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Logan's Style Watch
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God Save the Queen
by Logan Bentley Lessona
ROME - When I was a little girl my mother took me to see the Queen of England drive by in her Rolls Royce. So some twenty years ago, when she visited Rome, I took my small daughter to wait outside the residence of the British ambassador to the Holy See, where we awaited her return from her official visit to the pope.
It's true, there's a little spotlight inside her limousine that illuminates her face and my daughter has always remembered the first time she saw a queen. Now Rome has received another visit from Queen Elizabeth II and I was a bit surprised at the extensive coverage the Italian press gave her visit to Rome and Milan. Romans, especially, are usually pretty blase' about celebrities.
The Italian chefs at the Quirinale (the palace of Italy's president) were presented with a big problem: no garlic and no onions. We know that many yummy Italian dishes contain both. No oysters, lobsters, strawberries (no strawberries and clotted cream at Ascot?), no champagne. And, heaven help us, no long pasta with a sauce that might splatter. Non-Italians often have trouble twirling spaghetti or linguini around their forks.
Representatives from Buckingham Palace indicated the queen prefers small portions, and approved the menu starting with ravioli filled with ricotta cheese and spinach and Brunello di Montalcino wine, which the queen is said to appreciate.
Just in case the Italian dinner guests were not informed, the papers listed some of the protocol dos and don'ts. No touching the queen, not even to touch her elbow to guide her. Only her son Charles and the British Prime Minister are permitted to kiss her hand, but it doesn't really matter as hand-kissing is out of style in England. Still alive in Italy, she did not flinch when several of her hosts made the gesture. She always initiates the conversation, and you never, ever, turn your back on her majesty.
Years ago a commander of a U.S. Air Force base near Windsor Castle told me about a dinner with the royals and how he and his wife almost tripped over themselves walking backwards to the door to avoid turning their backs on the Queen and her husband as they insisted on accompanying them when they left.
Surprisingly, the fashion-conscious Italians didn't have much to say about the Queen's dressing style, which is not exactly what you would call fashionable. But then, she is subject to a number of requirements. For example she must always be visible in crowds, which is why her outfits are usually in pastel colors. We can all laugh about her hats, but she can't wear large brims because then her face would be shaded and partly hidden, and her subjects want to SEE her.
I do wish she would let her hairdresser do something about her hair, but I'm sure he wouldn't dare make a suggestion. The queen is an attractive woman, but she's had that hairdo since the early sixties, and a softer, less-teased and less-hairsprayed look would be much more flattering.
Weights are sewn into her (just-below-the-knee) skirts so they don't blow in the wind revealing what rests better unseen and she wears shoes with sturdy medium-height heels in order to avoid missteps, which would not be dignified. During the day she always accessorizes with a hat, pearls, gloves, and usually some kind of a diamond brooch on her lapel or shoulder.
Reporters speculated as to what she carried in her omni-present handbag, and the mystery was ultimately revealed when she opened it after her visit to the pope and took out a lipstick.
The queen also visited Milan, and attended a concert conducted in her honor by Riccardo Muti at Milan's famous opera house, La Scala. According to society columnist Lina Sotis a collective shiver went through the ladies of Milan invited to attend when they read that protocol dictates women not wear black or red in the Queen's presence.
Rome's female citizens dress with a bit more fantasy but the Milanese consider themselves serious inhabitants of a serious, workaholic city. It's no accident that Giorgio Armani lives in Milan and Valentino in Rome.
The Milanese "sciura" (dialect for Signora) religiously wears black in the evening, whether to dinner, cocktails, or the famous first night at La Scala. So there was a lot of phoning back and forth and extensive consultations. It's always safe, it's always "right." Sotis noted that even a couple of female employees of the British consulate were dressed in black. Result: A sea of black dresses in the audience, but fortunately some of the ladies in the royal box wore colors, including the wife of the superintendent of La Scala.
The queen wore a powder-blue chiffon dress with a layered skirt and was photographed chatting enthusiastically with Muti backstage after the concert. Now that's style for you, or is it lese majestè? All those black dresses didn't bother her one bit. Her beatific smile was intact.
© 2000 Logan Bentley Lessona
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