Royal style & gossip: give us this day our daily tiara...

[QueenOfTheAndals]

Link to previous thread.

As always, let's try to keep it light and avoid all spite...

Something that occurred to me looking at those Diana pictures is that she had a lady in waiting, Anne Beckwith Smith (I was obsessed with Diana in the 80s and made my mother buy me every magazine she was featured in). I've never seen any mention of Kate having a lady in waiting, I wonder if they've decided it's too old fashioned and she has a PA instead.

Extensions and a hell of a blow dry, I'm sure. I toy with the idea of asking my hairdresser to make my hair that bouncy, but I fear she would snigger at me

I bet Kate does have a lady-in-waiting, even if she goes by another title. You'd want an extra pair of hands around on those sorts of appearances - think of all the teddy bears and things people give her when she's been pregnant, but you never see her staggering off to the helicopter looking like the prize table from a hook-a-duck stand

I think a lady in waiting is a very outdated concept and they just have staff and PAs now. An old fashioned lady in waiting would have been an aristocrat and more of a companion than staff, right? That just wouldn’t work in these enlightened and eglatarian times

Although also in 2007 I think we were all still straightening our hair flat, were we not? Or am I thinking of more the turn of the millennium for that trend? Big hair was less a thing, I'm sure?

Pretty sure Princess Anne still has a lady-in-waiting?

Oh, I’m sure Anne does: she’s old school.

She is that!

Doesn't Kate have a PA who accompanies her to engagements? I imagine she does stuff like carry the gifts etc. It used to be Rebecca someone but she left either last year or earlier this year.

Don't ask me how I know this stuff, I don't even read Helllo!

From this article it seems that the older Royal ladies still have them and they're still being appointed:
royalcentral.co.uk/uk/thequeen/the-queen-appoints-two-new-ladies-in-waiting-85312
Reading the reference to 'according to Court Circular' - off to see if you can get that online..

Also found this article which is from 2011 and has a bit of a dig at 'waity Katie' but discusses the lady in waiting question
slate.com/human-interest/2011/04/kate-middleton-s-ladies-in-waiting-what-will-they-do.html
The book they mention on the history of ladies in waiting might be interesting.

I don't think DoC has extensions. I think it's just different ways of styling, different products used etc. I have a lot of hair - not dissimilar (not as long, I wish it was, I'm growing it at the moment) and a decent hairdresser can do a lot with it - curly/straight/flat/body. I think it's just that, personally.

Princess Marie is the latest royal to wear a pleated midi skirt. I like that one, it's unusual. She just looks SO much like CPM in some of those shots!

Placemarking... 🙂

Thank you Queenof theAndals for this new thread.

@ahoydelboy I’m here! ( recovering from my trip to England and walking round Kensington in the rain as roving royal reporter!)

Kate’s Leicester coat dress was by Catherine Walker. It was so beautifully cut, I thought it was McQueen.

I will say, harking back to my visit to KP; of all the clothes there, the Catherine Walker suits and dresses were the most impeccably cut. On the mannequins, However; they did look quite plain, with not so much hanger appeal.

As a ppsaid; I think it was @Hairydilemma on previous thread, the Green Coat Diana wore in Venice; does look a bit old & handmade. I also thought it looked tiny. In the photos which I remember really clearly at the time, that coat made such a statement as the shoulders were huge and very 80s. In RL it’s very small.

I think in her 20s, in the 80s, Diana was actually quite slight. She used to swim at the BP pool and that was it. I think it was on,y after her separation that she became a gym bunny.

Does anyone remember she was photographed at the gym and it made the front page of the tabloids. It was awful. Later on she went to the Harbour Club in Chelsea. There she met Will Carling.... She also played doubles tennis with Sheffield Graf; against a couple of men; and won! ( with the Wimbledon champion by her side)

*Steffi Graf!

Thanks to @Butterymuffin for the link on ladies in waiting.
I just had to post this picture of HM in Canada because she looks fabulous. ( I suspect it is real fur and don’t want to start a fur debate; but the Queen has been photographed in vintage mink over the years; more for private occasions)

I would say that Ladies in waiting are more like old fashioned “companions”. It’s just like bringing a friend along for company.
Kate has a blonde assistant who is often pictured with her, as does Meghan ( not fired as she was pictured with her at the Hubb)

More musings on my afternoon at KP and specifically Meghan.
As I said, I chatted to the lady at the gatehouse and she said Meghan was in and now only leaves by car.
She now can’t do what any of us would on a rainy afternoon; pop into Whole Foods for a coffee or mooch in M&S for a new pleated skirt. Yet just over 1 year ago she was doing exactly that. I think the loss of freedom is an extremely high price to pay.

Just for fun; what the royal guests wore to the last 3 royal weddings

Yes Curly. Nothing compensates for loss of freedom. I find the wording on her bag somewhat ironic though.

Meghan’s assistant Amy Pickerill

According to that link about ladies in waiting Fergie has 6 of them? What the heck do they do?

It looks like I’m the only one who isn’t a fan of Kate’s very long and very full hair styles. I particularly dislike the half up half down styles. I worked with a woman who wore her hair like that. She had very long blonde hair and we worked in a corporate environment. Those styles remind me of classmates hairstyles in secondary school in the late 80s/early 1990s. Looking like a schoolgirl when in your late 30s is aging.

In Australia Meghan definitely had someone following her to take her gifts. It is very clear if you watch H&M greeting people on the beach.

I don’t remember Diana as being very skinny either. She wore some humdingers in her time but I LOVE that her clothes can be dated to a specific era and that she took risks, many of which were stunning.

Kate’s aisstant private secretary

Well Kate still goes shopping , yes she is sometimes photographed doing it and will have a bodyguard with her but I imagine she thinks it’s par for the course, if she felt she had lost her freedom she would not be in Tesco and would send a flunky out instead, so they can certainly do what any of us do on a Saturday afternoon and have a mooch around the shops if they fancy it, they won’t get mobbed by hoards of screaming fans, they probably just get a few double takes.

Good for Kate if she is still able to go shopping, but how old are these photos? I read somewhere that she and William were seen in the local pub having dinner together. If I were them, I would wear wigs and have great fun going incognito.