LONDON.- A royal bridesmaid’s dress and headdress by Norman Hartnell, 1947, will be among the captivating highlights offered in The Exceptional Sale on 2 July, during Christie’s Classic Week (estimate: £30,000-50,000). The dress was worn by the late Lady Elizabeth Longman (née Lambart), a childhood friend of the late Queen. Having been formerly on loan to The Fashion Museum Bath (from the 1980s to the early 2000s), the dress will be on public view in London during the pre-sale exhibition from 28 June to the morning of 2 July.

Benedict Winter, Christie’s Specialist, Private and Iconic Collections commented: "Christie’s is privileged to be offering this evocative and rare example of royal fashion history. This beautiful dress epitomises the glamour of Norman Hartnell’s commissions and the hope that the late Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh’s wedding gave to post-war Britain.”

Sir Norman Hartnell’s designs in the inter-war period have come to epitomise the glamour and taste of aristocratic circles at that time. Hartnell was commanded by The Queen Mother to create the wedding dress and eight bridesmaid’s dresses for the Royal Wedding of 1947 (illustrated below © Alamy), his most important commission until the Coronation of 1953. These dresses, with their floral motifs, were designed to be symbolic of post-war British rebirth and growth and were inspired not only by Botticelli’s Primavera, now in the Uffizi, but also by the vivid fashions of high-Victorian Britain, the depictions of which Hartnell glimpsed while waiting for his first meeting to discuss the commission at Buckingham Palace, shown in the portraits of members of the Royal Family by Winterhalter and Hayter.

Lady Elizabeth Longman (née Lambart) (1924-2016) was the daughter of Field Marshal 10th Earl of Cavan and his wife Joan (née Byng) who acted as lady-in-waiting to The Princess Royal. Lady Elizabeth remarkably counted both Queen Mary and Princess Mary, The Princess Royal as her godparents, and these close familial relationships led to her becoming childhood friends with The Princess Elizabeth (later H.M. Queen Elizabeth II) and being asked to be a bridesmaid in 1947, a friendship that lasted throughout their lives.