How Queen Elizabeth II's dressmaker impressed her - by refusing to tell her a secret

This article was first published on October 29, 2019.

It has been republished to mark Angela Kelly being made a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order following the death of Queen Elizabeth II. 

Few would be so bold as to refuse to answer a question from Her Majesty the Queen.

But when Her Majesty first met Angela Kelly, a Liverpudlian dockers daughter working as a housekeeper at the British Ambassador's residence in Berlin, their unusual exchange would prove pivotal for both.

As the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh bid farewell to the household staff following an official visit, the monarch politely asked who their next visitors would be.

The royal couple were taken aback when the reply came; Ms Kelly could not possibly divulge such information as it was confidential.

The incredulous Duke tried again; “Surely you can tell Her Majesty the Queen?” he said.

But Ms Kelly again replied that she had signed the Official Secrets Act and simply could not help them.

As she said goodbye, she told the Queen she would remember the moment for the rest of her life. “Angela, so will I,” came the reply.

Indeed, just a few weeks later, she received a call to say that Her Majesty had asked if she would consider coming to work at Buckingham Palace as her assistant dresser and 25 years later she has become one of the Queen’s closest confidantes. 

Their warm friendship is detailed at length in Ms Kelly’s book, The Other Side of the Coin, the Queen, the Dresser and the Wardrobe, which offers an unrivalled insight into life behind palace walls.

The book is brimming with stories about how the Queen’s wardrobe is carefully curated, from set piece occasions such as Trooping the Colour to the moments when things have not gone quite according to plan, such as the time Her Majesty was persuaded to make a last minute decision to wear a hat back to front.

Ms Kelly is forthright in her opinions and is not one for holding back if she feels something is not quite right. She reveals that when the Queen’s private secretaries dismissed her suggestion that the monarch should wear a black dress to meet the Pope in 2000, she was convinced they had not done their homework and were offering “bad advice”.

As such, she had a dress made up in secret, concerned that if the monarch turned up to such an important event in a shocking pink day dress, “where would it all end?”

Ms Kelly was vindicated when one of the private secretaries came running down the corridor in the Quirinale Palace bellowing her name and begging her for a black outfit, which she deftly produced. “I vividly remember the brief look of relief on The Queen’s face,” she says.

The dressmaker uses the book to set a few things straight, not least the fallout from the ill-fated Annie Leibovitz shoot in 2007.

The BBC was forced to issue a grovelling apology to the Queen for suggesting that she had flounced out in a "huff" during a sitting with the celebrity photographer.

The trailer for a documentary on a year in the life of the Queen appeared to show her walking out after being asked to remove the crown - an integral part of the Order of the Garter regalia.

Peter Fincham, the BBC1 controller, who fuelled the controversy when he said the Queen “walked out in a huff” resigned over the incident.

In her book, Ms Kelly reveals that Ms Leibovitz was chosen to do the Queen’s official 90th birthday photographs in 2016 to “make amends” for the misunderstanding, with the monarch “in full agreement that it would be the right thing to do.”

On the day in question, she writes, it had been agreed that the Queen would meet the photographer’s daughter ahead of the portrait sitting. But when she arrived, she was met by some 15 people standing in a line, and several journalists.

While the BBC footage showed her apparently storming out, Ms Kelly said that in fact “she was making her way to the shoot as planned and hadn’t time to meet so many people.”

Several anecdotes illustrate the Queen’s great sense of humour and Ms Kelly has no qualms about playing practical jokes on the monarch, such as using a vibrant hairpiece to pretend she had dyed her hair purple during a state visit to Thailand and presenting her with a hat sporting dangling corks during a visit to Australia.

On one occasion, when Ms Kelly dyed her blonde hair dark underneath, the Queen looked at her and said: “Have you seen a pint of Guinness?”

When Ms Kelly confirmed that she had, the Queen simply responded: “Hmmmm” and Ms Kelly swiftly returned to the hairdresser.

The Balmoral fancy dress party

A staff fancy dress competition is held twice a year at Balmoral, judged by none other than the Queen, who dons an evening gown and tiara for the festivities.

However, on one such occasion recently, the monarch took a break from her judging duties and was instead having dinner with her family.

In her place, members of staff decided to dress up as the X Factor judging panel; Angela Kelly as Cheryl Cole.

“You can only imagine the look on the Queen’s face when she saw me that evening wearing a red military jacket, black leather boots and a long, dark wig,” Ms Kelly recalls.

“She didn’t have a clue who I was supposed to be, but she immediately recognised my assistant, Jackie, who was dressed as Her Majesty’s great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria.”

The theme was Balmoral  and another dresser went as Victoria’s close friend, John Brown.

As the Queen made her way downstairs for dinner, she was heard to gleefully declare to her guests: “I’ve just been dressed by Queen Victoria and Mr Brown. And I believe by Cheryl Cole!”

The Queen's 'sofa fabric' dress

As Ms Kelly’s role progressed, she began to notice that the Queen’s outfits had begun to look “a little tired” and that the darker colours and longer lengths were in danger of aging the monarch.

The Queen increasingly sought her opinion, much to the horror of her designers who were often given short shrift during fittings.

On one occasion, when the Queen was draped in a piece of bold jacquard material in a large print, Ms Kelly announced that it did not suit her at all and was “totally the wrong pattern”.

As luck would have it, the only other person happy to proffer such forthright views happened to walk past at that moment. The Queen asked the Duke of Edinburgh what he thought of the material.

“Is that the new material for the sofa?” came the reply. Needless to say, it never saw the light of day and Ms Kelly soon began designing the monarch’s dresses herself.