How Did Wallis Warfield Simpson Influence 20th-Century Fashion?

I still get a little giddy flipping through the glossy photos of her from the 1930s and 40s—Wallis Warfield Simpson famously surrounded herself with jewels that were as theatrical and precise as her wardrobe. Over the years she amassed an extraordinary closet of high-jewelry pieces, mostly gifts from Edward, the Duke of Windsor. The major houses show up again and again in descriptions: Cartier, Boucheron, Van Cleef & Arpels and other top Parisian maisons supplied many of her iconic necklaces, brooches, tiaras and matching suites. She favored bold, Art Deco-era geometry early on and then moved into large colored stones—emeralds, sapphires and rubies—set alongside dazzling diamonds and long ropes of pearls. I recall reading that she had stacks of bracelets, massive cocktail rings, and dramatic brooches she pinned to coats and evening gowns with equal flair. After her death, a huge portion of the collection was dispersed in high-profile auctions during the 1980s, so pieces ended up in private collections and occasionally surfaced at museums or later sales. What fascinates me is how her jewelry told the story of a very public relationship: many of the pieces were purchased by Edward as gifts, and you can almost see the narrative of their lives stitched into the stones—romance, scandal, exile. If you want to really get a feel for it, look for auction catalogues from the Geneva sales; the photographs there capture the scale and taste much better than any single description.

I still get a little shiver thinking about the royals' private corners of Windsor — there’s something oddly intimate about the Royal Burial Ground at Frogmore. Wallis Warfield Simpson, better known as the Duchess of Windsor, was laid to rest there after she died in Paris on 24 April 1986. She’s buried next to her husband, Edward, Duke of Windsor, who had been interred at Frogmore when he died in 1972. The plot is within the grounds near Frogmore House, just outside Windsor Castle, in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead. I’ve read different takes on whether she’d be allowed into the main chapel or not, and the reality is a bit more practical: the duchess’s grave isn’t in St George’s Chapel (which is the more public, ceremonial place) but in the Royal Burial Ground, a quieter, more private family cemetery. If you ever try to see it, know the area is part of royal property and isn’t a bustling tourist attraction — it feels like a small, hushed place where decades of complicated history rest together. For anyone who’s fascinated by their story (I’ve binge-watched bits of 'The Crown' and re-read snippets from biographies over rainy weekends), Frogmore is where that last chapter physically closes for both of them.

I’ve dug into this off-and-on over the years and what always surprised me is how blurry “ownership” becomes with Wallis Warfield Simpson. People tend to equate the homes she lived in with homes she owned, but the reality is messier: many of the properties associated with the Duchess were held in the Duke’s name, leased, or placed in trusts rather than being straightforwardly hers. Most famously, the couple’s Paris residence is commonly referred to as ‘Villa Windsor’ today — it’s the apartment/house they made their main base in Paris and which later became linked to their name. They also spent long stretches on the French Riviera in various villas around Cannes and Cap d’Antibes, and they used Government House in Nassau while Edward served as Governor of the Bahamas (that was an official residence rather than a personal estate). Beyond that, they had frequent stays in Palm Beach and other spots where they rented or were hosted by friends. If you’re asking which estates she legally owned abroad in her personal name, the short and slightly disappointing truth I’ve found is: very few, if any, clear-cut large estates are documented as being solely in her name. The finances and titles were tangled up with the Duke, trusts, gifts, and political arrangements. For a precise ledger you’d want to look at probate records or deep-dive biographies that cite deeds, because popular sources tend to conflate residence with ownership and that’s where the confusion comes from.

If you’re in the mood for dramatised takes on Wallis Warfield Simpson, there are a few screen portrayals that stand out and give very different vibes. The one that usually pops up first for me is the Madonna film 'W.E.' (2011) — it’s a modern director’s interpretation that cuts between Wallis and Edward’s 1930s story and a contemporary romance. Andrea Riseborough plays Wallis, and the film leans stylistically into mood and symbolism more than strict biography, so expect atmosphere over documentary-like detail. For a more straightforward, old-school dramatization, look for the BBC’s 1978 series 'Edward & Mrs. Simpson'. It’s a longer format that lets the relationship breathe and shows the social fallout in a way that single films often rush. There’s also the TV movie 'The Woman He Loved' (1988), which stars Jane Seymour as Wallis and really frames the story as a tragic, forbidden romance—quite melodramatic in the best televisual sense. If you want context too, later prestige TV dramas like 'The Crown' touch on the abdication and its aftermath (they’re not films, but they dramatise the same events). Personally, I like watching the BBC series for broad strokes, then 'The Woman He Loved' for the emotional heart, and finishing with 'W.E.' to see a more modern, interpretive take — each gives a different window into who Wallis was on screen.

I've always been curious about the little notes people leave behind, and Wallis Warfield Simpson's correspondence is one of those juicy historical crumbs. From what I've read and poked through in catalog entries, the letters she wrote to friends range from light social chit-chat to surprisingly candid defenses of her choices. She sent invitations, travel plans, fashion tips, gossip about mutual acquaintances, and practical requests—like asking someone to host or help smooth a social situation. Interwoven with those everyday items are more personal reflections: occasional frustrations with the press, thinly veiled comments about the royal milieu, and her steady efforts to protect Edward and their life together from criticism. Scholars and biographers tend to pull excerpts from private collections and institutional archives, so the public view of her letters is often curated. Some correspondences were published as extracts in biographies or newspapers, while many remain in archives—both public and private. If you’re trying to read them yourself, look for manuscript collections in library catalogs, special-collections finding aids, or references in academic papers. Be mindful that editors sometimes cut or frame passages to fit a narrative, so the surviving published material might emphasize controversy more than the quotidian kindnesses and errands that filled most of her correspondence. If you want to dive in, start by checking university special collections and national archives with online catalogs, and follow footnotes in reliable biographies. I love imagining the little stationery and handwriting styles when I read those descriptions—there’s something intimate about a handwritten invite or a polite refusal that tells you more about a life than a headline ever could.

I fell down a rabbit hole about 20 years ago while leafing through an old biography and I still get a little thrill every time I think about what happened between Wallis Warfield Simpson and Edward. On the surface it looks like a straight romance: he loved her, she was the woman he wanted, and he chose her over the throne. But the truth is a messy, human mix of longing, personality, social norms, and constitutional rules. Edward was famously sentimental and stubborn — the sort of guy who would rather make a dramatic gesture than grit his teeth and conform. He adored Wallis in a way that made him willing to upend his life. Wallis, for her part, was a twice-divorced American socialite who had style, confidence, and a talent for navigating the upper-class circuits of Europe and America. To many contemporaries she looked like the perfect companion for the man who craved affection more than duty. But Britain’s establishment saw a huge problem: the Church of England and the government couldn’t accept a divorced person with living ex-spouses as the monarch’s wife. That wasn’t just private morality — it was a constitutional snag involving dominions like Canada and the Church’s role in state affairs. So what pushed them to marry? In my view it wasn’t one thing. It was Edward’s craving for personal happiness, coupled with Wallis’s own social ambitions and their mutual dependency. He abdicated in December 1936 because he couldn’t be king without her; they married a year later in June 1937 and became the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. There are darker whispers — political naivety, alleged sympathies, or opportunism — but at the heart of it, I think it was two people choosing their private life over a public duty, with all the messiness that entails.

I've dug into this topic a few times while drifting through biographies and old magazine pieces, and the short truth is: Wallis Warfield Simpson did keep personal papers and some diary-like notes, but there isn't a single, continuous, publicly available 'diary of Wallis' that covers her whole life. From what I’ve seen, she maintained correspondence and kept notebooks, travel jottings, and appointment books over the years — snippets that biographers have mined. Those fragments show up in private letters and in the papers that researchers have been allowed to consult. At the same time, Wallis was intensely private and reportedly took measures to control or restrict what remained after her death, so a lot of what she wrote either stayed private, was destroyed, or was selectively released. If you’re curious, the best route is to read modern biographies and the collections of papers that scholars cite; they often quote from her notes or letters. I love getting lost in those small personal details — the scrawled shopping lists or travel remarks that make historical figures feel human. For Wallis, though, we mostly get fragments and curated extracts rather than a full, day-by-day diary to leaf through under a lamp.

I got hooked on Wallis Simpson biographies during a rainy weekend binge, and what surprised me most was how much the story changes depending on who’s doing the telling. Older biographies and press pieces—especially those written close to the 1930s–1950s—lean into gossip, moralizing, and the scandal angle. They treat Wallis like a plot device: temptress, social climber, or villain who caused a constitutional crisis. Those are fun to read with a cup of tea, but I don’t trust them as straight history. More recent writers have had access to government files, personal letters, and archives that were sealed for decades. That’s shifted the narrative: you get nuance about class, gender, and race, and far more scrutiny of institutional motives (the palace, newspapers, and politicians). Even now, though, biographies vary widely in reliability because authors choose different sources, lean on memoirs that may be self-serving, or interpret motives without hard evidence. For me the best biographies are the ones that show their sources clearly, weigh conflicting accounts, and are willing to say “we don’t know” when private conversations were never recorded. If you’re diving in, read across perspectives. Pair a contemporary biography with a modern archival-driven book, skim newspapers from the era to taste the tone, and treat later memoirs and interviews skeptically. Wallis’s life is still partly shrouded in rumor, but the picture has become richer and fairer as historians have had better access. I still love the gossip, just with my skeptical hat on.