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 the Queen.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. Initially discreet about his homosexuality, Amies became more candid in his old age; and, when speaking of Sir Norman Hartnell, another renowned dressmaker to the Queen, he commented: "It's quite simple. He was a silly old queen and I'm a clever old queen".
Amies and his partner, Ken Fleetwood, Design Director of Hardy Amies Ltd, were together for 43 years until Fleetwood's death in 1996. Amies died at home in 2003, aged 93. He is buried in the village churchyard at Langford, Oxfordshire[20]

Experience

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. 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 – succeeding Digby Morton.[1] 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.