Discover a compelling history of the Crown through the lens of royal fashion with two leading experts, sharing the secrets that lie beneath its sumptuous surface and the armour it provides.

Investigative journalist, editor and author of international best-sellers Miss Dior and Coco Chanel, Justine Picardie is joined in conversation by dress historian Kate Strasdin (Dressing the Queen: Two Hundred Years of Makers and Monarchy) to unpick the threads of the royal wardrobe.

From the birth of the house of Windsor in 1917, its leading women – Queen Mary, the Queen Mother, the Duchess of Windsor and Queen Elizabeth II – faced the perils of abdication and assassination, revolution and the rise of fascism, the threat of invasion and all-out war. Their sartorial decisions, alongside those of their royal husbands, projected power and perpetuity, diplomacy and defiance.

Through a cinematic story of espionage and exquisite couture, Justine Picardie speaks to Kate Strasdin about the undercover lives of the creators behind the facade – including Hardy Amies, Cecil Beaton, Norman Hartnell and Edward Molyneux – tracing the ways in which visual iconography safeguarded the monarchy, even when their reign seemed to be hanging by a thread.

Justine Picardie is the author of seven books, including the international bestsellers Miss Dior: A Story of Courage and Couture and Coco Chanel: The Legend and the Life. Previously the editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar, she was an investigative journalist for the Sunday Times, columnist for the Telegraph, editor of the Observer Magazine and features director of Vogue.

Kate Strasdin is a dress historian who has been fascinated by old clothes since she was a child. She is a lecturer in Cultural Studies at Falmouth University and is a freelance consultant for dress and textile exhibitions. Her previous book, The Dress Diary of Mrs Anne Sykes unlocked the secrets of a previously unknown Victorian woman’s wardrobe. She lives in Devon with her husband and two children.