The Most Controversial Outfits Queen Elizabeth Ever Wore

As the longest-reigning monarch in English history, Queen Elizabeth II had to choose what she wore everyday very carefully. They were rules she had to follow, and she had to strike that perfect balance between tradition and fashion. She also had specific reasons for some of the choices that she made, from her brightly colored outfits and hats to her accessories, broaches, and handbags.

As Elizabeth's official dresser, Angela Kelly assisted the queen in striking that balance of elegance and function for more than 25 years. According to Forbes, Kelly planned the royal outfits months in advance and developed a special working relationship with the queen after years of choosing fabrics and accessories together. Kelly even broke in Her Majesty's new shoes, as the two wore the same size.

As we've all seen, Her Majesty's style evolved to show modest but colorful dresses and hats, sometimes with floral motifs, usually in bright colors that stand out and that complement her skin and eye color. Colors like grey were too boring, and black is only used for mourning. Hats needed to be eye-catching but couldn't cover her face. As Forbes wrote, "Neutrality ... is key to the royal wardrobe."

However, the queen's lavish outfits didn't always hit that neutral mark, and there were a few times when her fashion ensembles got people talking. Let's take a look.

Before she became the Queen of England, Princess Elizabeth was quite fashion-forward, wearing some very beautiful and eye-catching gowns. She enjoyed the 1950s fashions of cinched waists, buxom bodices, and wide skirts, and loved wearing furs and high sandals. While Her Majesty wanted to stand out in a crowd, so that supporters both far and near could see her, as was achieved by her bright colors, some felt in the conservative 1950s that she was perhaps standing out for the wrong reasons.

When Elizabeth wore a glamorous and form-fitting white lace dress to a garden party in Australia, people strained to see her figure from the back of the room. Royal fashion commentator Elizabeth Holmes, whose popular Instagram account currently has 199,000 followers, told the New York Post that "people compared her to a pinup." Apparently, that is also the term Time Magazine used at the time, per Vanity Fair, describing the queen as having "pinup charm," and commenting on her hourglass shape: her narrow shoulders, big bosom, and small waist, as well as her shapely legs.

Holmes said Elizabeth was trying to positively represent the crown after the scandal of her uncle Edward VIII's recent abdication. "Her job was to dazzle," Holmes said. "We don't think of the queen like that."

As anyone who has watched Netflix's "The Crown" knows, Queen Elizabeth had an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and wasn't the type to let others do things for her. One example was her insistence on joining the military effort during World War II, despite objections from her father, the king.

The royal family won public support during the war when they announced they would stay in England in solidarity after the Blitz, according to the Evening Standard. Though 18-year-old Princess Elizabeth and her sister Princess Margaret were sent to Windsor Castle while their parents stayed in London, they joined the war effort, giving a joint wartime broadcast in 1940. Elizabeth also completed a training course at the Aldershot facility in Surrey for six weeks and insisted on joining the Auxiliary Territorial Service toward the end of the war. Though she had barely begun her military career when the war ended, she was promoted to Junior Commander and became the first woman in the royal family to serve.

Photos of the princess in her uniform, working on car engines and driving trucks, caused the press at the time to give her the name "Princess Auto Mechanic." But she enjoyed learning to drive, as well as tear apart and rebuild, different military vehicles and engines. According to a 1947 article in Collier's Magazine (per the Standard), she loved "to get dirt under her nails and grease stains in her hands, and display these signs of labor to her friends."

It should be expected that any member of the royal family would wear an extravagant gown for their wedding, but the circumstances around Queen Elizabeth II's wedding were a little different. Her gown was, of course, gorgeous and fashionable for the time. According to Hello, the gown was made from Chinese silk adorned with pearl and diamante-encrusted flowers along the fitted bodice and the 15-foot train. Designed and created by Norman Hartnell, the gown cost £30,000 in 1947 when she married the Duke of Edinburgh.

While that may not seem like a lot of money for a royal wedding gown, this was 1947, only two short years after the end of World War II. While the idea behind the embroidered wedding gown, inspired by Botticelli's "Allegory of Spring" (per Good Housekeeping), was to send a message of hope and renewal after the war, clothing was still being rationed, and some thought the dress was a bit ostentatious. It was perhaps out-of-touch to wear such an excessive gown during this time.

But the queen paid for her gown with ration coupons she had saved up, in addition to an extra 200 coupons she was "granted," according to Marie Claire. She also turned down coupons from citizens, sometimes heartbroken brides whose grooms had died in the war, who wanted to help her complete the gown by gifting her their coupons. They were returned to their senders with a personalized note, per the New York Post.

Neutrality was king, or queen, in choosing Queen Elizabeth's outfits, and she was careful not to make statements with her fashion. For example, the New York Post reported that she made sure to choose a color that wasn't common in flags when she appeared at international events, such as the Olympics. But while she wasn't allowed to express political views, she did sometimes throw shade, making subtle statements through her clothing choices. They weren't easy to see, and the palace would never confirm them, but they were there, and they were so entertaining.

One such example is when former President Donald Trump went to England for a visit in 2018. During the day, the queen wore a paisley-shaped broach that was gifted to her from Barack and Michelle Obama. Even better, at the evening's event, Queen Liz wore a beautiful tiara, created by the House of Garrard, that was encrusted with 96 rubies. According to the crown jeweler (via Good Housekeeping), it was originally "a wedding gift from the people of Burma, intended as a symbol of protection against illness and evil."

During the 2017 opening of Parliament, shortly after the highly contentious 2016 Brexit referendum, Her Majesty wore a bright blue and yellow floral dress and blue coat — similar to the colors of the EU flag. Her blue hat contained yellow flowers that looked like the stars on the EU flag. Many felt it was the queen's way of showing her disapproval of the controversial decision.

It's well known that Queen Elizabeth wore lots of bright, bold colors, usually solid but sometimes in floral prints. This was for practical and even security reasons, as well as fashionable reasons. For one, colors that pop allowed audience members to see the petit queen from a distance. They also helped her bodyguards find her in a crowd, per Express, so they could protect her better.

However, one infamous dress perhaps backfired a bit, at least from the fashion perspective, but it sure gave the internet a good laugh. When Her Majesty, for her 90th birthday in 2016, wore a bright green dress, the same color movie productions use for their green screens, Twitter went bananas playing with photos, adding backgrounds and silly videos to the monarch's sartorial ensemble, simply because they could. The perfectly inhuman color was easy to select and replace for anyone with the tiniest bit of Photoshop knowledge.

From Batman's armor, to "Game of Thrones" images — some complete with dragons — to burgers and pizza, to the other queen, Freddie Mercury and pals, folks on the internet (like BoredPanda) turned her dress into all kinds of statements. This way they could see the leader of the country make nearly any political statement they wanted. Want to see Elizabeth II as a Sid Vicious fan? Here you go. Have her make a statement for Pride? Have at it. Want her to disappear completely and just be a floating head? Your wish is their command.