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LIZZIE YORK’S FASHION EVOLUTION IN 20 PHOTOS
As one of Britain’s youngest style icons turns twenty, British VOGUE is celebrating by looking back on some of her most memorable moments. From that iconic rose inspired front cover to her enviable blonde tresses, we’ll break down what makes the oldest York daughter’s look so effortless and how you can channel it.
*
There is a terrible chiming like a toddler bashing a xylophone followed by a long ring that makes her nightstand shake. Lizzie rolls onto her stomach and clamps a throw pillow over her ears, convinced it’s tangled up in some nightmarish dream. No one, not even the devil himself, could possibly think to phone her in the middle of the night.
One eye cracks open. To her relief there is nothing but darkness, the heavy cloak of midwinter, and just as soon as it came the vibration dies away. Sluggish, she pulls the covers up to her face, ready for the black to swallow her up again. And then:
Bzzzzzzzzzzz. Bzzzzzzzzzzz. Bzzzzzzzzzzz.
Muffled through the wall, someone hollers “Answer it Lizzie!” in a pitch high enough to shatter glass. Cecily. Not for the first time does she wish she shared a flat with anyone but her sister but beggars can’t be choosers.
With a groan she flings out a hand and scrambles for her phone, blue light bathing her bedroom walls.
Mum <3: 5 missed calls
Mum <3: 3 unread messages.
Subject: “WE NEED TO TALK!! XX”
2 photo messages attached.
She hovers over the screen with hesitant fingers before she types in her stupidly simple passcode that any fool could guess if they wanted to: her birthday.
She squints to see the offending photos on the screen, suddenly feeling as though her bedframe has collapsed under her and left her lying winded on the floor.
No, no, no.
Grainy and pixelated though they are, and clearly taken on the move, the damage is obvious, like someone has taken a Sharpie to the Mona Lisa or a sledgehammer to the statue of David.
Utter panic sets in, heart leaping in her ribcage like a songbird throwing itself against the bars of its cage. The plink-plonk tune plays out again like a carnival waltz and she wants to throw her phone to the floor, smash the screen or plunge it in a pool of water until the screen goes black. It buzzes again, vibrating deep into her hands, spreading up her forearms.
It could all still be a dream she thinks, squeezing her eyes shut. She’ll wake up with her cheeks rough on the pillowcase with a shock to the heart in a moment or two.
She doesn’t.
Feet heavy and clumsy, she heads to the bathroom instead, feeling for door handles and light switches in the darkness. A sense of doom hangs overhead, pushes her along at a pace too quick to follow.
Behind her, the landing light switches on, her eyes straining to adjust. Cecily stands in the doorway, hugging herself in a pair of rumbled pyjamas,.
“For Christ’s sake! Who’s phoning at this hour?”
With a sick feeling, Lizzie meets her reflection in the mirror and realises this is the moment she’s supposed to wake up, sheets twisted around her legs and forehead damp before realising none of it was real with a thwack to the head. Silly me! What was all that about?
Instead she sees herself, all soft blue shadows under the eyes, smatter of blemishes above the brow and smudged eyeliner, unrecognisable as the Lizzie York that grew up on magazine covers dressed in white and holding her newest sibling in her arms. Elizabeth York; English rose, heiress to one of Britain’s leading financial firms, darling of the family.
But none of this is what has her mother up in arms.
She looks down at her feet, at the tiled floor strewn with damp towels, the sink cluttered with empty product boxes and then the hands clutching the basin, palms stained blue-black like a writer whose pen has leaked over their fingers. Finally, only when her fingers reach to grasp the strands of hair that brush her jaw does she allow the photos her mother sent to match up with the person before her.
Her hair, cropped to her ears in a mess of chunks and tufts that stick out at odd angles, is box black, flat and lifeless with patches of sunshine blonde in between. The strands between her fingers are crisp, acrid smelling, a far cry from the soft curls that fell past her waist only yesterday, what her father liked to call ‘spun gold’. Hair worthy of a floating halo and subject of many an article, like Cosmopolitan’s “10 Reasons Why Lizzie York Should Be Your Inspiration To Go Blonde This Summer”.
No going back, no reversal.
Cecily meets her eyes in the mirror, mouth an ‘o’ of horror as her phone pings again with a text reading “CALL ME AS SOON AS YOU GET THIS! XX”
“Holy shit.”
*
Ten minutes of pacing and tea brewing pass and another five of hysterical laughter follow. They run through every possible excuse known to man, like they’re about to face a police interrogation – Don’t remember how it happened (partially true). This is what’s in right now (lie). I’m an idiot (obviously).
In the end, Cecily decides, blue stained palms up in surrender, flat out denial may be the safest option.
All the while Lizzie’s phone has been making a racket, notifications flying in from all the messaging apps known to man. iMessage, email, Facebook messenger, WhatsApp, all with the same caps lock message and passive aggressive kisses tacked on the end. Even smothered under the pile of blackened towels it is relentless, screaming to be picked up. There is no space to think, their excuses frantic and fevered like criminals conspiring with their heads together.
Finally, on the twentieth missed call, the inevitable cannot be ignored any longer. Lizzie picks up, teeth clenched.
“Hi Mum—“
“I cannot believe you Elizabeth!”
If the lucid bathroom lighting, slurp of coffee and splash of cold water on her face had all failed to pull her from the too-much-to-drink the night before stupor, then her mother’s voice had succeeded, dragging her kicking and screaming into consciousness. Just her name is enough to shift the bleary surroundings into focus, the sink glaringly white, floor tiles an ugly mosaic of blue and green. Elizabeth is chilling enough, let alone starting a phone call without a string of endearments. Darling, sweetheart, love, all of the usual trinkets.
She is really in it then. This is all real.
Suddenly she can’t help but see an element of truth in the stories her mother spun about being descended from a water goddess. Why else would the cold fury trickling through the phone feel like ice water being poured down her back? She curses herself for the tears that jump to her eyes. It is, she reminds herself, swiping angrily at her eyes with the cuff of her sleeve, the burden of being a Pisces and subsequently, an overemotional drunk.
“Mum,” she says, smearing last night’s mascara over her eyelids. “I really don’t want to speak about this right now.”
“Well I’m sorry that I disrupted your beauty sleep but this is something that just can’t wait. How am I supposed to react when I see pictures of you looking like this? From the media no less! How could you even think of doing that to yourself?”
“She wasn’t thinking about it, that’s the problem,” Cecily says cheerily with a resulting smack to to the elbow from Lizzie. Most of her anger though goes to the other end of the line, the sensation of being pushed into a corner creeping up on her.
“How did you even get those photos in the first place?” she snaps.
A moment passes before she hears the venom in her voice. She prides herself on never letting anger get the better of her but she is her mother’s daughter and the Woodvilles aren’t exactly known for keeping their mouths shut. Besides, she already knows the answer: their PR have eyes everywhere. Her mouth rapidly forms an apology but her mother continues as though she hasn’t heard, some kind of internal monologue playing out over the line.
“Christ, what’ll your father say about this? And don’t even get me started on your grandmother, that’ll be a conversation and a half. And who’ll be getting the blame? Me of course, always the bad mother–“
As her voice shifts into something shrill and unpleasant and all too reminiscent of a vulture tearing at its prey, Lizzie covers the receiver and turns to Cecily with a pained expression. Help. She just shrugs, wise beyond her years.
“Told you she wouldn’t be happy.”
“Oh shut up, this is your fault too.” Lizzie replies, tearing at the tender skin around her thumb, hissing when she gets too close to the quick.
“Hey! Do you want this fixed or not?” Cecily asks, a pair of glittering silver scissors between her thumb and forefinger.
Lizzie gives her a dirty look in the way only sisters can, crossing her arms across her chest with a hmph, letting the phone drop into her lap and her mother’s stream of consciousness buzz unanswered against her side.
“That’s what I thought” Cecily says, smiling sweetly as she snips the hair at the nape of her neck.
To ignore the nausea that washes over her in horrible waves, Lizzie watches the dark hair drift to the floor in a lazy summer afternoon way, truly looking at herself for the first time without wincing.
Her hair looks as if it’s been set alight, like a match set to paper until it is nothing but crumbling ash. Oddly enough it even smells burnt, or maybe that’s just what the dye smells like, dry and noxious with a hint of coconut conditioner. Like that was going to help.
With a satisfied smile it dawns on her that she looks nothing like a York, all fair and golden and good looks. It is a relief more than anything else and the more she looks the more optimistic she feels. If she didn’t look the part, perhaps she didn’t have to act it either.
On the other end of the phone, the garbled speech grows increasingly strangled. She puts it on speaker and to her dismay finds her mother on the same dreaded subject.
“Elizabeth! Are you listening to me?” she asks, the question posed all the more threatening now it bounces off the bathroom walls for them both to hear. The image on the other end of the line is a scary one: narrowed green eyes and a manicured hand smoothing out the wrinkles she claims her children have caused.
“Mm” she replies, fingertips pressed to her forehead. “Was just thinking.”
And like another shower of cold water, she replies “Ever the dreamer. I thought you’d hung up on me love.”
(Elizabeth Woodville-York is a woman of many shades, one moment cool and serpentine, the next tender and dripping with adoration. It occurs to Lizzie that this is why people were so quick to say she had bewitched her father and why her father had fallen so hard for her in the first place.)
“This isn’t the conversation to have over the phone. I’m coming round okay? Inspect the damage myself, see what can be done.”
What if there isn’t anything to be done? Lizzie thinks. But all she says is:
“I don’t think there’s any fixing this.”
“Where there’s a will there’s a way. And there is always a way.”
*
It is slowly coming back to her, with Cecily prompting whenever the story draws a blank.
Her birthday dinner, a tableau vivant of perfection. It was, in many ways, no different from their dinners at home: her father raising a toast full of hyperbole (“to our Lizzie, the rose that blooms the brightest”) as various dishes were placed before them – sweet gateaux, tender meat falling off the bone, champagne bubbling on the tip of the tongue. Everything from the swanky setting to the priceless freshwater pearls dangling from her lobes was over the top and it was all for her.
Lizzie’s favourite restaurant, Lizzie’s favourite meal, Lizzie sat at the top of the table. She listened to her sisters prattle about school, her father talk of the firm’s future prospects and her role in them and watched her mother nod and agree and it all made her want to keel over, her heart long to be anywhere else. She may as well have been watching herself from a table in the corner, wondering what the hell she was doing there, she was so detached from her surroundings.
At one point she excused herself to the bathroom and clutched the sides of the sink, breathing hard. She turned the tap and ran the water up to her elbows, wet skin glistening like a pair of princess’s gloves. Listening to the roar of water spraying and spitting on the sides of the bowl was one of the only times she believed her mother’s watery tales.
“Get it together Lizzie. Smile,” she muttered, stretching her mouth into a wobbling line that could convince no one, not even a camera lens, of happiness. She smoothed the wrinkles on her dress front and was about to return to her expectant audience when Cecily poked her head round the door.
“You alright? Mum’s asking after you.”
“Never better.”
Cecily raised an eyebrow, unconvinced.
“You don’t have to keep up the act in front of me you know. It’s no fun.”
She could’ve cursed her right there and then for her kindness. Everything she had done to compose herself threatened to come undone, like pulling a hairpin out of an elaborate updo, hair tumbling down over her shoulders.
“Lizzie?”
“I’m fine Cecily, really.”
Brown eyes searched her own. When she saw she wasn’t going to get anything more she sighed and came through the door to wrap her sister in a hug and before she could blink, she was tucked in at the table again. The restaurant lights dimmed and the waitress brought out a tiered cake smattered with pink candles, flickering with such purpose that she could’ve cried with the beauty of it. As her family crooned Happy Birthday, she took a breath in the momentary hush, just her, the halo of light and the strange stretched shadows they cast, and she let it consume her, just for a moment.
Over her shoulder, her mother whispered “Make a wish darling” green eyes glowing with pride. So she did. She squeezed her eyes shut and wished hard. Wished she knew what she wanted beyond what was offered. Wished she knew who she was beyond the name York. Wished so hard she didn’t even realise the flame had turned to curled smoke and her family were clapping and whooping in a roar.
So she grinned wildly for photos until her cheeks spasmed while her father slapped her on the back and her mother peppered her cheeks with kisses but the sickly icing only turned her stomach and wisps of smoke caught in her throat. Only Cecily saw her picking at her cake slice and sidled up to her seat, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
“We’re going out, you and me.”
“What, now?” It was past midnight and everything ached. Nothing sounded worse than traipsing out in the cold in heels.
Cecily just flashed her bright smile, that York smile that won round even the bitterest of enemies.
“Why not? You’re only twenty once and I want you to enjoy yourself – for real.”
Lizzie wavered for a moment, weighing up the options. She could get a taxi home, wrap herself up in her duvet and watch a film, drink some of the wine she’d been saving for a special occasion and try her hardest to forget most of the evening’s events. Or, though every instinct in her body was telling her no, she could let herself be dragged out for a couple hours of ‘fun’ with Cecily, which would most likely result in her carrying her home at four with a headache and a sour taste in her mouth.
But when has ignoring your gut ever gone wrong?
“Oh go on then,” she sighed, biting back her first smile of the evening and linking arms with her sister who squealed in response.
“Yes! Come on, I’ll text Joan and Maggie and we can get a few drinks.”
A few turned into a few more, and then some. The four of them sat in a booth, howling Happy Birthday over drinks. At some point, in a voice not entirely her own, she’d asked It’s the way to ring in a birthday isn’t it, a makeover? and her companions were only too eager to agree, sloshing their drinks about and pulling up inspiration on Pinterest. A rush of adrenaline shot through her as they pushed back their chairs and set off down the road, clutching each other for support. This is the next day of the rest of my life, she thought, like some cheesy desktop wallpaper.
Trawling through the shelves in the beauty section of Tesco was murkier, Cecily tossing boxes of hair dye into the shopping basket and missing most of the time, Maggie hankering after instant noodles and while Joan tried to persuade her to hurry up and catch the last bus back. Insert cash or select payment type and otherworldly overhead lighting that whitewashed everything into a dull, sickening roar. After that is only fragments like a shattered looking glass: clutching a wonky golden braid in her fist, chest heaving, feeling like the female protagonist in a rom-com who stops eating ice-cream by the tub and is suddenly able to balance all the shitty things that life keeps throwing at her. All she needed was two men fighting over her for no apparent reason. She felt good, like a snake shedding its skin. No stopping to gnaw her fingernails down to the quick about what others thought of her, what she thought of herself. No doubt, no questions. This second decade of life would be hers and hers alone, starting with the colour of her hair.
“Now,” The YouTube tutorial playing from her phone propped up against shampoo bottles and abandoned perfumes certainly seemed to agree. “You want to make sure you’re applying the dye from the roots down. I’ve sectioned off my hair into layers just to be sure but if you miss a spot or two, you can always go back in.”
It was a miracle she managed to mix the chemicals and pigment together, let alone attempt to reach the back of her head.
“I’ve got you Lizzie,” Cecily assured her, swooping into the bathroom with one eye drooping shut. “Let the master go to work”.
At around five, when Lizzie had finally scrubbed off the dye that had found itself on the shell of her ear and smeared across her forehead and neck, she decided she and Cecily were deserving of a cuppa. Going to the corner shop for a pint of milk looking like she’d just been scalped seemed like the best idea in the world.
Back in a tick she sing-songed to her sister who was slumped over the sofa, half-asleep. She was back within ten minutes, unknowingly caught on camera, and forgot all about the tea, managing to shove the milk in the fridge before collapsing into bed in her clothes from the night before.
Heavy-lidded and exhilarated, she smiled into her pillow. Happy Birthday to me.
*
After fifteen minutes exactly, her mother’s voice crinkles through the intercom, tone giving absolutely nothing away much to Lizzie's distress.
‘It’s Mum, darling.’
Freshly showered but feeling none of the effects, she slopes down the corridor with what remains of her hair wrapped in a towel to find her mother already stood in the kitchen like the eye of a hurricane.
Seeing the state of their kitchen only adds to her embarrassment. It is laughable how out of place her mother seems amongst her chaos: dye-stained towels shoved on top of the laundry bags to her pristine cream coat, multiple stone-cold cups of tea on the counter to her fresh manicure, dirty tea spoons and drips strewn over top with a trail of sugar following. She wants to whip out the marigolds and Flash spray but it feels all too late.
“Tea?” she says instead, darting to the kettle.
“No thank you darling. I’m not staying for long, I’ve got a meeting in half an hour.”
“I wouldn’t mind if you’re offering” Cecily says, peering round the door and Lizzie shoots her a look but sets out three mugs anyway, desperate to avoid her mother’s gaze and occupy her shaking hands.
“Coffee then? Or we could have breakfast! I’m sure I could whip up scrambled eggs or something-“
“No I’m fine. We both know I’m not here to chit-chat anyway. Let me see how bad this is.”
She looks up for the first time, meeting her mother’s eyes which give nothing away. Years of camera flashes does that to a person.
She just nods, heart in her mouth. Unwrapping the towel she feels the cold air on her neck where her hair would’ve sat just yesterday, a yellow cloak of warmth tickling her back. Her mother gasps, a perfect row of white teeth setting down on her lower lip. She swoops round her in a perfect circle, surveying the ends, the roots, tutting softly. It’s a much more downplayed reaction than she was expecting which only fills her with fear.
“Well! It could be worse I suppose. It doesn’t look so… butchered.”
“Cecily tried to tidy up the ends.”
“Really? I know Cece’s good with her makeup but my God can we not leave this to the professionals?”
“It’s a little late for that I have to say.”
They both let out a shuddery laugh, shattering the frosty atmosphere. Lizzie fills the mugs to the brim and sets them out on the table, the two of them sat across from each other. She feels her mother’s eyes on her as she cups her steaming mug in her hands and looks up. They try to smile, mother and daughter, so often compared in their looks now look worlds apart.There is a brief pause, one Lizzie isn’t sure she wants filled.
“I- Listen love, I don’t mean to get on at you but I can’t have you coming to the gala looking like that. Your grandmother will never let me hear the end of it if you turn up looking like a member of the Adams Family and if she doesn’t drop dead with the shock of it, well let’s just say I’ll be surprised.”
Lizzie reaches up to grasp the raw ends of her hair and grabs a fistful. The gala.
“You didn’t forget did you?” Her mother asks, eyes wide. “Don’t answer that. Stupid question.” Lizzie looks down at the table, breathing hard.
“Well,” she exhales, fingertips to forehead. “Tonight is really important, I’m sure you’ll remember your father saying. He’s finally struck this deal that has us plain sailing again so it’s imperative that tonight goes smoothly. It is, quite frankly, make or break for us.”
How could she possibly forget? This deal, between the House of York and their greatest rival the French Valois firm, was set to end years of legal dispute and fierce competition between the two companies. She knows all too well how important it is. How could she be oblivious to the strain it and the family’s more… personal differences had caused her father? Uncle George jabbing him from the back for not being given what he thought he was owed while Uncle Richard didn’t even try to hide the fury when her father had reeled off the terms of agreement, grumbling about honour and “the lack of it in this family”. Compromise, Lizzie thought, was not a concept the Yorks could grapple with.
Red hot shame spreads through her face and neck, like a guilty child caught in the act. Got you. It is not her mother's tone of voice that makes her stomach ache but seeing her composure slip, the thought of everyone seeing her like this. What will they say? What will they say?
“I remember Mum. God I’m sorry.”
“We all do stupid things, God knows I had by the time I was your age. It’s just… not great timing.”
Understatement of the century.
“What am I going to do with the lot of you?” she asks after an age of silence. “What in God’s name possessed you?”
None of the excuses she and Cecily considered earlier come to mind. Guilt pools at the bottom of her stomach, makes her tea taste like poison.
“Your father has an interview with The Financial Times and something like this could throw the whole thing off course. People are so quick to jump on him for anything, to bring us down. This could be all it takes for Lancaster to get ahead.”
She knows. She knows. Why does she think she doesn’t know?
Another long exhale, drawn out like the workings of a curse.
“The only thing to do is get it fixed. I’m going to book you an appointment at Rose en Soleil for later this morning. We can go out for coffee afterwards and pick up your dress. Maybe get a facial or something.” When she doesn’t respond, she throws the one thing she’d rather die than hear in the conversation. “Charles will be there and-”
Charles, the suave businessman she has remotely no interest in but her father thinks she ought to have an interest in. Bane of her life. Obnoxious to a t with a French accent that makes her want to punch a wall. There are a lot of words for what Charles is, most of them swears. Maybe, she thinks with a flicker of a smile, her hair would frighten him away.
Her hair… Glancing at her reflection in the window, the choppy strands by her chin something much softer. Suddenly it didn’t appear quite so awful.
“Lizzie?”
“Mm. Yeah, sounds good.”
“I didn’t even say anything.” She looks beyond her hair now, searches her eyes across the table. “Are you alright, love? It should’ve been the first thing I asked but I just went straight for the obvious. We haven't really spoken properly since before your birthday...”
It is a good question, one Lizzie isn’t sure she can answer. So she just nods instead.
Her mother purses her lips and scans her again, reluctant to press. She reaches a hand across the table and squeezes gently.
“We’ll talk about it when you're ready. I’ll text you your appointment time later. And thank you for the tea, darling. You always know how to make it just right.”
And then she’s gone as if she never was with a kiss pressed to the top of her head. Cecily appears again when the front door shuts, eyebrows raised.
“You okay?”
“Don’t,” she groans, resting her aching head on the table.
“Alright then. Thanks for the tea.”
That’s the only thing I can do right. Bloody tea.
“How could I have been so stupid?” she eventually blurts out as Cecily bursts open a pack of digestives, completely unbothered. The potential headlines play out on a sickening reel in her head: “White Rose Rebelling?” “A Thorn In Her Side?” “Future Looks Dim For House of York As Lizzie York Goes Off The Rails: Photo Exclusive!"
“Hey, I’ve got my fair share of the blame,” Cecily says, offering out a biscuit which Lizzie accepts. “I think I remember trying to convince you to go bright green?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised.”
A beat passes, the two of them munching thoughtfully.
“And Charles,” she groans, slouching low in her seat. “I can’t force conversation with him tonight, let alone for the rest of my life.”
“Don’t you worry Lizzie. We’ll find you someone before Charles gets the chance to say ‘je t’aime’, guarantee it.”
This, they both know, is something that cannot be guaranteed. All Lizzie can do is keep everything crossed that God decides to send someone her way before there’s an oversized jewel on her ring finger.
“For now, let’s take the next hour or so to think on our bad choices and finish up this pack of digestives and then you’re going to do what Mum says and try and make something of today."
Lizzie lifts a hand to the brutal shock of her hair, uneven and choppy, searching for something to hold onto. The overground train's muffled roar. Commuters voices floating up from outside into the kitchen, wail of traffic lights, stop, wait, go. Weak winter morning sun hitting the window.
“Why do you always have to be right?”
“I’m named after Grandma, of course I’m always right. Now come on,” she says, stuffing a hoodie from the laundry bag into her empty arms. “Better wear this so the paps don’t spot you on your way out.”