The Queen’s Maple Leaf Style: Nova Scotia’s mayflower gown
A deeply romantic gown worn by the 33-year-old monarch on the last evening of the 1959 tour
The last stop of the Queen’s longest tour of Canada was in Halifax, the capital of Nova Scotia. And the last event of that entire tour was a farewell dinner given by the federal and provincial governments on August 1, 1959. It was there that the Canadian monarch wore the mayflower dress that is featured in the Queen Elizabeth II: Her Life in Style exhibition at the King’s Gallery of Buckingham Palace.
That tour, which started on June 18, 1959, was pegged to the opening of one of the greatest engineering projects of that era: the St. Lawrence Seaway. In addition, the 33-year-old monarch and her husband, Prince Philip, visited every province and territory, before ending their journey in Nova Scotia.
The mayflower gown is utterly romantic. Designed by Hardy Amies, the gown was designed specifically for that tour and likely for that specific dinner.
The grey-blue silk organza of the gown is embroidered with white-and-pink apple blossoms and the delicate pink mayflowers, two iconic symbols of Nova Scotia. Apples have been cultivated in the Annapolis Valley since 1633 while the mayflower (also known as the trailing arbutus) has been the floral emblem of Nova Scotia since 1901.
While the gown’s overall style of a tight bodice and billowing skirt are typical of the Queen’s evening gowns in the 1950s, the back of the mayflower gown is decidedly frilly, with a style that seems to hearken back to the Victorian era. In particular, Amies inserted two wide horizontal strips of shimmering pink satin onto the back of the dress that echo a similar half satin belt at the waist. Each “ribbon tier” is centred with a large bow of the same pink satin.
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