From statement to style icon – the influence of the royals on fashion culture past and present
Dress Codes – from statement to style icon opens at Paleis Het Loo on Thursday 9 October 2025. Produced in collaboration with Kunstmuseum Den Haag, the exhibition takes visitors to the world of the Dutch royal court through the ages, where successive female monarchs determined the dress code. Fashion played a key role in court life, and indeed still does today, as an expression of personal style and status. Dress Codes will also look at the celebrities who have adopted royal dress codes, just as female royals today make statements by wearing affordable fashions. See fabulous garments worn by Queen Wilhelmina and Queen Emma, and red-carpet outfits worn by style icons like Princess Diana, as well as Kendall Jenner, Salma Hayek and Margot Robbie.
The exhibition will feature unique historical items from the Royal Collections and the museum collections of Kunstmuseum Den Haag and Paleis Het Loo. Considering subjects like ceremony, gala events, mourning, marriage and the outdoor life, it will shed light on various aspects of court dress codes, both the written and unwritten rules.
“This exhibition promises to be a feast for the eyes”, says Frans van der Avert, director of Paleis Het Loo. “Dress Codes addresses a subject that is of abiding interest: who do you want to be, where do you want to belong, and what do your clothes say about you? The combination of unique historical royal fashions and contemporary haute couture shows that dress codes are timeless."
From traditional court train to fashionable dresses
In the 19th century monarchs used clothes to distinguish themselves from their courtiers. There were strict rules concerning dress at official occasions, and the queen and her ladies-in-waiting would wear a court train, made of several metres of costly fabric, often embroidered with gold thread. The exhibition will include Queen Emma’s court train, Wilhelmina and Juliana’s wedding dresses and ballgowns worn by courtiers like Henriëtte van de Poll, Queen Emma’s lady-in-waiting. Dress Codes will show how the rules about court dress not only reflected status and style, but were also surprisingly long-lasting: the train remained the same, while the dress changed according to fashion.
Influence on pop culture
Dress codes are still highly relevant. What clothes do you wear, and what do they say about you? Historical rules about dress are increasingly reflected in current pop culture: on the red carpet at film and music awards, at the Met Gala – one of the year’s biggest fashion events – as well as on social media. Today’s style icons make a statement by dressing according to the court rules of the past, in regal style, including long trains and sumptuous fabrics. The Paleis Het Loo exhibition will include items belonging to film icon Audrey Hepburn, as well as pieces on loan from the queens of the Netherlands and Belgium. The contemporary clothing that affirms the image of these modern monarchs comes from major fashion houses like Chanel, Gucci, Dries van Noten and Givenchy. Clothes from internationally renowned Dutch fashion houses like Viktor&Rolf, JANTAMINIAU and Claes Iversen will also be on display.
Dress codes and You
At Dress Codes and You visitors will be able to discover the photographic series Exactitudes by Ari Versluis & Ellie Uyttenbroek, which documents the dress codes of different social groups. The Modemuze digital mirror will allow visitors to consider their own dress style and that of others. Dress Codes will show that today’s royals also wear the clothes that the rest of us wear: accessible high street fashion. Dutch royals like Queen Máxima and Princess Amalia lead this trend, and Meghan Markle also wears a combination of couture and ready-to-wear.
Dress Codes opens at Paleis Het Loo on 9 October. Tickets are available at tickets.paleishetloo.nl.
Samenwerking
The exhibition has been created in partnership with Kunstmuseum Den Haag, and is sponsored by the Culture Fund, Fonds 21, the Mondrian Fund, Apeldoorn municipal council, Stichting Zabawas, the Gravin van Bylandt Foundation, Nederlandse Kostuumvereniging, the Hendrik Muller Fund and Fonds Nederlandse Kostuumvereniging.