King George suggested that the style favoured earlier by Queen Victoria would enhance her presence. It also came to symbolise the continuing values of the established British monarchy worldwide, after the debacle of the Abdication Crisis, when the uncrowned Edward VIII wanted to marry a twice-divorced American, Wallis Simpson. Mrs Simpson, subsequently the Duchess of Windsor, was also a London Hartnell client, later patronizing Mainbocher who made her wedding dress. Main Bocher was a friend of Hartnell's with whom the latter credited with sound early advice, when he showed his 1929 summer collection in Paris. Then a "Vogue" editor, Bocher told Hartnell that he had seldom seen so many wonderful dresses so badly made. Hartnell took his advice and employed the talented Parisian 'Mamselle' Davide, reputedly the highest paid member of any London couture house, and other talented cutters, fitters and tailors to execute his designs to the highest international couture standards by the 1930s. In 1929 Hartnell showed his clothes to the international press in Paris and the floor-length hems of his evening dresses, after a decade of rising hems, were hailed as the advent of a new fashion, copied throughout the world as evidenced by the press of the time. His clothes were so popular with the press that he opened a House in Paris in order to participate in Parisian Collection showings. Within a decade, Hartnell again effectively changed the fashionable evening dress silhouette, when more of the crinoline dresses worn by the Queen during the State Visit to Paris in July 1938 also created a worldwide sensation viewed in the press and on news-reels. The death of the Queen's mother Cecilia Bowes-Lyon, wife of the Earl of Strathmore, before the visit resulted in court mourning and a short delay in the dates of the visit to a vital British Ally, of enormous political significance at a time when Germany was threatening war in Europe. Royal Mourning dictated black, and shades of mauve, which meant that all the clothes utilising colour for the planned June visit had to be re-made and Hartnell's work-rooms worked long hours to create a new wardrobe in white, which Hartnell remembered had a precedent in British Royal Mourning and was not unknown for a younger Queen. Hartnell was decorated by the French government and his friend Christian Dior, creator of the full-skirted post-war New Look, was not immune to the influence and romance of the look.