– succeeding Digby Morton. His second celebration creation was "Made in England", a biscuit-coloured checked suit for the Hollywood ingénue Mildred Shay. He left Lachasse in 1939 and joined the House of Worth in 1941. Second World War At the outbreak of the Second World War, with his language experience, Amies was called to serve in the Special Operations Executive (SOE). He was commissioned as a second lieutenant from Officer Cadet Training Company on to the British Army General List on 18 May 1940. He was transferred from the General List to the Intelligence Corps on 15 July 1940. Amies suspected that SOE's commander Major General Colin Gubbins did not regard a dressmaker as suitable military material; but his training report stated: This officer is far tougher both physically and mentally than his rather precious appearance would suggest. He possesses a keen brain and an abundance of shrewd sense. His only handicap is his precious appearance and manner, and these are tending to decrease. Posted to Belgium, Amies worked with the various Belgian resistance groups and adapted names of fashion accessories for use as code words, while he organised sabotage assignments and arranged for agents to be parachuted with radio equipment behind enemy lines, into the Ardennes. Amies rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel, but outraged his superiors in 1944 by engaging famed photographer Lee Miller and setting up a Vogue photo shoot in Belgium after D-Day. In 1946, he was knighted in Belgium, being made an Officer of the Order of the Crown on 17 September 1948 by the prince regent of Belgium. Amies was an integral part of Operation Ratweek, an assassination project developed by SOE to eliminate double agents and Nazi sympathizers in Belgium. In 2000, a BBC 2 documentary entitled Secret Agent named Amies as one of the men who helped to plan the killing of dozens of Nazi collaborators, but Amies disclaimed all knowledge of the matter. Amies was quirky, yet conservative; for example, having his British Army uniform tailored on Savile Row. Years later, Hardy recalled that Kim Philby was in his mess; and, on being asked what the infamous spy was like, Hardy quipped, "He was always trying to get information out of me—most significantly the name of my tailor." Hardy Amies Ltd: № 14 Savile Row In late 1945, Virginia, Countess of Jersey, who had been a client during his tenure