Tattoo you: Christine Davey is one of the new breed of Ascot fillies
Yesterday saw one of the most historic days in the racing calendar: Gold Cup Day at Royal Ascot, where the Queen’s horse Estimate won — making her the first reigning monarch to win the race in its 207-year history.
But the focus of all eyes was not the fillies on the course, but those off them.
That ghastly passing parade ring of exposed flesh, spray tans, legs that could hold up a Steinway grand piano and an array of what I hesitate to call dresses, as most barely managed to skim the thigh.
As for hats: was that a hat or a two-roomed flat?
And those were the women inside the Royal Enclosure.
Rightly or wrongly, Ascot was once seen as the nonpareil of glamour — but definitely not any longer.
Royal winning horses or not, those days have been lost for ever.
My qualifications to pronounce on this matter are not wholly spurious, as I began attending Ascot when I was 15.
My father, Lord Wyatt, had a box in the Royal Enclosure and, with my mother, entertained friends to lunch every day.
Our guests ranged from the Dukes and Duchesses of Marlborough and Devonshire to fabled beauties such as the Begum Aga Khan, as well as numerous Cabinet Ministers, men and women of letters, and the odd film star.
The first person to lay down an Ascot dress code was the Regency dandy Beau Brummell in the early 1800s.
He decreed that black and white should be the basis of the male ‘morning suit’, while ladies should regard the occasion as ‘a competition of elegance, as much so as a court ball’.
The aristocracy rose to the challenge.
Coco Chanel, who attended Royal Ascot in the Thirties, remarked to the Duke of Westminster: ‘It is untrue that English women do not know how to dress.
'They have an elegant simplicity and a dash of breeding which can make us French look overdone.’
I shudder to think what Chanel and her compatriots would think of ‘le style Anglais’ today.
Over the past few days, there has been a furore over the flurry of short skirts being allowed into the Royal Enclosure.
Despite pictorial evidence to the contrary, the Royal Enclosure still adheres (in theory, at least) to a dress code.
Hemlines should be ‘modest’ and not rise more than one inch above the knee; shoulders should not be bare; hats should cover at least a part of the head.
Yet there have been tears and tantrums over apparent age discrimination by racecourse officials.
Milliner Tracy Rose, 52, had to be led away to a darkened corner of the paddock after she was refused entry when gate officials declared her pink dress too short.
Not so classy: A tattooed lady looks ready for an appearance at the Moulin Rouge as she strolls around Ascot
Defying the dress code? Just some of the short skirts in the Royal Enclosure yesterday
Her husband protested indignantly that it was no shorter than the designer dress Princess Beatrice had worn the day before. ‘They are favouring certain people and discriminating against others,’ he opined.
His was not a lone bleat. Others observed svelte young women flouting the rules with impunity, while older nags were put out to grass.
Yet complaining about the clothes worn at Ascot is like complaining about the weather. Yes, it has become Chavscot — complete with tattoos, for goodness sake.
Even members of the Royal Family have been affected by the vulgar strain of letting it all show. Princess Beatrice has an enviable figure, but I wish her black and white dress had not shown off her shapely thighs.
Too much hat?.. and perhaps too little dress?
The Royal Family have been Ascot regulars since the reign of Edward VII. When it came to dressing, he once wrote: ‘It is up to us to set the standard.’
What standard is that, Beatrice?
When I first attended Ascot, it was still recognisable as an occasion of elegance and genuine glamour.
If not all the girls were ‘nice’ — in the old-fashioned sense that they had pedigrees to match some of the horses — they were certainly well-dressed and had impeccable manners.
And if they indulged a little too much, it never showed. Sometimes we would be asked to give lunch to the ‘overflow’ from the Royal Box, which was directly above ours. We would get a spare royal duke or prince, or a visiting potentate.
I was privileged. My father was a particular friend of the late Queen Mother.
I would nervously follow my parents to the Royal Box, both hoping and fearing that Princess Margaret might make one of her stinging putdowns about a certain duchess’s hat, or complain that Ascot was already becoming like ‘a cesspit’ as some of the women in the Royal Enclosure ‘look as if they were dressed for Annabel’s’ (the London night spot popular with the aristocracy).
The very idea of wearing a dress above the knee, or showing glimpses of shoulder, was unthinkable.
Nor was this mere superficial snobbery: it was a genuine conviction that if there were rules, it was impolite to infringe them, and that any display of flesh was disrespectful to others.
Nor was this mere superficial snobbery: it was a genuine conviction that if there were rules, it was impolite to infringe them, and that any display of flesh was disrespectful to others.
Once, in the early Nineties, I was invited into the Royal Box for tea and got talking to the Queen Mother.
Conversation turned to ‘Black Ascot’, which was the first meet after the death of Edward VII, when everyone wore black.
She remarked on how the look had become rather fashionable, with monochrome very flattering for ladies.
When I ventured whether she would consider the look herself, she remarked that it would never be one for her. Pastels suited her so much better, she said, and she was duty-bound to wear whatever made her look best.
Just one of the many tattoos on show at Gold Cup Day at the famous event
‘Devoir,’ she said. (A French word she used often.) ‘Duty to oneself, and to others, even in dress.’
Tips on acceptable standards of dress or appearance did not come in such charming packaging from Princess Margaret. She once snapped at me, then a terrified, fawning teenager, asking why I wore so much make-up.
‘Why on earth should you want to look 40?’ she asked, rather bitingly. I managed to hold back my tears.
So what is behind the fall in standards? Personally, I blame the fact that a badge to the Royal Enclosure has become so much easier to get.
When I first attended, you needed four sponsors who had possessed Royal Enclosure badges for the previous four years in a row. Applications had to be sent in by the end of April, with no exceptions.
The need for money has forced the Ascot authorities to take a more relaxed approach. Now, a badge for the Royal Enclosure requires only one sponsor who has been to Ascot four times.
The need for money has forced the Ascot authorities to take a more relaxed approach. Now, a badge for the Royal Enclosure requires only one sponsor who has been to Ascot four times.
The old grandstand was warren-like, modest and discreet. The new grandstand, which was part of a £200 million upgrade in 2006, is a brash complex of expensive bars, restaurants and escalators.
And where money goes, vulgarity naturally follows.
And where money goes, vulgarity naturally follows.
Many friends no longer attend Ascot because the Royal Enclosure has lost its old intimacy. It is no longer a day-long party for the grand, the brilliant and the beautiful, but a coarse jamboree for the great mass of the population.
But as such, what is the point of complaining? As course officials attempted to fill depleted coffers, they could ill afford to be choosy.
And in an age where Holly Willoughby and Coleen Rooney are considered the height of glamour, and plutocracy marches on, it is perhaps inevitable that Royal Ascot should have become depressingly like a hen night in Hendon.
... and the hats just keep getting crazier
Growing wild: A potty plant design
It'll end in tiers: Layers of iced cake
Left a lady takes a bow . . . and a huge feather, right a race-goer takes it tropical with a splash of orange
Left, a woman seems to be channelling Blue Peter with 'one she made earlier', shipshape in paper. and right, might this lady in her butterfly hat fancy a flutter?
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