Christening skirts are a traditional garment that is usually passed down between siblings and from parents to children. Always from one generation to another.

The Christian’s dress has its origin in the embroidered cloth with which children were wrapped when baptisms were performed by immersion, a Christian practice that developed until the seventeenth century. 

Another piece that makes up a Christian costume is, in addition to the skirt, the hood. The hood covers the baby’s head, and symbolizes the arrival of the Holy Spirit, who is represented by a dove in the images of the baptism. It was from the end of the eighteenth century when babies began to wear skirts and, little by little, the color white became the preferred color for these garments.

In any self-respecting royal or aristocratic family, baptismal dresses are kept for generations like gold in cloth. They are usually skirts made with batiste cotton and refined lace and as accessories, babies usually wear matching hoods and cape. It is one of their most widespread traditions and the most recent royal baptisms confirm that this practice is still fully in force. The original skirt of the British Royal Family was commissioned by Queen Victoria in 1840 for her first child. After him, he was carried by 62 more babies, including 6 British kings. The last to wear the original was Lady Louise Windsor in 2004.

Thanks to the book The Other Side of the Coin: The Queen, the Dresser and the Wardrobe that has just been published by Angela Kelly, Queen Elizabeth’s personal dressmaker, the trick that has made the babies of the Windsor family look spectacular at their baptisms and very similar to their ancestors of 175 years ago has been known.

In 2004, given the state of deterioration in which the original piece was, the Monarch commissioned her trusted seamstress to make a copy of this historic dress with Honiton lace and white satin bows.

To achieve her characteristic color – between beige and vanilla – the seasoned dressmaker says that it was dyed in Yorkshire tea to achieve the perfect tone. In her book, Angela Kelly relates that she traveled to Italy to get the lace and that on that trip she also carried the original in her bag. On his return to Britain, and with the help of Barbara Buckfield, he began to recreate it. 

“To make sure it looked authentic, we dyed it in Yorkshire tea, the strongest as we all know. We placed each piece of lace in a small bowl, filled with cold water and a tea bag and left it for five minutes, regularly checking that the color was perfect.”

Once finished, the skirt copy was premiered in 2008 by James, Viscount Severn and son of the Earls of Wessex, and has appeared at every royal christening since.

The baptismal dress of the Dutch royal family dates from a similar period. The skirt worn by the daughters of Queen Máxima and King William dates from 1817, the year in which Prince Willem was baptized. And cThus, a century later, the dress worn by the babies of the Swedish royal family during their baptism was designed. In 1906 a cotton skirt of cambric and lace was commissioned for the christening of Prince Gustaf Adolf.

What happened in Spain? The baptism dress of the Spanish royal family also has its origin in the mid-1900s. The first time it was used was to dress King Juan Carlos on the day of his baptism, on January 26, 1938 in Rome, in the chapel of the Knights of the Order of Malta. After 35 years, the Infanta Elena dressed in the same dress at her christening, at the Zarzuela Palace in 1963. After the baptism of the Infanta Elena, that of the Infanta Cristina, in 1965 and that of Prince Felipe, in 1968, followed. The latest to use it have been the Infantas Leonor and Sofía, baptized in the Palacio de la Zarzuela with water brought from the Jordan River, as is tradition.

The Christian costume of the Bourbons is one of the best-preserved relics of the Royal Family. It is made with beige thread, satin ribbons, lace and hand-embroidered lace.