Published ahead of the centenary of the Queen's birth, this is a beautifully illustrated and exquisite hidden history of the Crown and how it survived a tumultuous era and two world wars.

Unlike her distant ancestors, a queen isn't shielded from enemies by suits of armour. The women of the House of Windsor - Queen Mary, the Queen Mother, Wallis Simpson who would become Duchess of Windsor and Queen Elizabeth II - faced abdications and assassinations, revolutions, the rise of fascism and war. Their sartorial decisions projected power and perpetuity, diplomacy and even defiance. In this cinematic, vivid story of soft power and couture, Picardie uncovers the fascinating, little-known lives of the couturiers behind the clothes, figures like Hardy Amies, Edward Molyneux and Norman Hartnell, and traces the ways in which visual iconography safeguarded the monarchy even when their reign seemed to be hanging by a thread.