As the Nation mourns the passing of Queen Elizabeth II and the end of her 70 year reign, we fondly remember the coats that we personally made for her during her time as Monarch.
It was a privilege and an honour to be asked to make garments for the Queen and something which we will never forget.
Chiltern Street, Marylebone has been home to our tailoring business since 1971. Over the decades, there have been some incredible businesses on Chiltern Street, not least the couture studio, owned and managed by Karl-Ludwig Rehse, which provided tailoring to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth. Rehse obtained his Royal Warrant in 2000 as the official supplier of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
The epitomy of discretion, and highly respected, Rehse never breathed a word about any of his projects with Queen Elizabeth. Instead it was a lovely unspoken secret that the Queen’s designer worked on Chiltern Street.
As with all tailoring, cloth is a very different medium to leather, suede and sheepskin, needing specialist equipment, skills and experience, so when we were asked to make suede coats for the Queen, we were deeply honoured and proud to be able to offer our experience at such an esteemed level.
Obviously we do not have any high-quality, personal photos of the Queen wearing the garments we made, but we do have our treasured newspaper cuttings of her wearing both our red suede coat and our powder blue suede coat. These newspaper cuttings still sit proudly in our shop at 56 Chiltern Street.
With the recent passing of Queen Elizabeth II, we felt it was the right time to share our memories of Chiltern Street during her reign.
