Vogue’s Hamish Bowles Dashes to London for Hockney and Hartnell Inline

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    Photo: Hamish Bowles
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    Outside London’s Royal Academy of Arts stands the 18th-century portraitist and first President of the Academy, Sir Joshua Reynolds, currently garlanded with flowers.

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    Photo: Courtesy of the Royal Collection Trust
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    Queen Elizabeth II’s 1947 wedding dress by Norman Hartnell was inspired by Botticelli’s Primavera and featured garlands of embroidered pearl orange blossoms, jasmine, and White Rose of York.

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    Photo: Arthur Tanner / Getty Images
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    Hartnell’s sketch depicts the diaphanous train worn by the Queen at her Westminster Abbey wedding.

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    Photo: Courtesy of the Royal Collection Trust
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    Hartnell’s tour-de-force coronation gown for the soon-to-be Queen Elizabeth II featured emblems of the Commonwealth rendered in 10,000 seed pearls and thousands of white crystal beads.

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    Photo: Courtesy of Sir Norman Hartnell
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    The designer’s sketch for the resplendent gown in 1953.

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    Photo: Ian Gavan / Getty Images
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    Senior curator of decorative arts, Caroline de Guitaut, stands with a quintet of looks from the exhibition in the palace’s white drawing room.

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    Photo: Courtesy of the Royal Academy of Arts
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    Hockney’s recent portrait of textile designer Celia Birtwell.

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    Photo: Courtesy of the Royal Academy of Arts
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    Australian comedian Barry Humphries’s portrait on view at “David Hockney RA: 82 Portraits and 1 Still-life.”