Royal Flash: Season 4 of the Crown faithfully reproduces the 80s power dressing of the British Royals

 With its power bouffants, sweetie-wrapper party dresses and alarming shoulder pads, some call the 1980s the time that fashion forgot. But in the fourth season of The Crown, which starts on TV tomorrow night, the era’s extraordinary clothing plays a pivotal role in bringing the decade’s stories back to vivid life. Some looks were faithfully recreated, while others were more loosely inspired by the actual wardrobes of the royal family, as the show’s costume designer, Amy Roberts, explains below.

Diana and Charles at the Wentworth Hotel ball

Diana, Princess of Wales, Wentworth hotel ball, Australian tour

Prince Charles and Diana’s 1983 Australian tour took on existential significance for the royal family, coming at a time of burgeoning republican sentiment. Diana was strategically deployed in the charm offensive, photographed as a doting mother, with baby William on her hip, wearing a seemingly never-ending supply of photogenic outfits.

This Bruce Oldfield gown, in a shade of blue recalling Walt Disney’s 1950 Cinderella, represents the high point of a very successful tour. “It was a deliberate choice to put her in this,” says Roberts. “There is a lot of irritation going on, on that tour, but this dress was the moment you felt maybe they did love each other. There’s sort of romance and youthfulness. The dress is kind of crazy, pure 80s, shimmery, slightly trashy, but it just moves so beautifully at the dance, when it’s all breathless and exciting.”

The biggest challenge was sourcing fabrics with the specific weight and drape, and distinctive colour palette, of the era. This particular fabric came from London’s Brick Lane. Afterwards, the Crown’s “genius cutters” recreated the dress from scratch, “working out all of those frills – it looks like a lizard down the side.”

Olivia Coleman plays the Queen (right)

The Queen, played by Olivia Colman, at the Braemar highland games

The Queen was mostly seen in “sugar almond colours” during the 1960s and 1970s of series 3, but now looks a lot more sombre in greens and browns, showing that she has “settled into her life as Queen and matriarch, and has become that steady background figure in everybody’s lives.”

The bow on her blouse “is a pointer to Thatcher, really,” says Roberts, who tried to accentuate developments in the women’s relationship through their outfits. The handbag is a recreation of those the Queen famously carries, by Launer, with similar recreations created for Thatcher.

Those near-identical bags, as well as Thatcher’s pearls, show that she is “emulating The Queen” at first, something that falls away as the power dynamics change later in the series.

Helena Bonham-Carter as Princess Margaret (right)

Princess Margaret, played by Helena Bonham Carter

“We just ran with Margaret, because we were dealing with the most extraordinary creature that is Helena Bonham Carter,” says Rogers, “so we went with the spirit of Margaret and how Helena was portraying her.”

This heavily boned swimming costume was inspired by corseted Rigby & Peller swimming costumes worn by the real Margaret, but its colour is fiction: all of Margaret’s clothes on the show occupy a “bruised” colour palette, reflecting a tragic stage of her life. “I look at my notebook for her, the samples of all her fabrics, and they are all sombre and strange.”

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