Queen Elizabeth II s Christening Robe Worn By 62 Royal Babies A Conservation Story

This is the Royal Christening Robe, which was originally commissioned by Queen Victoria in 1841. It's a rather wonderful piece, very historic, because it's been worn by subsequent royal babies for their christenings over a period of 130 years, including being worn by Princess Elizabeth for her own christening in May 1926, when she was just one month old. And notes recording each christening were created first of all by Queen Mary, to whom Queen Victoria passed the robe in the 1890s, and then subsequently by Queen Elizabeth II, who, like her grandmother, noted down every single royal baby and the use of the robe. It was made by a Scottish seamstress, the dressmaker to Queen Victoria in Scotland, called Janet Sutherland. It's a combination of this beautiful cream silk satin, which was made at the Spitalfields Manufactory in London, and overlaid is this beautiful Honiton lace made, as the name suggests, in Honiton in Devon. And this combination, in fact, replicates the combination of materials in Queen Victoria's own wedding dress. With the robe are a number of accessories, including this beautiful shawl featuring the same lace and silk satin, and here we also have beautiful rosette, beautiful embroidery, showing the national emblems of the United Kingdom. We also have two silk satin bows with wonderful tassels, and also the sash that is worn around the robe itself. The combination of materials, using Spitalfields silk and Honiton lace, is really an example of Queen Victoria wishing to use the best of British manufacture, and this is something that Queen Elizabeth II, in her own reign, would replicate. The idea of supporting British fashion, British textile manufacture, was really at the heart of the creation of most of her wardrobe. Being such an important historic textile, Her Majesty the Queen realised that by 2004 it had become really too fragile to continue to be used for royal baptisms, and so she commissioned a replica robe to be made, which has been used at all subsequent royal christenings. The christening robe has not been conserved since the 1960s, and it was continued to be used beyond the 1960s, so this really is the first time it's been properly, comprehensively conserved in its lifetime. So this was an opportunity to really secure all the areas of damage, all the years of use for this gown. People often ask me why I don't wear gloves when I'm working with historic textiles, and the simple reason is when I've got gloves on I can't feel what I'm doing. This for example is so incredibly fine that I need to know where the areas of weakness are, and I can only do that with my fingers. I make sure my hands are always clean because the salts from your fingers can affect historic textiles, but I wash my hands and then I can handle things safely. The christening robe when it first came to me was in quite weak condition. The spittle-filled silk underdress had completely split in places. There were large breaks from the waist all the way down, and that is in part natural way that silk degrades. It does break down over the years, and this is nearly 200 years old, so it has done very well to still be intact. It was also from use, 62 babies wearing it. That's a lot of wear for anything, let alone something as delicate as this. Interestingly, the majority of the damage was in this central area, which I assume is where all the little baby legs were kicking and damaging it right there. In addition, the lace was very, very discoloured, and there were some large, large holes in the itself. The discolouration is a natural process of degradation, and you often see this sort of yellowy degradation across all historic textiles. So this had discoloured in a very, very typical manner, and there was also just some general grey discolouration from being in the environment. The textile absorbs salts from the environment, and it discolours it naturally. But overall, it was in remarkably good condition for something as old as it was, and used as much as it was. And according to the box it came in, there's a little note on the top that says to be washed in natural spring water after use, and that has definitely gone a long way to helping look after this object, and it's definitely helped it long term. There's been two sides to the conservation. The first one was doing this silk petticoat, and this one I have supported it entirely with something called an adhesive underlay, which is silk crepoline, and that is underneath the whole thing. And then there's further laid couching in a silk thread, just to really secure those damaged areas. So I've put an entire lace panel behind this central bit, and stitched it down these areas of seams, so it blends in with the rest of the robe. And then I've had to stitch round areas of damage, again a silk thread and a blanket stitch, just to secure those areas of weakness, and prevent further damage in the future. Similarly, there was a lot of staining in this area of the dress, and when I'd taken them apart, I wet cleaned this lace overlay. So I lay it out completely flat in the big bath, and then I use an acid and a salt to manipulate the properties of pH and conductivity in the water. This is a really sustainable way of wet cleaning, because it's all chemicals that are used in the food industry, in the cosmetics industry, so they're not harmful to the environment. It also uses much less water than using a detergent. I also think it's a really effective way of doing it, because if you compare it to the cloak, which I have not yet washed, you can see the colour difference. It has reduced some of the staining that I talked about in the middle, it hasn't completely taken all the staining out of the top area, but an ethical consideration in conservation is how far to push my treatment. And I decided that I wouldn't push the treatment any further, I wouldn't use any bleach, I wouldn't use any further chemicals on it, because it's so historic, and I didn't want to cause any further damage in doing that. This has been one of the longest conservation projects I've worked on, at nearly 100 hours. Normally conservation treatments are around 30 hours. That has included all the wet cleaning and the stitching of each of the elements that have gone with the robe. It has been a real honour to work on this piece, it's an incredible legacy piece, and personally for me to be part of that legacy has been a challenge and a great joy. It has been daunting at times, but I've had to put that aside and use my skills and training to ensure that I am doing the best for the object in the long term.