Why Royal Ascot should never lose its dress code
Royal Ascot is encouraging attendees to “look beyond the rules” for fashion inspiration this year – but Eliot Wilson thinks a dress code fuels creativity
Royal Ascot is one of the greatest glories of the Season. It is the event which has it all: royalty, tradition, glamour, fashion, money (won and lost) and the centre of it all, the sport of kings. Bright silks, thundering hooves, legends written. It is, of course, an anachronism, but it is a glorious one. If the racing is important, the fashion at Royal Ascot is at least as much so: it is known for exacting and rigorously policed standards as well as providing a stage for the display of finery.
The Royal Enclosure has the strictest prescriptions, requiring black, grey or navy morning dress for gentlemen and carefully regulated dresses or trouser suits for ladies. Hats are a must. And, to spice up the sense of conservatism, it was only in 1955 that divorcées were allowed in the Royal Enclosure, no matter how they were dressed.
This is, of course, the first Ascot Week since the death of the late Queen, who loved horses and horse racing perhaps more than anything else. Although he was once a keen polo player, one does not sense the same passion for the turf in His Majesty The King, but he will undoubtedly perform his public duties, and few wear morning dress more elegantly and easily than he does.
This year the organisers of Ascot are trying to inject a note of contemporary dash and excitement into the venerable event. For the past dozen years they have issued a style handbook to guide the uncertain through what is permitted and what is not; this year, it has been jazzily revamped as The Royal Ascot Lookbook and has become more inspiration than codification. It is divided into six “edits”: Luxe, Tailoring, Pre-Loved & Rental, Vintage, High Street and Emerging Designer. As so often in the world of fashion, most of this advice is aimed at the distaff side.
Racegoers are encouraged to “raid grandma’s hat box and scour charity shops” to assemble their outfits, and organisers hope it “encapsulates the zeitgeist of occasion wear dressing for the spring/summer 2023 season”. The Lookbook namechecks design grandees like Gucci and Favourbrook as well as insurgents like Jaquemus and Charles Jeffrey LOVERBOY, and it makes a creditable effort to cater for a range of budgets without seeming penny-pinching or dour-faced. The aim, the organisers say, is to “look beyond the rules and regulations”.
I should not be too curmudgeonly. Royal Ascot should be fun and race goers should enjoy themselves and enjoy their outfits. Dress codes are not as popular as they were, seen now (quite wrongly) as restrictive rather than helpful, and people like to express their “individuality”. The late Queen was never the kind of conservative sartorial obstacle that her grandfather, George V, had been; he disliked trousers creased front-and back, preferring them at the sides, and persisted with frock coats when most had abandoned them for tailcoats. Nevertheless this is a new reign and Royal Ascot is intimately linked with the sovereign, so a fresh chapter is inevitable and understandable.
Sometimes a dress code is actually better, making people dig deeper into their sartorial imagination
For gentlemen it is, relatively speaking, steady as she goes. Morning dress is ineffably elegant, allowing enough variation in colour to satisfy anyone this side of Harry Styles. Favourbrook is the approved supplier for Royal Ascot, but those who don’t already own an appropriate outfit can find excellent offerings in Edward Green or Oliver Brown of Jermyn Street, Huntsman or Gieves and Hawkes or their preferred tailor on Savile Row or the generational safety net of Moss Brothers. The objection is this. People need to understand their brand and its value, and understand why it works.
The Royal Enclosure at Ascot is iconic because it is a strictly regulated environment. It raises the sartorial bar high and carries race goers with it, allowing them a small but significant degree of latitude to make their mark. And that is the whole point. Everything is about the bottom line. I understand that. Royal Ascot may be a glorious expression of tradition and style but that means nothing if it does not pay. Knowing one’s audience, however, is absolutely vital.
Even in the leanest of times, the Royal Enclosure is unlikely to be undersubscribed, so the organisers are not wholly at the mercy of passing fads. Sometimes more prescription is actually better, making people dig deeper into their sartorial imagination. You want an example? Think of the most iconic meeting ever: “Black Ascot”, held in 1910 a few months after the death of Edward VII.
The dress code for the Royal Enclosure was black, with the only concessions being white flowers and pearls. This stark but striking aesthetic was brilliantly mined by Cecil Beaton for the Ascot Gavotte in My Fair Lady (1964), and he picked up the Oscar for best costume design as a result. Royal Ascot is not like other events. It is iconic, yes, and world-famous, but it is also redolent with the past, with 250 years of horseracing and royal patronage. Strict dress codes are, as tech bros like to say, a feature, not a bug. We should all lean into this, because, as the recent coronation of Charles III showed us, nobody does it better. Staying between the lines doesn’t need to be boring. In fact, it can be the guide to timeless, inimitable glamour.
Three people who played the Royal Ascot dress code just right
King Charles III
The new monarch always excels when it comes to formal dress. The black morning coat in which he married Queen Camilla was an old favourite, but for Ascot he prefers a dove-grey ensemble which is hard for some to pull off. Quirkily he completes it with a delicious black silk top hat. The King is a study in attention to detail: a small flower in the buttonhole is exuberant without being dandyish, a stiff-collared shirt and discreet tie lie just the right side of flamboyant and a watch chain across the double-breasted waistcoat finishes the outfit. There’s a reason royal seals of approval are so avidly sought.
Katherine Jenkins
The Welsh mezzo-soprano has an impressive strike rate at Ascot. She knows the rules but also knows her brand relies in part on eye-catching sexiness. In 2011 she chose a form-fitting and sleeveless red dress which just skirted the limits of Royal Enclosure modesty and provided a magnificent counterpoint in a broad-brimmed red hat; in 2014 it was a slender but demure turquoise dress, shoulders covered this time and cinched at the waist by a broad belt, with a matching fascinator and loose blonde hair. Daring but hitting the target every time.
Lady Amelia Spencer
Some people just get it. Maybe it’s familiarity, maybe it’s good advice, maybe it’s an innate eye for elegance, but last year Lady Amelia Spencer, one of Earl Spencer’s twin daughters, kept it simple but perfect with a black-and-white spotted dress and ivory hat, modest to a fault with a hem almost at the ankle and full-length sleeves. It was a masterclass in understatement, the attitude one of having turned up without a moment’s thought, but every element was perfect, down to the sharp-toed black kitten heels. Most people could plan for months and still fall short of this kind of immaculate appearance. Sometimes the old aristocracy instinctively hits the mark.
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