At the New Bond Street salesroom of Bonhams auction house, a bidding war breaks out over a most unusual lot. Online bids have already bumped the starting price well over its estimate, and the auctioneer rapidly announces the climbing offers; first £500, then £600, soon £900, then £1500. A keen telephone bidder jumps in at £2000, but the sale isn’t won. In the end, the lot sells for £3328 (premium inclusive), but what exactly is it? Two porcelain corgis.

“As the auctioneer helpfully reminds the room, these aren’t just any model dogs, these pooches were chosen by the set team at Netflix’s The Crown”

As the auctioneer helpfully reminds the room, these aren’t just any model dogs, these pooches were chosen by the set team at Netflix’s The Crown to decorate the set of Windsor Castle. They made up one of 161 lots sold in a special sale of memorabilia from the hit show (a further 312 offered in the online auction), a significant portion of which were costumes. When the final hammer dropped on the 7th of February, the sale achieved white-glove status.

A little over three months prior, I visited the costume department at Elstree Studios before they moved out for good. I had given the team a list of the most iconic outfits that I wanted to see, and with very few exceptions all of them had been placed on a special rail in preparation for their final performance at Bonhams.

I wanted to see the pieces that were based on real-life royal looks, of which the show boasted many. From the Queen’s coronation robes to Diana Spencer’s ‘revenge’ dress, the team behind the costume department doors have injected these moments with a new lease of life. When they appear on our screens it’s like seeing them for the first time, and that was their intention all along.

“We see her taking so many emotional wounds throughout the show, and her costumes become the scars left behind”

As I spoke with Sid Roberts, who joined as a costume designer from season 3 onwards, she explained the instinctual nature of her work. The Crown took certain liberties with its costuming, a gown might be Diana-esque, for example, but not be a direct copy of what she wore. Often the fabric choices informed the process, and when something could not be found, it was custom-made. Sid shows me a beautiful earthy fabric created especially for a Princess Margaret costume. The colours are deep and bruised, and were intrinsic to designing the royal fashionista on screen - we see her taking so many emotional wounds throughout the show, and her costumes become the scars left behind.

On another occasion, Sid spotted a roll of fabric high up in a haberdashery. It looked exactly like something Lady Di would have worn, and lo and behold, when the roll was retrieved, the fabric had been designed for a ‘Princess Diana’- inspired line.

Only one designer was ever contacted about a reproduction of their work in the show - David Emmanuel - one-half of the design duo responsible for Diana’s wedding dress. This didn’t stop genuine designer pieces from appearing in the show however - an authentic Lady Dior (renamed after the Lady Diana in 1996) appeared in season 5 episode 2, and Claudia Harris wore a cosy Missoni cardigan as Princess Anne a few episodes later. In the funeral scene of Lord Mountbatten, an antique sub-Lieutenant’s bicorn hat and epaulettes were used to decorate the coffin.

“Like the porcelain corgis, the bag seems to have benefitted from the lustre of being not simply a Lady Dior, but a Lady Dior used in The Crown”

All three of these pieces made their way to the Bonhams auction and fetched good prices. The Lady Dior in particular went for £10,880 - double the price of a brand new bag and 5x more than its high estimate. Like the porcelain corgis, the bag seems to have benefitted from the lustre of being not simply a Lady Dior, but a Lady Dior used in The Crown.

The commitment of the costume department to create pieces that sang to the same tune as real outfits, but were in their own way unique, allowed them to create a collection that was, in effect, authentic. They were iconic not for their proximity to the real person, but to the show as a whole, and the success of The Crown (both on screen and at auction) is proof of the benefits of inauthenticity.