Royal style and gossip: From foundation to Foundations...

[QueenOfTheAndals]

I've lost count of how many threads we've had! Previous thread.

Let's keep the gossip lighthearted and, as always, stick to critiquing the clothes rather than being overly critical about the women wearing them.

I love Camilla’s parasol

I want a parasol!

If i try hard enough I can pretend I don't see the other photos.

Christian Fraser on 100 Days on the BBC spotted HMQ's Dyson fan in the picture. I think he was slightly envious. 😁

Going back a few pages to talk of Andrew and SF’s wedding - I remember watching it at school on the wheely in telly. But thinking about it wouldn’t it have been a Saturday?

I want a parasol too! English Rose here - would be very useful!

AliasGrape I think it was a weekday wedding for Sarah and Andrew so hence a school day for you.
I'll be sent to the Tower for this but I think the "will they, won't they" with Fergie and Andrew is good PR because of the JE scandal.and has nothing to do with Prince Philip.

beanaseireann

Ah thanks, wasn’t false memory syndrome then!

Didn't Sarah wink at someone/something when walking down the aisle?
William was a pageboy & played up a bit as 4 year olds can do when they're bored.

To the pp who said they thought Diana would have hated Kate and loved meghan, I think the reverse. Kate would have made it her mission to not put a foot wrong with Diana and always stand one respectful step behind her, then she'd have won her over once George was born as they are both good with small children. I think she would have struggled with Meghans more bold amercian and educated character. Didn't she only get 2 o levels or similar?

I've often wondered what sort of a MIL Diana would have been. I think she'd be overjoyed to be a grandmother and want to be fully involved with her DGC. Her relationships with her DILs would probably be defined by this more than anything else.

That was me @TipseyTorvey! Diana seemed to use William as an emotional crutch when she was alive so she may have resented the entry of a wife. Her relationship with Harry seems like it was less complicated. Plus she was fond of glitz and glamour, something Meghan seems to enjoy more than Kate.

All speculation of course!!!

I used to think she'd be a terrible MIL. But I have decided that we simply can't know. when she died, the anger and bitterness over the divorce etc was still very much swirling around. She had only just started living a properly independent life but she hadn't been established as separate from the royal family. Much of the attention was still focused on her issues, personally and professionally.

It's entirely possible this would have continued. But if the shift in how Fergie is viewed and her own experience is anything to go by, I think it's possible that things would have calmed down for Diana and she would have matured into a different person (good or bad). If she'd found love, started to appreciate the freedom to do her own thing in terms of charities/personal/other stuff away from the royal family etc, that might have had a huge impact on her. Ditto, everyone agrees she was a great mum so as things settled I'd like to think the years she spent leaning on the boys, particularly William, would have passed and she'd have been able to be a support for them.

Obviously, the opposite could have happened and she could have become more crazy and obsessed with being badly treated etc etc.

My point is that we don't know because she died when she was still young. When her boys were still young. And when she had had almost no time to establish a new (improved) life for herself.

Good points queen and bling. We'll never know of course but it's interesting to speculate. Diana never struck me as a woman's woman, not a very nice phrase but the impression given was that she was beautiful and very socially adept but not one for sitting around with girlfriends having a cheeky few so maybe she would have just had a distant relationship with both DILs but I bet she would have loved the grandkids.

One thing's for certain, considering she wouldn't even be 60 if she was still alive, she would've been a very glamorous granny!

She would certainly have been a glamma rather than a granny. However, I suspect as a DIL I would have trod very carefully around her.

I think it would all have been on her terms tbh.

I don’t think she’d have liked her DILs - think she’d have seen them as competition. However she may have matured over the years but I reckon she wouldn’t have made it easy.

@gottogo - I worry that's true. But I also like to think hat if she'd matured and reached a sense of peace in herself she would also have been one of the few women around who could really mentor and support her DIs in this situation.

I don't think Harry and William would have married who they have married. William would have married someone more like his mother and I don't think Charles and Camilla would have married either

Very true, @YorkshireIndie.

People are perhaps forgetting Diana would be a different generation from her DILs. Understandable, because we have the image of her in her thirties prime burned into our brains. But as a MIL she might have preferred Kates's more diffident, compliant nature to Meghan's confident and forthright one.

Oh yes, if Diana hadn't died then I doubt Charles and Camilla would've married. I can't remember if they were "out" as a couple at the time she died or whether that only happened in the years after.

I think it's very likely she would have remarried at least once and moved abroad and had another child/children.

Diana died young and it's easy to picture the Diana circus we remember - her freshly divorced, dithering on the outskirts of the royal family, in the papers daily - carrying on as it was. But I think as her life moved her on, possibly away from this country (and as she aged) the intense media interest in her would have waned. Most of the interaction between her and her sons and their new families would quite possibly have taken place well away from our gaze.

Escaping that vicious circle of love/hate and the need to posture to the UK media (which she'd been stuck in since a 19 year old remember) would have given her a chance to find herself and find a bit of peace. Her character may have changed quite dramatically. The boys would not have gone through the tragedy of her death and they may have been very different people to who they are today too.

Fascinating to wonder how far she would have influenced Harry particularly away from royal life, had she lived. After all when she died they inevitably got sucked firmly into the firm.

My recollection is that the death of Diana actually slowed down the progress of Charles and Camilla marrying. I think they were already working on a public relations approach to rehabilitate Camilla's image. Diana's death actually slowed that considerably. So I do think that Charles and Camilla would have eventually married even if Diana had lived, especially if Diana had also remarried at some point.

I agree SenecaFalls. I think Diana's death damaged Camilla's popularity. Although it has recovered now.

I have always wondered if we would even have a monarchy anymore had Diana not died. Not just in terms of all that was going on at the time with the war of the Wales's that could have settled given time or exploded we will never know. Same as pp said she died at a time everything was still so up in the air I'm not sure we can say what would have happened.

But I felt her death and the the aftermath especially changed how the royals interact with the public it's hard to explain I'm probably making much sense. But I feel without an event like that would they have just kept going as they were till they were irrelevant and out. Probably not but i do wonder.