Royal style & gossip: from christening gowns to tennis lawns

[QueenOfTheAndals]

Previous thread

And I think we all can agree that it's much more fun if we stick to critiquing the clothes rather than the women!

Princess Anne gave interviews to Parkinson and Wogan, interestingly. She has gone up in my estimation, when she chats she does it well

Bit late to the party but i think the slightly strangeness of the christening photo is partly due to the fact they have stuck with a rigid formal arrangement re seniority, but with so few participants.

With the selection there IMO it would have been nice to have had a more relaxed arrangement. Perhaps with Doria and Charles in the front row with H & M as they are both blood grandparents, and the Cambridges, ect behind. Surely getting them all smiling should have been no.1 priority though. Again especially as there is so few of them there.

I agree it's a strange mixture of odd and nice to see Diana's sisters in the pic. They are Archie's great Aunts and there to represent Diana i guess. Are they in fact the Godparents??

Myimaginarycathasfleas as usual i'm with you on the Camilla & Charles front. I seriously wouldn't come out of the house to see either of them even if they were just across the road. It's all a long time ago and nothing to do with me but it's how i feel. When it was all going on I was old enough to understand it all and young enough to feel shocked and upset for Diana. So it's sort of stuck like that.

Myimaginarycathasfleas and Laiste
I agree with you re Charles and Camilla.
Not nice behaviour but so many in the public eye do the same.

Maybe it seems unfair to expect the RF to live by higher standards than their subjects, but if they don't want to lead by example and bind us together in times of national turmoil, one has to ask, what are they FOR?

For the people who see "tension" in the photo what do you see?!?

I see a group of people bring made pose for a very formal group shot that has to take seniority into account.

If I compare the Cambridge children’s christening photos to Archie’s, more people in the pictures just seem to have wider/more genuine smiles in the former to me. Could be for lots of reasons though, like the photographer having less time etc.

“Maybe it seems unfair to expect the RF to live by higher standards than their subjects,“
I don’t expect them to live by higher standards. I just expect them to live by the standards I would expect civilised people to live. Charles’ behaviour would have been as despicable in 4 Railway Cuttings as it was in Clarence House.

Where were the Cambridge kids baptised? St James Palace or Windsor? Charlotte's, I thought, was elsewhere, given that ridiculous pram wheeling up the cobbled street.

The only difference I can see between the two christening pictures apart from weight of numbers is that the Middletons seem more relaxed and the Spencer sisters more austere. But that’s not particularly surprising.

Well if you compare it to the Cambridge christening photos; they are all « arranged according to seniority» but they are also happily smiling, like an extended family who are relaxed with each other.

In the Sussex photos, there are lots of little groups.
Charles and Camilla; Doria on her own, the Spencer Sisters, William and Kate. Harry, Meghan and Archie.

I’m probably being overly fussy, but thé Détective Aunt’s outfit jars.
They all clash with the green drawing room.

The Cambridge christenings were beautifully coordinated and they even filtered Louis’ group portrait so that hideous Olive colour Meghan wore did not clash with the other colours.

Harry has spoken in the past about living being an uncle, so where are his 3 nephews and niece. It’s not a relaxed family portrait.
Tension is possibly too strong a word, but it looks awkward and uncomfortable; a group of loosely related people posing together.

The informal shoot at Windsor, with HM, the Duke of Edinburgh and Doria was much more natural and warm. Even the portrait for Charles 70th. Formal but comfortable.

Has anyone actually seen H hang out with the Cambridge kids, ever?

I'm not sure that the tension, if there is any, is between the family members. IMO, it's a pretty poor photograph andI imagine the photographer just isn't very good at that sort of thing. If that's the case, the subjects end up with gritted teeth while the photographer fannies about, changes his mind, fiddles with the lights etc. Whatever, the shot is taken from too low down and is over exposed.
I'm giving the participants the benefit of the doubt .

Any photographer worth his/her salt should have made it look more relaxed - even Charles looks pretty serious. Wonder if it’s the same/different photographer as the Cambridge christenings?

This is the Cambridges photographer Matt Holyoak

Sussex photographer Chris Allerton
Likes his black & white photography

I think the black and white photo is terrible. Ok you can’t help what the baby does but with his eyes and Harry’s being closed it looks so odd. And she’s doing that adoring gazing again. It’s meant to look intimate but it’s so posed.Their PR team are rubbish.

I don't see tension there as such, i just think it doesn't look pleasing to the eye. That's the magic of getting group photography right. When it's right it looks effortless. When it's wrong it looks wrong but it's hard to say why.

Looking at it again with the seniority thing in mind it doesn't even make sense in that respect either. HM was sitting with the parents in the cambs christening shots. Following that logic, with HM not present then it should be Charles down front by M, H and baby.

Then surely you'd automatically want Doria there as a fourth adult in the front row as she is the other grandparent. It would make more sense both formally and make for a nice family feel.

Placemarking, although it's been a while since I've been moved to comment on one of these threads. I'm still holding in

I don’t mind the b&w photos.
In this one of George’s christening William & Kate are looking at George too.
However they had a bigger selection of photos.

I can understand the Godparents thing being private.
As pp said H&M are public figures.
However, Archie is in this weird zone of semi private.
Eg, I couldn’t tell you what Lena Tindall looked like. She was christened privately in the Honiton lace robe and the Queen attended.
There were no photos released.

Unfortunately H&M have opened Pandora’s box. They cannot pick and choose and switch on and off public interest.
They benefit from it for their charities, but if it interest strays over the very unclear boundary they have created then they get annoyed.

Eg, they say the godparents want to be private. The next day ( and 2 days before the christening) Meghan is photographed with 2 of her American friends at the tennis. Observers would not be unreasonable to assume they are 2 godmothers.

So much unnecessary nastiness on this thread.

Remember this? images.app.goo.gl/VK8FPPqAP7yxkHQ4A

And this?

images.app.goo.gl/JZa1o5mBsH9Egb3NA

I'm not bloody surprised that Harry wants privacy for his son. This is one seriously fucked-up family, due to the Great British Public feeling that they own a piece of 'their' royals' private lives.

Re. Charles and Camilla? They deserve their happiness, having been denied the chance to wed when they were first acquainted. I do feel sorry for Diana. But she knew what she was signing on for. Both her and Charles were just cogs in the royal machine. The whole thing is bonkers. The sooner we are a republic, the better tbh.

A woman looking adoringly at her husband. Whatever next.

I really hope DoC goes to Wimbledon this week so we can get back to frocks instead of the micro analysis of H and M and photos and perceived tensions and fingers gripping etc ...

They deserve their happiness, having been denied the chance to wed when they were first acquainted

Where have you got this idea from?

I do feel sorry for Diana. But she knew what she was signing on for.

Or indeed, this?

I love the Zara Christening video. 🙂

she knew what she was signing on for How can you put that in the same message as saying we should be more considerate? Gosh!