The Empress was an early riser. She had six dressers, of whom the chief, Madeleine Zanoty, was an Italian by birth, whose family had long been in the service of the Hesses. Louise Toutelberg, known as "Toutel," the second in authority, came from the Baltic, and there were four others. The dressers had three days' service, but none of them ever saw the Empress undressed or in her bath. She rose and went to her bath unassisted, and slipped on a Japanese kimono of silk or printed cotton over her undergarments when she was ready to have her hair arranged. The Empress was extraordinarily modest in her disarray, and in this the Victorian influence was again discernible, as her conception of the bedroom was a-la-mode de Windsor and Buckingham Palace in 1840. She did not countenance the filmy and theatrical, either in her lingerie or in her sleeping apartment; her underwear was of the finest linen, beautifully embroidered, but otherwise plain. Her red-gold hair was never touched with curling irons, and it was usually very simply dressed, except when great State functions called for a more elaborate coiffure.
From Lili Dehn. That's probably where you got the "early riser" from, Talya, as it's the 1st sentence!
The Empress never left her room before noon, it being her custom, since her illness, to read and write propped up on pillows on her bed. --Anna Vyrubova
I examined the online memiors of Sophie, Lili and Ania, and the above is all I found about Alexandra's routine, but I seem to recall having read something else somewhere...I'll look more later.
