Sir Hardy Amies born 17 June 1909 (d. 2003)Sir Hardy Amies was for 48 years the Queen's official dressmaker. As a couturier he was known for his restrained, conservative, but beautifully tailored suits and dresses. He was also famed for his self-confessed snobbery.
Born in London, Edwin Hardy Amies was the son of a civil servant and a saleswoman at a firm that made clothing for members of the Court. After leaving school in 1927 he worked in France and Germany, where he became fluent in French and German. He returned to England in 1933 and was appointed designer at London's House of Lachasse. By 1935 he was managing director as well as chief designer. Lachasse closed in 1939 with the outbreak of World War II.
During the war, Amies served in the intelligence corps. He also continued designing clothes for the domestic market that conformed to the requirements of clothes rationing, as well as luxury couture to sell abroad.On leaving the army in 1946 Amies bought a bombed out house at 14 Savile Row and set up his own couture house. In 1951 the then Princess Elizabeth asked Amies to design some day clothes for a tour of Canada. This was the beginning of a long and productive relationship.
In 1955 Amies became, by appointment, one of the new queen's dressmakers. He continued in this position until 1990 when he felt it was time for younger designers to dress the queen. In 1989, in recognition of his long service as the queen's dressmaker, he was made a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order.
In addition to his royal duties, he was an influential couture and ready to wear designer, and occasionally designed for the stage and films - notably the costumes for Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. In his old age Amies was relaxed about acknowledging his homosexuality, often referring to it in a witty (and somewhat bitchy) fashion. Speaking of his royal dressmaking rival Sir Norman Hartnell, he said, 'It's quite simple. He was a silly old queen and I'm a clever old queen.'
He lived quietly with one man for many years but, when he went out socially, the lover remained at home: 'It's just too common for two men to go around together,' he explained. He was, though, proud of the fact that he never lost his eye for youth and beauty.
Amies and his partner, Ken Fleetwood (who was design director of Hardy Amies Ltd), were together for 43 years until Fleetwood's death in 1996.
Portrait of The Queen by Cecil Beaton, wearing a dress designed by Hardy Amies for the State Visit to Germany, 1965. The portraits were taken for The Queen's birthday, 1969.
Image: © V&A Images/Victoria and Albert Museum