Historic Royal Palaces launches exhibition at Hillsborough Castle celebrating royal fashion through the years
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00:00This is a dress that was worn by Her Majesty the Queen in 1979 to a film premiere
00:05and it was designed by Hardy Amies.
00:07We've been getting the dress ready for display for an exhibition at Hillsborough Castle.
00:11The dress is a silk chiffon in this beautiful coral colour
00:15and it has these little gold squares embroidered on.
00:19It has two layers and the outer layer has batwing sleeves.
00:23Overall the dress was in a fairly good condition
00:26however the very thin silk chiffon was starting to get splits in some areas
00:31so in-house we dyed some silk crepeline fabric to a colour that would match really well
00:37and on the underside I've put little patches in and stitched them in place
00:41just to stabilise those weak areas.
00:43The mount is a bespoke acrylic mount for this dress.
00:46Because it has this very sheer quality we wanted to be able to still capture that
00:50so we've actually cut away the back and put another panel in here
00:55so that you can still see through the chiffon there.
00:58And the sleeves are supported by an acrylic tube here
01:02which means that you still get that very ethereal feel from the dress.
01:05It was really lovely to work on this dress because it is a bit of a showstopper.
01:09The fabric is so ethereal feeling and the colour is so vibrant and bright
01:13something that we see the Queen wearing quite often
01:16so it was actually just a real joy to be working on and mounting this object.