Queen Elizabeth Never Left The Palace Without These Essential Purse Items

First of all, you weren't likely to see the Queen carry the same purse twice in a row. According to Phil Dampier, the author of What’s in the Queen’s Handbag? And Other Royal Secrets, the monarch owned around 200 of them. Each one was carefully crafted for her by the U.K. company Launer.

The Queen had been Launer’s best customer for decades, and she was almost certainly the most illustrious. She ordered a bespoke design from them, plus a couple of favorite models on top of that, according to those in the know. These were the Traviata and Royale bags that Launer produces.

As you can probably guess, though, those bags weren't necessarily accessible to the average person. Buying one would require most of us to save for quite a while. The Traviata design, crafted from black patent and calf leather, would put a buyer back $2,500. But it’s still Launer’s bestselling bag and is bought all over the world.

And it’s thanks to the Queen that Launer’s now an international company. Her endorsement of the bags – she gave them a Royal Warrant in the late 1960s – naturally made Launer a hugely successful brand. She wasn't even the only royal who uses them, either. According to Launer’s website, the Duchess of Cornwall and Charles are also big fans.

Fashion companies the world over long for a royal to be photographed with one of their designs. It can change everything for the brand virtually overnight. Just look at what was dubbed “the Kate effect” – whenever Kate Middleton was spotted wearing a particular item, there was a mad rush as everyone sought to get their hands on it.

Kate often wore clothes purchasable on the average British high street, and that was a massive boon for the Reiss chain. When she was pictured in the store’s “Shola” frock, it almost immediately sold out. “There is no question that Kate choosing to wear Reiss has impacted our brand,” the firm’s founder David Reiss informed Marie Claire magazine in 2016.

So it was the Elizabeth effect, then, that helped keep Launer afloat even as it suffered financial difficulties in the 1970s. Around that time fashions were changing, and the Launer brand was increasingly seen as out of date. But luckily for everyone, including the Queen, a man named Gerald Bodmer bought the company in 1981 and improved its fortunes.

And come 2011 there was a very pleasant surprise for Launer. That was the year Kate Middleton and Prince William married, an event that fashionistas the whole world over were paying very close attention to. The Queen took a Launer “Lisa” bag to the wedding, and afterwards demand was so high that it crashed the firm’s website.

This is an even better story when you know the humble beginnings of the company. The man who gave Launer its name was Sam Launer, a Jewish refugee who settled in Britain during World War Two. Despite the hardships of the time, he earned praise for creating beautiful leather bags.

Launer was so good at his job that soon he started getting attention from the upper crust. The famous high-class store Harrods started selling his goods. And then during the 1950s, a very special customer came along, none other than the Queen Mother. She purchased a Launer bag for her eldest daughter, the soon-to-be Queen Elizabeth.

Princess Elizabeth loved the gift, and that was that – from then on, no other bag brand would suffice. Some think the sentimental connection to her deceased mom played a part in why she loved Launer so much. Reportedly, she held on to several Launer bags that were once her mom’s.

Perhaps the person who knew the most about Queen Elizabeth’s handbags, beyond the woman herself and her family obviously, was the aforementioned company head, Gerald Bodmer. He gave an in-depth interview to the Daily Mail newspaper in 2018 about how the Queen remained loyal to Launer even after all this time.

Whenever the Queen wanted a new bag, Bodmer said, “We tend to work on a bag we already have, then personalize it with what Angela [Kelly, the Queen’s dresser] knows the Queen wants, or for specific engagements she may have… She likes a slightly longer handle so it doesn’t get caught up in her clothes when she is greeting people.”

According to Bodmer, the Queen was “not keen on shoulder straps, zips or partitions.” For every bag she ordered, the CEO explained, “We use a frame in the middle so she can reach deep inside, and she wants a strap that she can easily get her hand through to lift the lock and access the contents.”

But the Queen wouldn't take just any bag from Launer – it had to be perfectly catered to her tastes. “She doesn’t feel fully dressed without her handbag,” Bodmer explained to the Daily Mail. “But if the Queen doesn’t like what we’ve made her, she won’t wear it. She definitely knows what she wants.”

Bodmer gave another interview about the Queen’s handbags to People magazine in May 2020. He proudly noted, “Every time there’s a change of prime minister, the [Launer] bag seems to be there, on the chair between them or on her lap! She carries it every day – she must love it!”

The CEO added, “She’s just always had a handle bag, I can’t tell you the reason why!” But he also noted that she’d begun using a less heavy bag than the Traviata, named the Turandot. Bodmer said, “I think she wants something a little lighter. When you get older, I think you want a lighter bag, but I do still see her with the Traviata.”

Bodmer also mused about what the Queen actually kept in her handbags. “We do always put a coin purse inside for her,” he revealed. “Maybe she puts something else in it? I couldn’t possibly say!” Asked what else he thought might be in there, he replied, “Probably her spectacle case and her lipstick. I don’t know what else!”

But other people know what else! Royal experts have actually studied this subject for a while. While admittedly they haven’t gotten to stick their hands inside the actual handbag – imagine the scandal – they’ve still gotten a pretty good idea by watching what the monarch took out of it.

There was in fact money in there, and just not coins. According to Sally Bedell Smith, who wrote the book Elizabeth the Queen: The Real Story Behind The Crown, the monarch kept a single £5 or £10 note in her bag for the church donation plate every Sunday. It must have been odd carrying money with a picture of your own face on it. 

And apparently there were lipstick and a compact mirror in there, too. That makes sense, because the Queen had to look flawless at all times, and makeup’s a big part of that. No one’s completely sure what her brand of choice was, but it might well have been Elizabeth Arden, which like Launer, has a Royal Warrant.

Then there were the items you might expect, the sort of thing you’d be likely to find in any elderly lady’s handbag. Apparently, the Queen always carried her glasses, a pen – in case she’s called upon to write anything down, of course – and some breath mints. After all, she’d usually be standing very close to people.

In Bedell Smith’s book, published in 2012, she spoke to a man named Phil Brown who’d once seen the Queen go through her handbag. He said, “It had things that you would expect – make-up, purse, sweeteners she put in her coffee, the normal stuff. You expect that a lady-in-waiting would carry her handbag, but for the Queen, it was almost like a comfort blanket.”

But author Phil Dampier thought the contents of the Queen’s bag were more complicated and slightly more unusual than you might have guessed. He told Hello! magazine all about it in 2016. For a start, he said, the Queen often carried dog treats in her bag for her beloved Corgi dogs.

Next to the dog treats there was apparently a small camera with which Dampier said the Queen often took “pictures of visiting presidents and other VIPs.” Wouldn’t you love to see those? There was also a pair of binoculars in there that the monarch used for viewing horse races.

Wait, why would you need a camera if you had a smartphone? Well, according to Dampier, the Queen wasn't really interested in them. She did actually have one, he said, but did not "really use it very often, just when she is driving around Balmoral or Windsor or Sandringham on days off.”

So the Queen would never waste time browsing Twitter and the like on her phone when she’s out and about. But apparently she had another portable distraction. Dampier told Hello! that the Queen’s bag also occasionally contained “a crossword cut from a newspaper by a servant in case she has time to kill.”

There were some sentimental items in the bag as well. These included some family photographs, according to Dampier, plus a whole collection of small horse or dog-themed mementos given to her by her kids. And then there was her make-up case, which was actually a wedding present from Prince Philip and “one of her most personal and prized possessions.”

And then we’re onto the even weirder stuff. According to Bedell Smith’s book, the Queen carried an attachment in her bag to hang it up wherever she went. At one point this was apparently a suction cup with a hook attached. An insider told Bedell Smith that they’d witnessed the Queen spitting – yes, spitting – on the cup in order to fix it in place.

While many of the Queen’s handbag items were unusual, one’s particularly surprising. Dampier told Hello! that among the objects in the monarch’s bag was “a throwback to her days as a girl guide: a penknife.” Yep, the Queen of England, one of the most high-profile women in the world, carried a blade. So watch out!

Dampier told the magazine that he believed the Queen would have felt “lost” without her handbag. He added, “It’s her most valued possession and a valuable tool. The Queen would never go anywhere without her handbag. The only time she might not have it by her side is when she is in a completely relaxed environment, like up at Balmoral.”

So it was a valuable tool for carrying items – but it was a useful tool in other ways, too. The Queen actually used her handbag to send coded messages to her staff. It was done so subtly that you probably wouldn’t notice if you were the one having an audience with her, but all the palace attendants knew exactly what she meant.

Royal historian Hugo Vickers told People in 2011, “It would be very worrying if you were talking to the Queen and saw the handbag move from one hand to the other.” This was the Queen’s indication that she was done talking. “It would be done very nicely,” Vickers added. “Someone would come along and say, ‘Sir, the Archbishop of Canterbury would very much like to meet you.’”

And if you were with the Queen and she put her handbag on the table, this may also have alerted you that you were not a good conversationalist. Whenever she does so, it was a sign that she wanted one of her ladies-in-waiting to take her away shortly. It could have been worse though…

If you were talking to the Queen and she placed her handbag on the floor, it was a very bad sign indeed. It meant that she wanted to be taken away immediately, because she was really not having a good time. Apparently, the Queen would twist her wedding ring instead if removing her bag wasn't feasible at that moment.

But presumably none of this has ever happened to Gerald Bodmer, who enjoyed a great working relationship with the Queen right up until her final days. When the monarch celebrated her 94th birthday in April 2020, the Launer company released a new range of “Royal Edition” leather bags in the Queen’s favorite shades of blue.

Bodmer told Tatler, “By launching these limited edition handbags in celebration of Her Majesty The Queen’s birthday, it’s a fitting way for customers worldwide to have something that’s unique and uplifting, especially in these times.” The bags weren’t cheap, but customers clearly must have thought they were worth it.

And later on that year, Bodmer was informed that Lauder handbags would be used in the hit royal history drama series The Crown, which of course only further increased the company’s sales. A delighted Bodmer told People that November that the Queen’s Lauder use had “taken on a whole new dimension.”

Bodmer said that though the Queen probably “had enough” Lauder bags and was unlikely to ever need another one, the company was still doing very well indeed financially. He added, “We have a faithful customer base, and we are very thankful for that.” And one faithful customer, in particular, put the company on the map.