The Costumes of 1951's Royal Wedding

             If you know me, you know I love movie costumes. I recently watched Royal Wedding for the first time, and boy, oh boy, did it have amazing costumes. The movie was originally planned as a Fred Astaire/Judy Garland vehicle to capitalize on their smash success in Easter Parade. Costume designer Helen Rose began making costumes for Judy, but when Judy had to drop out of the film, Rose transferred those designs over to up-and-coming star Jane Powell.

            I had to do a fair bit of research to figure out who designed Royal Wedding's costumes. There wasn't a designer credited in the film, and the Wikipedia page doesn't list one. Eventually, thanks to handy-dandy IMDB, I found one little bullet point hidden in the Cast and Crew section: "Helen Rose (uncredited)." Uncredited??!?! was my general reaction to that. Helen Rose was an icon of costume design! She did On The Town and Annie Get Your Gun and Million Dollar Mermaid and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof! She designed Grace Kelly's wedding dress! I hurried over to Helen Rose's Wikipedia page, where there was no mention of Royal Wedding in her filmography, so I added it.

            So, to set the record straight, here are the costumes of 1951's Royal Wedding in all their glory, designed by Helen Rose. 

             Royal Wedding stars Fred Astaire and Jane Powell as Tom and Ellen Bowen, a brother-and-sister dancing team. The movie shares lots of parallels with Fred Astaire's own time dancing with his sister, Adele. The opening number is a scene from their show, "Every Night at Seven," where Tom plays a king and Ellen is a palace maid. It's a great dance with even better costumes.

 

            This is the back of the maid costume, which is a floaty, glittery gray fabric. Look at the row of buttons and the cute white bow!

            From the front we can really admire all the details. There's a little apron that ties in the back. The bodice has a Queen Anne neckline, which is like a sweetheart but with straight sides. And it has puffy little cap sleeves! Here's a picture of Jane Powell in costume on the film set, where you can see all the lace trim on the sleeves and neckline, the accordion-pleated skirt, and the layers of petticoats underneath.
 

            Tom wears a gray somewhat-royal-looking suit with red and yellow racing stripes which perfectly match the golden-yellow feather duster. Later in his dressing room, he wears a gray robe embroidered with the Tom Bowen monogram T.B.

            Tom and Ellen get dressed up to go out, Tom in a suit (royal blue!) and light blue tie, and Ellen in a black dress with a bright yellow sash and sheer wrap. Her hat/cap thing seems to button at her ears, but I'm not sure what it buttons to. The guy with Ellen is her Southern boyfriend Pete, who doesn't play much of a role except being Southern, honey.

            While the siblings are out, they meet their manager, who tells them that there's an opening for "Every Night at Seven" overseas in London, and their booking will line up with the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten! They pack right away and go to catch an ocean liner. At the New York dock there's a rather funny scene where Ellen wishes goodbye to three of her boyfriends, and when they all come to wave goodbye, they get in a fistfight. The real star of this scene is her cherry-red suit with its enormous hat.

            The outfit is completed with a double strand of pearls, a white and gold clutch, white gloves, and a matching coat of red lipstick.

             Tom's suit in this scene isn't my favorite - why the blue-gray suit with the brown-gray hat? And the black-and-yellow tie? Strange color choices were made.

             He soon switches it for a similar, yet more tasteful (still gray) suit, while Ellen wears a cute (also gray) sweater and skirt with red-white-and-blue neckline trim. Maybe this signifies them leaving America for England? It could be, especially once Ellen meets John Brindale (Peter Lawford), a dashing English Lord en route to the royal wedding. 

            Meanwhile, Tom is dancing in the boat gymnasium. This is Fred Astaire's famous number in which he dances with a hat rack. Here he wears the signature scarf-as-a-belt look, which Fred wore in daily life, and which appears in so many of his films.

             John and Ellen hit it off, and the three go to dinner in these outfits which we see for about 15 seconds of the movie. Ellen's dress has a red patterned skirt and black V-neck bodice with some shiny flowers up one sleeve.

            And here we see my absolute favorite costume from the film, which Ellen wears while singing and dancing to the lovely song "Open Your Eyes." The dress is light purple, an effect which Helen Rose achieved by using a purple petticoat and slowly layering lighter shades of the color until the whole dress appears lavender. It has a coral-colored velvet belt, ruched fabric at the sweetheart neckline, and sparkly corset-style trim, too!

            Just look at all the layers and shades of purple! 

            Fun fact: during this scene, Tom and Ellen have to dance while the boat rocks back and forth and they keep losing their balance. This actually happened during one of Fred and Adele Astaire's performances on an ocean liner!

            The siblings arrive at their London hotel and meet with their manager's identical twin brother, who is British. A few funny phone calls scenes occur where the brothers attempt to decipher each other's slang terms. Ellen meets up with John and visits his gorgeous country home. (Who else loves old movie car-driving scenes?) Her costume in this scene is a mustard yellow blouse and skirt, with a red ribbon necktie. And her tan trench coat is lined with red-and-yellow plaid!

            Meanwhile, Tom is auditioning dancers for their show. He hires a lady named Anne Ashmond, basically because he has a crush on her. (Anne is played by Sarah Churchill, the real-life daughter of Winston Churchill!)

            After this eventful day, the siblings meet at their hotel room and agree they're going to bed. However, both Tom and Ellen sneak out to meet their dates, which causes a hilarious scene where they see each other leaving the hotel in taxis. Ellen wears my second-favorite outfit from the film, which we sadly only see for about 20 seconds total. The floaty pink skirt! The gray fur wrap! All the colors work together so prettily.

             Tom eats dinner with Anne, who mostly wears very plain and modest suits for the whole movie. Perhaps this was an effort to highlight her British-ness?

            The next day, Tom plays piano for Ellen as she rehearses a song for their show. Tom is pretty oblivious as he plays, but Ellen sings the song quite romantically to John, who is also there. She wears a gray-blue belted dress with clasps down the front, and a yellow sweater underneath. Jane Powell's voice is so pretty, and I had never seen any of her films, so after she passed away I felt like I should. She's such a talented performer!

             Then Tom and Ellen go to rehearsals for the show. Fashion mirroring - they both have untied neckties!

            "Every Night at Seven" opens to rave reviews, and beginning with the number "How Could You Believe Me When I Said I Loved You When You Know I've Been a Liar All My Life?" Yes, that's the whole title. Tom and Ellen are dressed as gangsters, him in a straw hat and a crazy yellow-blue-and-checked suit with the highest waist ever seen; her in a yellow chevron sweater, a red-and-yellow pleated skirt, and a red beret. Notice how similar Ellen's sweater is to the one she wears before!

            That night after the show, Ellen goes on a walk by the river with John. She wears the same gray fur from before, this time with a periwinkle satin gown. Look at the smocking at the waist!

            Tom returns to the hotel room, where he serenades a picture of Anne with the song "You're All the World to Me." This song is one of the best from the movie - and the dance, of course, is iconic.

            The next morning the siblings eat breakfast and read the newspaper reviews of their show, which are all glowingly positive. Ellen wears a pretty nightgown with fun puffy sleeves.

             There's another performance of the show, where we see another novelty number - "I Left My Hat in Haiti" - and the costumes are all bright colors presumably for the exotic, tropical vibe. Oh, and there's a monkey.

             Tom and Ellen go to watch the real royal wedding - aka that of Elizabeth and Philip - but they're both miserable, because they each want to get married as well. Eventually they make a plan to get married that very day (incredibly impossible, but who cares, it's a movie). Tom rushes to find Anne, while Ellen chases after John's car. "John! I wanna marry you!" "WHAT?" "I said I wanna marry you!"

            Both couples are married on the day of the royal wedding - it's a triple wedding! And so our movie comes to a happy end.

            I hoped you enjoyed my costume analysis! I loved Royal Wedding and I thought it was a wonderful film. The singing was beautiful, the dances were excellent, and of course the costumes were amazing. Thanks for reading!