WASTE NOT, WANT NOT.

Second-hand Rose, second-hand clothes.

One of the themes explored in “Dress Codes” will be re-wearing, and how the Royal family have been interested in passing down and repairing their clothing through generations – since well before the current Princess of Wales, Princess Royal and the King became heralded as sustainability role models thanks to their modern-day approaches.

A pair of Liberty print dresses that belonged to a young Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret are a particularly special example, says Matthew Storey, a curator at Historic Royal Palaces.

Royals or not, they were Depression babies, and "use it up" is good advice, in New England or Olde England.

“The dresses are in a Liberty print which dates from 1936, we’ve traced it in their archive,” he explains. “They are in this classic, quality British fabric and when you look at the bigger dress in particular you can see all of the evidence of the history of this object and the way it was worn by Queen Elizabeth II when she was a child.”

The larger of the two dresses shows signs firstly of being tailored to accommodate a growing Princess Elizabeth.

“You can see how it was let out,” Storey notes, “and it probably originally had quite a large hem allowance at the bottom from which they’ve taken fabric, and then added that at the waist to make the bodice a bit longer. They’ve also taken panels and added them at the side of the bodice as well to make it larger. When you look at the making up close, it looks as if it was all done by hand at home – these are skills that would have existed in the Royal household.”

There is also a suggestion that the dress has then been adjusted further, in order to likely become a “hand me down” for Princess Margaret, who was four years younger than her sister. While the princesses will have initially matched in their co-ordinated frocks, the larger of the two is evidently more faded, says Storey, implying that it was washed and worn many more times overall.

Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without is sound advice no matter what your station.  Mr Storey concludes, “We can’t tell for sure [there are no photographs in the public domain to firm up the evidence], but it makes sense, as that’s what many aristocratic families would have done at the time. The bigger dress is clearly more faded, and has also got a couple of little stains on it, which we would never remove, because it’s evidence of wear.”  Well, yes, treating garments as disposable when the subjects are mending and mending can irritate the subjects, with pitchforks and torches to follow.