Sir Hardy Amies

The Queen's couturier, he beat Christian Dior to the New Look and made his name with fine tailoring Colin McDowell It is not so much that the couturier Hardy Amies lived a fraction too long to do his reputation any good; it is more that he gave in to the vanity that so frequently afflicts the aged survivor. And he was certainly a survivor. His reaching the age of 93 is remarkable enough, but even more amazing is the vigour the man commanded right to the end: past the age of 80 he was active enough to go sailing, and was still playing tennis. His capacity to down a Bloody Mary was awe-inspiring. All the sadder, then, that he allowed himself to be betrayed by the news media. As his judgment slipped, Amies became prey to ruthless editors who encouraged him to say sloppy things, exposing his envy of the young and displaying in public his understandable resentment and bewilderment that fashion had moved on, leaving him stranded, surrounded by nothing other than the shreds of his belief in the past excellences of the glory days of haute couture. His attack on the modern British couturiers, John Galliano and Alexander McQueen, published in the Spectator in 1997, was just silly - the ramblings of a vain old man, determined not to acknowledge that the fashion world had undergone a radical change since his day. Any editor worthy of the name would have spiked it. That year he was similarly betrayed in the Sunday Telegraph, in an interview in which a journalist egged him on to be indiscreet about the Queen - he, who had always been so punctilious in not giving any details of what went on in the fittings at the palace. He, who kept his comments, often hilarious in their waspish observation of HM and her entourage, for only his closest and most trustworthy friends. And yet the piece was published. Such manipulation of an old man was distressing, especially as those in the know were aware that they were the cry of a man frustrated and hurt by the fact that he had been removed from all control of the firm which he had founded and brought to triumphant maturity, keeping it going when all about him London couture houses were closing, never to open again. A man who all his life had been a control freak, but whose business acumen was poorly rated by the new shareholders at Hardy Amies - they all but banned him from the premises bearing his name. His observations were also the late-flowering self-indulgence of a man who had always rather fancied himself as a writer - and had, in his youth, hoped to be a journalist. He could not resist the flattery of being in print. But all of that was Hardy Amies past his prime. The man who was famed as the Queen's dressmaker was of different clay. Witty, sharp and alert to everything happening in society and the arts, Amies in his prime was a marvellous companion - provided you could stomach his snobbishness. After a queen, Hardy Amies dearly loved a duchess and considered a duke not only a cynosure but the arbiter of all things which mattered - which, in Amies's view, were to do with dress, deportment and manners, dominated by the standards of a class long past its prime. Middle class to the tips of his talented fingers, Hardy was in great awe of the aristocracy and aped them as much as he dared. Although he frequently referred to himself as a "humble shopkeeper", he fooled nobody. Amies was consumed with arrogance, and confident in the position he had carved for himself both socially and creatively. To anyone who did not know him, that must have made the man sound unsympathetic. Despite the fact that he could be monumentally difficult - a trait shared with every couturier I have ever met - nothing could be less true. All was redeemed by a quick intelligence, a sharp wit and a sparkling sense of humour. He was born in Maida Vale, west London. His father was a civil servant working for the London County Council, and his mother was a saleswoman who, until her marriage, worked at a court dressmaking establishment in Bond Street. He had a sister and a brother who had Down's syndrome. Amies was educated at Brentwood school, Essex, where he made a name for himself in school theatricals playing female roles. He left in 1927, and was interviewed for a job by the editor of the Daily Telegraph, who advised his father to spend money on sending him abroad, rather than to university. Amies worked in France and Germany and came home fluent in the language of both countries. Although he had no experience in fashion - his job in Germany was with the weighing-machine firm, Avery's - a letter he sent to an aunt, describing a fellow guest's dress at a dinner party, landed him his first job in fashion. The dress described was worn by the wife of the owner of the fashionable sportswear firm of Lachasse, whose designer, Digby Morton, had recently left to set up his own fashion house. Amies - totally untried - took over his role, although what he was to do was never actually spelt out to him. The year was 1933.