In 1977 Queen Elizabeth II celebrated 25 years on the throne. The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company contributed to the festivities by staging a Silver Jubilee Season at Sadler's Wells, the highlight being a new production of Iolanthe with silver-themed designs by Bruno Santini. Gilbert and Sullivan's 1882 Savoy opera mocks the House of Lords within a tale of fairy folk and mortals who struggle with a typically Gilbertian plot contrivance that impedes the course of true love. Sullivan's music incorporates references to contemporary Grand Opera and the first production presented the Queen of the Fairies as a substantial lady in a breastplate and Wagnerian helmet, whose claim to have swung upon on a cobweb was amusingly unlikely. Subsequent productions have maintained this tradition by making the Queen into a parody of Brünnhilde.

Reviewers of the 1977 production were slightly disappointed that the Fairy Queen was, in the words of the Financial Times critic: 'trim of appearance, prettily dressed and not at all ridiculous'. Her costume is a riot of black and silver synthetic fabrics, designed to shimmer under the stage lights. The bodice is shaped to suggest a breastplate but is covered in shining black sequins so that the Queen retains her femininity. Santini gave the fairies the traditional tiny wings of the Victorian imagination but the Queen's are a stylish black nylon net shot with lurex and edged in silver russia braid to match the rest of her outfit. They slot into the back of the bodice and were not worn with the cloak but mirror the 'flame' shapes of the cloak's high collar fashioned by Martin Adams from piano wire. Along with the choker necklace in the style of a ruff and the tightly curled wig, the collar hints at the Elizabethan period, an appropriate reference for a production marking the second Elizabeth's Jubilee.