The Queen was a fashion icon – not because she embraced new trends, but because she always managed to stand out boldly but elegantly, while projecting continuity and tradition.

She was often chosen for “best-dressed” lists, and whether she was wearing cerise, sunshine yellow, or the much-talked about neon green at the 2016 Trooping The Colour, she always knew how to stand out from the crowd, ensuring those who had waited hours, come rain or shine, to catch a glimpse of the monarch were not disappointed.

She used clothes to make people feel special – that she had made an effort for them – but she also used clothes as a message for tacit diplomacy.

For royal tours in her younger years, she – with the help of a well-informed team of designers and dressers – would work national colours and symbols into her outfits to flatter the countries she visited.

This was a Queen who dressed with duty and public service at the forefront of her mind.

“If I wore beige, nobody would know who I am,” she reportedly once said.

A show of respect to other countries

The Queen’s 2011 visit to Dublin was of huge historical importance. King George V had been the last reigning monarch to visit the country, in 1911, when what is now the Republic was then part of the UK.

As a symbol of peaceful ango-Irish relations, she was dressed head to toe in green, the national colour of the…