The bridesmaid dress worn by one of Queen Elizabeth II's closest friends to her royal wedding in 1947 will be auctioned for the first time this summer after a photograph of the design being worn by supermodel Kate Moss has been revealed.
Lady Elizabeth Longman (nee Lambart) acted as one of the late queen's eight bridesmaids during her wedding to Prince Philip in November 1947 and was a member of the monarch's inner circle until her death in 2016.
The bridesmaids wore specially created gowns for the Westminster Abbey wedding designed by London's premiere couturier, Norman Hartnell.
Hartnell is best known for the dresses he designed for Queen Elizabeth during the first half her reign, including the embroidered gown worn for her coronation in 1953.
Longman retained her scoop-neckline white tulle dress with lace floral embellishments after the royal wedding, and following her death, family members inherited the historic piece.
The dress will be auctioned for the first time in its history on July 2 in Christie's "The Exceptional Sale" in London. It is estimated to raise between £30,000 and £50,000 ($38,000 to $64,000).
A press release accompanying the sale announcement revealed a fascinating piece of fashion history: For the first time, an image of British supermodel Kate Moss wearing the dress alongside Longman was published.
Longman is the grandmother of the British aristocrat Lady Rose Hanbury who became the Marchioness of Cholmondeley upon her marriage to David, the 7th Marquis of Cholmondeley, in June 2009.
The Cholmondeleys live at Houghton Hall in Norfolk, and in 2012, Moss visited the estate for a photo shoot with fashion photographer Tim Walker for LOVE magazine.
Walker photographed Moss wearing pieces of haute couture alongside Cholmondeley's grandmother, Longman, who wore a 1930s gown by Vionnet from her own collection along with a tiara and pearls.
The newly surfaced photograph of Moss wearing Longman's Norman Hartnell bridesmaid dress was an outtake from the shoot.
In a Christie's press release, Moss said she felt privileged to wear such an important piece of British fashion history.
"Meeting Lady Elizabeth and wearing her dress, that had such a wonderful heritage, was a magical moment for me," she said. "I felt like I was wearing a piece of history."
Royal gowns and fashion items have proven to be in high demand at auction in recent years. While dresses worn by or that are connected to the late Queen Elizabeth surface extremely rarely, more often items belonging to Princess Diana change hands for sums exceeding six figures.
In January 2023, a purple evening gown made for Diana by Victor Edelstein in 1989 broke the record for the price paid for one of her dresses, reaching a hammer price of $604,800 at Sotheby's in New York.
In September of the same year, the princess' famous Warm & Wonderful black sheep sweater, which was worn on a number of occasions, broke a record again, becoming the most expensive piece of memorabilia associated with the late royal, reaching a hammer price in New York of $1.143 million.
Longman's Norman Hartnell bridesmaid dress is likely to attract potential bids from museum collections around the world. It was displayed at The Fashion Museum in Bath, England between the 1980s and early 2000s.
Norman Hartnell saw a resurgence in public interest in 2020 when Queen Elizabeth II lent one of her 1960s ballgowns made by the designer to her granddaughter, Princess Beatrice, to wear as her wedding dress.
The scaled-down ceremony took place on the Windsor Castle estate. The dress had originally been worn by Elizabeth to the State Opening of Parliament in 1967.
The late queen is known to have archived a large number of the important dresses she wore throughout her reign. They are now expected to have been inherited by King Charles III and could one day go on display with the Royal Collection Trust.
James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek's royal reporter, based in London. You can find him on X (formerly Twitter) at @jrcrawfordsmith and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.
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About the writer
James Crawford-Smith is a Newsweek Royal Reporter, based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on the British royal family ... Read more
