years to visit Her Majesty at most of the Royal residencies.

And yet, ask Maureen if she ever had any inkling at just how good at her job she was, she throws her hands in the air and screws up her face… ‘Oh, I’m only a dressmaker,’ she protests.

True, but nonetheless, dressmaker to The Queen. As such Maureen is one of the lucky few of us who actually manage to live their lifetime’s ambition.

‘I was eight years old when I told my mother I was going to work for Norman Hartnell and make clothes for The Queen,’ she explains. ‘I was taken on a school visit to a technical college and saw some of the most gorgeous and delicate needlework I’d ever seen. I was already in love with making things on an old sewing machine grandma had given me, but I made up my mind there and then that was what I was going to do. My mother thought I was an odd bod anyway and probably didn’t take much notice until I won a scholarship to that technical college.’

Maureen was directed by her teachers to specialise in handmade underwear.

‘I was too scared of them to protest, but my mother pointed out to me that the instruction I would get would enable me to provide a finer finish to the clothes I would go on to make; and she was quite right.’

HM The Queen at a State Opening of Parliament in a dress and coat made by Maureen, a sample of the material sits alongside. Above the photo is a sample of material from the first dress Maureen made for The Queen

After school Maureen served an apprenticeship in Bond Street making underwear for American actresses including Mary Martin (‘She was always washing some man out of her hair.’) and Ava Gardner (‘She was married to Frank Sinatra and he said ‘good afternoon’ to me one day and, well, that was quite a moment – I didn’t even like his music in those days, he was funny little man, but he had presence.’) and earning extra money sewing for Duvelleroy, the famous house of fan makers.

After marrying Malcolm, her teenage sweetheart, Maureen went freelance and opened her own shop front selling fabrics and furnishings with a workroom for her couture customers out the back.

It was a dress worn by one such customer that caught the eye of Norman Hartnell.

‘This lady’s husband had a nightclub in the West End and Mr Hartnell had remarked on her clothes and asked her who made them. He said he’d like to meet me and it wasn’t long before I had a phone call asking me to make an appointment.

‘Well of course this was my life’s ambition, but I was desperate to retain my own identity, I didn’t want to work for someone. So I met him and I came away with a set of sketches and patterns to make on a freelance basis.’

Not only did Maureen work with Norman Hartnell until his death in 1979, one of only freelancers he used, she also worked with his one-time protégé Ian Thomas who had left under something of a cloud to found his own business.

‘They each knew I was doing work for the other and they’d each ask me how the other was getting on. I’m pleased that eventually they did speak again before Mr Hartnell passed away, but it was with Ian that I went to visit the Queen for fittings. She called me Maureen and he told me I was only person he’d ever heard her call by their Christian name.’

The Royal Warrant from the Royal Commissioner’s Office and a signed photo given by HM The Queen to Maureen to mark 20 years of having worked together

When Ian Thomas died suddenly in 1993 it was left to Maureen to complete several items for Her Majesty and deliver them. She didn’t expect to hear from the Palace again, but just a few months later she was summoned to meet the Queen to talk about some new clothes.

‘I explained that while I was delighted to be able to make her clothes, I wasn’t a designer. I said I could ‘invent’ them so that she could understand what I was talking about, but that my drawings wouldn’t have the fluidity and movement she had been used to. We carried along on that basis until some months later she said to me at the end of a session: ‘We seem to be managing quite well with these inventions’, so I took it she was pleased.’

Maureen explains how her designs were slightly different from what the Queen had been used to – waistbands and belts were out, in favour of longer line outfits with subtle vertical panels to lend height and accentuate elegance.

‘People ask me if The Queen is a fashion icon, but she’s not. She called these her working clothes. When I went to her with the first dresses without belts she asked for a belt and I explained I had made them, but that perhaps she didn’t need them. As we got near the end she said: ‘No belts then’ and that was that.

‘She had a very particular routine to test if they the clothes up to the job. Nothing can be too fitted so that when she stands up her clothes must fall back into place. She’s also very frugal and thinks nothing of wearing clothes several times. I’ve been very lucky in that the 30 years I worked for the Queen were the best 30 years of her reign to be dressing her I think.’

Although she officially retired in 2003, Maureen continues to make special dresses for family and a very select few, but she doesn’t make for herself.

‘It’s impossible to fit yourself properly so I don’t make my own clothes, but I am incredibly fussy about buying clothes. I’m a real fabric snob as well and I’ve passed that on to my daughter and grand-daughter who I remember at the age of 12 turning clothes inside out in a shop to look at the seams and saying: ‘They’re not as good as yours gran’! Wonderful.’

• First published by Dorset Life.

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