Looking altogether more Princess than Queen, one of my all time favourite fashion icons, Dame Helen Mirren, features on the cover of the UK Diamond Jubilee issue of Women & Home, June 2012. Seriously, how beautiful is this woman, now in her mid-sixties? If I pray for anything for myself in life, it is that one day I will grow up to be Helen Mirren. 

She is also testament to the joy of the smile in a photograph. Sometimes even I, fashion obsessive that I am, just wants to see a smiling face in order to register real beauty. I have to get my picture taken about every other week, and I have started to refuse to do it without a smile. First because I think that I look nicer, and secondly because I look more like me. Smiling befits me. On my road to becoming Helen.

Inside the great Dame taks about the several times she has met the real Queen, "Your mind goes blank, but she is so lovely and so sparkly – and very adept at putting you at your ease. There’s a sense of naughtiness there in her eyes. But there’s also a real understanding you don’t overstep the mark with her." 

And the reason why I think that this is worth repeating is that one of the things I think makes Helen a style icon, is the sparkle in her eyes. I love that this is the same thing she values in HRH The Queen.
Beautiful work.