Queen Camilla’s coronation dress designer reveals insider insights

It was a dress fit for a Queen – literally.

Bruce Oldfield, who designed and created Queen Camilla’s dress for the coronation ceremony on May 6, is telling all in a new essay penned for Tatler Magazine‘s July issue.

Oldfield, 72, is a British couturier and royal favorite whose designs have also been worn by Princess Diana in the past.

He has been dressing Her Majesty for over a decade now, but described designing her coronation gown as “the biggest commission of [his] life.”

Oldfield revealed that he was asked “late last year” to design the dress, which featured an intricately beaded design and Marigold-yellow colored embroidery – even including her own two dogs on the bottom of the dress’ hem.

He detailed that they did three fittings of a mock-up dress, called a “toile,” with Queen Camilla before taking a break for Christmas.

Part of Queen Camilla’s look also included an embroidered underskirt, according to People.

The big day in May then soon arrived – and Oldfield and Sophie Rowe, who he describes as his “sidekick and fitter extraordinaire,” were there at Westminster Abbey to make sure everything went smoothly in terms of her wardrobe.

“We were there to make sure that Her Majesty looked fabulous and that her dress was perfectly set out,” Oldfield wrote in Tatler. “The Queen arrived wearing a simple ermine trimmed mantle (a cloak that is worn over the dress), which we later removed – it was quite a job – and replaced with a heavily embroidered mantle.”

“When everything was fixed in place, we went back to our seats,” he continued about the day. “The mantles are a standard, traditional part of the coronation regalia and are constructed and embroidered by a specialist maker. So that the train of the dress does not show beyond the end of either mantle, at the toile stage we were careful to ensure that the lengths of each worked perfectly together.”

And, whether or not the public liked the dress is something that Oldfield doesn’t really think about – he was only concerned with the happiness of the newly-crowned Queen Camilla.

The designer explained that through all of this, it felt like his story was being brought back around “full-circle,” as he remembered watching the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 with his foster mother and siblings.

Now, 70 years later, King Charles was officially crowned after the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, this past September 2022 in a grand coronation ceremony.

The ceremony was one for the history books, too, as he became the oldest King to be crowned at the age of 74.

He married Queen Camilla in 2005 at Windsor Guildhall.

Many members of the royal family were in attendance at the ceremony, including Prince Harry, who made it back to The United Kingdom for the first time since the January release of his tell-all memoir, “Spare.”

He arrived without his wife, Meghan Markle, but only stayed for less than 24 hours, as he had to make it home to California in time to see his son, Archie, on his fourth birthday.

One day after the ceremony, on Sunday, May 7, the royal family and the rest of the public celebrated with a big coronation concert on the grounds of Windsor Castle.

Performers included Lionel Richie, Katy Perry, and Andrea Bocelli.

During the ceremony, which was televised on BBC, King Charles’ son, Prince William, made a heartfelt speech in front of the crowd, congratulating his father and paying tribute to the late Queen.

“As my grandmother said, when she was crowned, coronations are a declaration of our hopes for the future, and I know she’s up there fondly keeping an eye on us, and she’d be a very proud mother,” William said in the emotional speech.