Her Lotus Year: Beaton’s Wallis at the National Portrait Gallery

Posted: October 16th, 2025 | No Comments »

I’ve posted this sketch of Wallis Simpson before – Wallis Simpson Serving Cocktails, London, 20 November 1936, a Cecil Beaton gouache featuring Wallis signature China-inspired chignon hairstyle and Mainbocher interpretation of a qipao. But I hadn’t realised it was owned by the fashion designer Dries Van Noten.

He has apparently loaned it to the new exhibition at London’s National Portrait Gallery, Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World (on until January 26 2026) so we can now all see the original.

Her Lotus Year: China, the Roaring Twenties and the Making of Wallis Simpson is available everywhere in hardback, e-book and audiobook now…

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