Sir Edwin Hardy Amies KCVO (17 July 1909 – 5 March 2003) was an English fashion designer, founder of the Hardy Amies label and a Royal Warrant holder as designer to Queen Elizabeth II. Early life Hardy Amies was born Edwin Amies on 17 July 1909 in Maida Vale, London. His father was an architect for the London County Council. His mother was a saleswoman for Madame Gray at Machinka & May, London, and then Madame Durant on Dover Street, London. In his teens, he adopted his mother's maiden name, Hardy—and always cited her as the inspiration for his chosen professional path. Pre-War career Amies was educated at Brentwood School, Essex, leaving in 1927. Although his father wanted him to attend Cambridge University, it was then his ambition to become a journalist. His father relented and arranged for a meeting between his son and R. D. Blumenfeld, the editor of the Daily Express. His father was mortified when Blumenfeld suggested his son travel around Europe to gain some worldly experience. Amies spent three years in France and Germany, learning the languages, working for a Customs Agent and then as an English-language tutor in Antibes in France and later Bendorf in Germany. Amies returned to England where, in 1930, he became a sales assistant in a ceramic wall-tile factory. After that, he secured a trainee position as a weight machine salesman with W & T Avery Ltd. in Birmingham. It was Amies' mother's contacts in the fashion world, and his flair for writing, that secured him his first job in fashion. It was his vivid description of a dress, written in a letter to a retired French seamstress, that brought Hardy to the attention of the owner of the Mayfair couture house Lachasse on Farm Street, Berkeley Square, as the wearer of the dress was the owner's wife. He became managing director, in 1934, at the age of 25. His most notable innovation during this epoch was to lower the waistline of women's suits. He placed it at the top of the hip instead of at the natural waistline, giving a more feminine look. In 1937, he scored his first success with a Linton tweed suit in sage green with a cerise overcheck called "Panic". "Panic" was to be his debut into the fashion bible Vogue, photographed by Cecil Beaton. By the late 1930s, Hardy was designing the entire Lachasse collection