Coronation gown (audio description)

Description
Queen Mauds coronation dress
Made by Vernon
Year: 1906  

It’s a full-length dress. It is tailored around the bust and waist. It is in gold-colored silk lamé, a shiny light fabric. The back length is two and a half meters, the dress ends in a tow, and has a deep neckline at the front and back. The sleeves end just below the elbows. The dress is embroidered with patterns in metal thread, pearls and diamonds. 

Narrator
There’s a lovely quote from Queen Maud. It’s from a letter she wrote in December 1905, a month after she came to Norway.  
 
Janne Arnesen
"Behold! I am a Queen!!! Who would have thought it? & I am the very last person to be stuck on a throne!" 

Narrator
Queen Maud’s words were spoken by Janne Arnesen, an art historian at the National Museum. She tells us how the young queen had a very special nickname among her friends and family.  

Janne Arnesen
As a girl, she was known as "Her Royal Shyness". She was shy and reserved – at least in public.  

Narrator
Maud became our first queen for nearly 600 years. This happened after the dissolution in 1905 of the Union between Sweden and Norway. After the Union ended, Maud’s husband, Prince Carl of Denmark, was offered the Norwegian throne. 

Janne Arnesen
The coronation ceremony at Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, a city in the central part of Norway, was the first major opportunity for many Norwegians to see their new queen. And Maud thought it was quite awful – both at her wedding and during the coronation – to have everyone looking at her.  

Narrator
It took six months, thousands of hours of work, and a collaboration between fashion houses in Norway and England, to make Queen Maud’s coronation gown. The result that you see before you is a dream-like creation in golden silk, embroidered with glittering gemstones, metal sequins and imitation pearls. 

Janne Arnesen
The gown was a very good choice for the occasion. If we compare the situation to a job interview, she was in every way dressed for the role. And perhaps I wouldn’t call it a diversionary tactic, but it’s clear that clothes can be used to boost one’s self-confidence. 

Narrator
Queen Maud’s sense of style quickly set the standard for fashion in Norway, and she is still referred to as a queen of fashion – in every sense of the word.