AIBU to think Kate and Meghan could look just as good at half the price

[MeganRapinoe]

This is neither a Kate nor a Meghan bashing thread.

I'm just wondering if they need to spend quite so much money on clothes or, as they are both gorgeous, could they spend much less and still look fab.

The dress Meghan wore to meet the baseball players is said to have cost £800 and it didn't seem all that to me - couldn't she have got something for, say, £250.

And before anyone asks, yes - I do have more important things to worry about but i just fancy a chat.

What do we mean by 'supporting British designers' though?

Where are the clothes actually made? Who owns the companies?

It's all very well to give a big shout out if one of them turns out in Stella McCartney but for all I know it could be manufactured abroad. A quick Google says the business is under the Gucci group - how much British designer is that really?

Something could be far more British with a non-British sounding name if it was all made in Lancashire. It's just harder to put in a headline.

You mean google, like we could have done MM ?

amp.insider.com/images/5c8fadc5dd08614003414523-1136-1644.jpg
Chanel for £10 000

Why should they spend less if they can afford it?

Value for money.
And because according to government policy we are still in a period of austerity.

Is Meghan "independently wealthy"? I wouldn't think an ensemble actor in Suits would earn enough to pay for the wardrobe she has acquired since she married Harry.

So because they are attractive, they shouldn't wear expensive clothes?

it's a weird comment, but I'd translate it as both women could get away with it as they have a great body anyway. They need less help from a very good cut than the rest of us

Looks like you've got the hang of this new fangled googling, Feedbad1

Ridiculous for Kate to spend £10k on that unremarkable Chanel dress.

You know how the royal men wear the same well cut expensive suits all the time? Well I wonder if the two duchesses might be better advised doing that. Wearing the same outfits again and again so it stops becoming about how they look and what they wear and more about what they do.

Kate often wears Gucci stuff, so not that much of a supporter of British design!

I don’t see why they can’t wear more accessible stuff. Once QE2 dies, I suspect that a lot of the goodwill towards the royals will die too. The rest of them are going to have to adapt. The Swedish and Norwegian royal women often wear H&M and OtherStories stuff. Seeing the British royals parading around in fabulously expensive clothes makes me think, hang on, remind me why we are paying for this shower to buy mega expensive wardrobes?

Perhaps they think it will inspire awe in their humble subjects. Monarchs used to do that all the time: in the Middle Ages it was against the law for people not of the blood royal to wear certain types of fur. Glad to see that old habits die hard, eh?

Kate always looks awful imo- dresses like a woman half her age and her makeup looks dated too.
Meghan could look good in most things. I don’t think she’s a great natural beauty but deffo has a lovely figure and skin etc

Not half- meant twice!!

Sugar wow, you totally missed the fact that this thread isn’t about bashing them. How nasty.

Au contraire, I would like to see Kate dressing like a woman half her age! In Topshop and Primark preferably.

(Just kidding, I know you meant ‘twice her age’).

Shame we can’t elect monarchs. I’d vote for Anne. She saw the writing on the wall years ago: refused royal titles for her kids, wears old clothes, earns her keep.

So when we say tax payers fund this, do they get a specific amount of yearly income from taxes or do they have open access to purchase their “needs” from taxes?

If they have a specific yearly amount dedicated for the royal family then it’s their loss if they wasted 10,000k of that on a channel dress. Definately not a wise choice in my books but I’m not into expensive brands in general anyway

The Royal Family are ‘independently wealthy.’ Very, very wealthy. The money we ‘give’ to them is actually a fraction of the profits of the Crown Estate.

www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/royal-family-how-much-land-own-crown-estates-wedding-meghan-markle-queen-a8352401.html

Thank William the Conqueror.

Think you're being disingenuous with some of your questions. I'm name checking Kate & Meghan because they are high profile members of the Royal Family in a country which has been blighted by austerity for over a decade. They're funded by the taxpayer whilst (for example) social care funding is being cut. It seems wrong that Kate would meet with, say, homeless people whilst wearing thousands of pounds worth of clothes and shoes.

And they are both gorgeous enough that they enhance the clothes rather than vice versa.

The misogyny is noted that no-one ever criticises the Royal men for how much they spend on clothes.

Charles's handmade suits presumably aren't cheap and someone aught to have a word with Edward about his double-breasted habit and tell him they just don't suit him.

At least with the women you can have some fashion fun.

Except when they spend it on the worst suit Chanel ever made

Kate has reworn some of her clothes on plenty of occasions.

Couldn't care less about the clothes but I always eye-roll a bit at justifying them as "independently wealthy". Their ancestors bloody robbed everything and kept it, of course they're rich!

yulet

Meghan Markle was earning about 500k a year prior to her marriage. She actually is independently wealthy. The others, not so much.

From wiki

‘The Duchy of Cornwall is a Crown entity holding land and other assets to produce an income for the monarch's eldest son. The Duke of Cornwall (currently, Prince Charles) receives revenue which he applies towards charitable work and official activities, supported by the Queen's grant-in-aid funding to provide assistance with official travel and property. These financial arrangements also cover the official expenditure of some members of his immediate family. The Duchess of Cornwall, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex all have their official expenses paid from Duchy income, assisted by funds from the Queen's Sovereign Grant. For the fiscal year 2011–12 the Duchy was valued at £728 million with an annual profit of £18.3 million paid to the Prince.’

Easy to be independently wealthy when you invaded, killed the previous landowners then divvied up a few bits of the country between your mates, isn’t it? Remind me how the Grosvenor family got to be so minted again? Oh yeah, their ancestor was one of William the Conqueror’s drinking buddies!

So I feel no concern about the royals being denied any of ‘their’ income from the crown estates. They are there under our sufferance, and I’d advise a bit of austerity of their own. I’m with the OP, in case that’s not obvious.

The excess of wearing a ten grand Chanel suit in difficult economic times reminds me of bloody Diana simpering in diamonds and Versace evening dresses whilst being feted by rich Americans at dinners to celebrate her concern for the poor!

Ha ha, I wonder who wrote the Wikipedia entry for the duchy of Cornwall?

I like that chanel thing, looks like I'm the only one!

Iam I’m with you on that. But that’s a whole other debate about whether we should get rid of monarchy in the first place. I don’t see how focusing just on Meghan and Kate out of the whole family is going to mend historic injustice.

So really this thread should be about whether the royal family deserve their wealth on not. Every other detail is pointless to be honest.

Diana’s respect for the poor and charity work was because that’s how she is as a person. Being married to royals gave her diamonds and she doesn’t have to pretend she didn’t have them to prove she care about the poor. I don’t think she wore them to flaunt them but that’s the lifestyle she lived in. It comes with expectations and so on

Stealth I like it too and I’m not yet 30 😂 I would wear whatever Kate wears in a heartbeat and I don’t think she wears twice her age. So I’m an odd one too

I absolutely agree OP
They'd look just as good in non designer, inexpensive clothes.
Clothes do not have to be expensive to look good.
Think of that ghastly Erdem dress Kate wore in Sweden.

I'd love to see them both wearing clothes and accessories from smaller British designers about 50% of the time, the rest being higher end and the odd high street when casual.
To me it seems a really obvious way to support their country so I wonder why they don't?