The Queen wears festive red for Christmas Day church service in Sandringham with the family – but Prince Philip stays back on estate after health scare
- Prince Philip, 98, is staying at the Norfolk estate after being flown there by helicopter on Christmas Eve
- He also did not attend the service last year, despite the Duke o Edinburgh being in good health at the time
- Duke of York was also absent from the service as he faces backlash over friendship with Jeffrey Epstein
The Queen is wearing festive red for the Christmas Day church service in Sandringham with the family as Prince Philip stays back at the estate following his health care.
The Duke of Edinburgh, 98, was discharged from hospital in London yesterday, leaving the Queen to go to church alone.
He is at the royals’ private estate in Norfolk after being flown there by helicopter after he left hospital on Christmas Eve.
Pictured: The Queen wears festive red at Sandringham today as Prince Philip stays at the Norfolk estate following his health problems in recent days
The Duke was seen leaving the King Edward VII hospital in central London this morning, where he has spent four nights this week before heading home to Sandringham for Christmas
Pictured: Prince Philip arrives at Sandringham by helicopter following his treatment at King Edward VII hospital in London, where he spent four nights
He was admitted to King Edward VII’s Hospital in central London on Friday and spent four nights undergoing treatment for an undisclosed ongoing health issue.
The Duke, who received minor injuries after being involved in a car crash near the estate in January, missed the service at St Mary Magdalene Church last year to stay at home, despite being in good health at the time.
Also absent from the service was Prince Andrew, who is facing continued backlash over his friendship with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and attended an earlier service with Charles.
Today is the first time the younger royals have attended, with Prince George and Princess Charlotte going into church alongside their parents, William and Kate. At six and four they are now old enough to sit through the service.
The new Fab Four: Karen Anvil, 40, who last year took the perfect shot of Kate, William, Meghan and Harry scored again today as she captured this image of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge with their two eldest children
Today is the first time the younger royals have attended, with Prince George and Princess Charlotte going into church alongside their parents, William and Kate. At six and four they are now old enough to sit through the service
The Queen, 93, donned a fetching red hat and matching coat for the annual service at Sandringham
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge arrived with their children George and Charlotte
Andrew’s daughter Princess Beatrice was also joined by fiance Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi for the first time at the church.
As the Queen is head of the Church of England, it is a key part of royal celebrations. Following the service, the Windsors enjoy a festive lunch back at Sandringham House and then settle down together to watch the Queen’s Christmas Day speech.
In her broadcast to the nation and the Commonwealth, the Queen is to acknowledge the ‘bumpy’ path the royal family and the nation has experienced over the past 12 months.
Game of tones: Remember neon at 90? The Queen has never shied away from colour
She caused a sensation wearing neon at 90, but the Queen has never shied away from colour – nor from making a statement through her clothes. Sali Hughes salutes the rainbow royal
RED The Queen is keen on tweeds and bouclés in crimson, cherry and burgundy. Sadly the occasional slash of red lipstick has been retired. ORANGE This is a handy colour for international events because it appears on few flags, and there’s no hue too bold for HRH
My earliest memory is of sitting in a high chair in the street, semi-stuck to its Linoleum seat by the rubber pants over my terry cotton nappy, surrounded by grown-ups and children in paper crowns, while I was fed some unidentifiable goo from a plastic spoon. I didn’t realise until later that I, along with the rest of my South Wales valleys community, and the whole of Britain, had been celebrating Queen Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee.
PURPLE Elizabeth has been seen in this regal colour more often in recent years and is a lover of lavender, lilac, magenta and violet
The next time I saw the Queen, I knew it. I was six years old and at another street party wearing a homemade bonnet, fashioned from a disposable buffet plate and red, white and blue crepe paper.
We were watching the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer on a television that was connected to an extension lead and wheeled into a relative’s back garden.
As the carriages arrived and commentators speculated impatiently on the bride’s frock, I couldn’t take my eyes off the middle-aged monarch in turquoise pleats and a floral hat that even my own nan might consider ‘a bit old’. I thought her marvellous, hypnotic, enchanting. And so began my lifelong obsession with the Queen.
The Queen is driven by duty, which informs her wardrobe choices and every other decision.
She wears bright colours because she believes it’s her duty to be seen by the people who’ve waited, wet and cold, behind barriers for hours at a time.
She prefers three-quarter-length sleeves because she believes it is her duty to wave at well-wishers for several hours unimpeded.
At international events, she chooses colours that imply no allegiance to a single flag, because she believes it is her duty to be neutral and respectful to all nations. She wears a single corrective shoulder pad because she believes the monarch should stand straight before her subjects. Everything must be hemmed with curtain weights to avoid the vulgarity and humiliation of what we now refer to as ‘up-skirting’.
YELLOW The Queen loves the sunshine shade for spring, when she embellishes it with pops of blue
PINK From blancmange to bubblegum, salmon to cerise, Her Majesty sports – and suits – every shade, but fuchsia seems to be a favourite
Clothing is not simply for Elizabeth II herself but for the monarchy, and must uphold its standards. The Queen’s job is to be smaller than the throne and she has always understood this perfectly. The Queen’s style remains relevant from a cultural standpoint and consequently still very much shifts stock.
In 2016, during her 90th birthday celebrations, the neon-green suit she wore to the Trooping the Colour parade launched a trending Twitter hashtag #NeonAt90. It is also claimed that in the following days, sales of neon-coloured clothing and accessories rose by 137 per cent.
Five years earlier, after Her Majesty had carried a beige Launer handbag into Westminster Abbey for the wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton, Selfridges sold out of all Launer bags almost instantly. Here, but especially overseas, the Queen’s wardrobe choices convey a sense of quality, endurance and quiet luxury. In fact, her lack of interest in fashion for its own sake works in her favour.
And yet the Queen most certainly knows what works. Her love of colour-blocking – wearing a single colour – is born from practicality. She understands that her job is to be seen and, at just five foot four, she needs all the help she can get.
A designer’s attempt to modernise her wardrobe for her 1970 Canadian tour, where she wore slacks, was unsuccessful: they haven’t made an on-duty appearance since. She prefers dresses to skirts because they’re more comfortable and she has no time to tuck in and straighten up when exiting a car. She won’t wear green to grassy venues, dark colours against dark upholstery, or a heel higher than two and a quarter inches.
GREEN It’s the colour of her classic countrywear but HM isn’t afraid of more look-at-me tones, from neon lime to chartreuse
Behind every famous clothes horse, there is invariably a tastemaker or stylist and the Queen is no exception, though her official dresser, Angela Kelly, downplays her role.
Angela’s CV is modest but her influence and expertise huge. The Queen discovered the Liverpudlian – more than 40 years her junior – while she worked as housekeeper to the British Ambassador to Germany and quickly offered her a job.
Angela rose swiftly through the ranks to become the Queen’s personal dresser and now, along with her team, selects, maintains and archives her clothing, shoes and accessories – even designing and making much of it herself (milliner Rachel Trevor-Morgan and designer Stewart Parvin are among the Queen’s favourites outside the palace).
It was at Angela’s suggestion that her employer joined forces with the British Fashion Council in 2018 to found the Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design, resulting in the Queen’s first ever appearance at London Fashion Week.
Who can forget the photograph of her sitting front row at Richard Quinn with US Vogue editor Anna Wintour who, marvellous though she is, did not remove her sunglasses while conversing with the Queen? (Call me old-fashioned, but who keeps on their shades while speaking to any woman in her 90s, royal or not?)
BLUE Royal blue on the monarch is a no-brainer, but she has showcased the whole spectrum, from turquoise to teal, sapphire to navy
Significantly, the award was founded ‘to recognise emerging British fashion talent, to provide a legacy of support for the industry in recognition of the role fashion has played throughout the Queen’s reign and continues to play in diplomacy, culture and communication’.
I think this crystallises why the Queen’s style is so impressive to me. What she cannot say with words she conveys with clothes. Truly, her quiet, devastating trolling through fashion could inspire an assassin.
For example, the coded handbag positioning for signalling to staff that some dignitary is now rather quacking on – allegedly she places it on the floor if she wants to remain conversing for no more than five minutes. The European-inspired blue and yellow she wore to parliament immediately after Brexit.
The polite silk head-covering for bombing around in a Land Rover with a mortified Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia having to sit next to a female driver for the first time in his life. Wearing a Barack and Michelle Obama-gifted brooch for a meeting with Donald Trump, where he arrived 12 minutes late and blocked his hostess’s pathway so that she had to scuttle around him.
We will, of course, never know what is calculated and what is a delicious coincidence, because our Queen never complains, never explains. And that, to me, is her great appeal.
- This is an edited extract from Our Rainbow Queen by Sali Hughes, published by Square Peg on 30 May, price £9.99. To order a copy for £7.99 until 2 June, visit mailshop.co.uk/books or call 0844 571 0640. p&p is free on orders over £15
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