Royal style & gossip: Breton stripes and skinny jeans...

[QueenOfTheAndals]

Previous thread. I think we'll be a bit short of royal outfits as they're all off on their holidays atm. But Kate's regatta is coming up next week, hence the thread title!

Same rules as always - keep it light, critique the clothes rather than the women, and don't believe anything printed in the Daily Mail

"Never puts a goot wrong."
Except for that ghastly Erdem dress.

The Marchioness of Blandfords wedding dress is on display in Blenheim apparently.
It's a lovely dress.
Sorry I cant do links.

Just googled bean - this one? It is pretty.

Tatler on the Blandfords

They've been together 10 years - since he was 16 and she was 21. I can't imagine being interested in a 16yo boy when I was 21 but maybe I'd have made an exception if he was heir to a dukedom!

They are strange wedding photos in the Tatler, with the bride & groom not touching each other at all, especially the one with the family crest/banners and the couple almost turned away from each other.

Well, the modest little home that is Blenheim might just have helped, Queen!

I remember reading that the architect who designed that place never actually saw it completed. He fell out with the first Duchess and was banned from the premises. He only saw it from a distance!

If anyone's seen The Favourite, the first duchess is one of the main characters.

There is a big marble statue of Queen Anne in the Library.

The press are on Kate's side now that Meghan cops all the criticism, but more so.

Kate used to be criticised, if not by the press then by the comments, for her hem lengths being too short, her dresses not being weighted and blowing up and showing her backside, for dressing like a sixty-year-old, her hair being too long, her hair not being up, her smile, smiling in a fake way and of course being too thin.

Many people are very stupid fickle.

I'm convinced that if Meghan had championed an early intervention initiative to support kids' mental health then she would've been accused of lecturing parents and not being able to mind her own business!

The difference is that Kate's been around for years now and has three children herself.
I don't think her initiative would have gone down well in the first year of her relationship with William or even in the first year of her marriage..

Maybe, but I think even the Chelsea garden could've been twisted if the press really wanted to. Or maybe I'm being cynical!

I'm not keen on that Blenheim dress. Love the tiara though!

The Chelsea garden project was handled brilliantly by Kate's PR team. She had some well thought of garden advisors, the future of the garden was considered so that it was of benefit to a good cause, it gave the opportunity for casual photos pf HM, Wills and the cute children, and it had an eco vibe.

Top marks to whoever dreamt it up!

www.tatler.com/gallery/when-rose-hanbury-modelled-for-tatler

Noticed this photo shoot with Rose Cholmondeley. It's 15 years old so not recent, but was dredged up again earlier this year - around the time of the rumors swirling about PW ... Entitled 'Folk Me'; someone at Tatler was stirring the pot i think.

Tatler can be ridiculous but I suspect they know more about the doings of the upper class than any other magazine!

Just out of interest Tatler was founded in 1709

Vogue - 1892.

never sets a foot wrong

Actually I agree with QueenOfTheAndals. Anyone remember when KM/DoC got a lifetime membership to the Royal Photographic Society? Clearly this was down to her exceptional contribution to the world of photography.

I wonder what the press reaction would be if a similar honor had been bestowed upon MM / DoS.

www.google.com/amp/s/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/03/duchess-cambridges-family-portraits-earn-membership-royal-photographic/amp/

I think Rose looks like Kate.
They both have that old fashioned turn of the 20th century pre WW1 look.
But I think Kate is prettier.

Kate definitely gets an easier ride than she might, if the press were feeling malicious. I don’t want to see her getting a hard time mind you! But compared to Meghan she gets a lot more love.

I don’t think it’s necessarily fair to compare the two women in terms of what they’ve done in the early stages of their Duchesshoods - they are at vastly different life stages. Kate was much younger when she married and much less experienced on the public stage, it’s naturally taken a while for her to find her feet. Meghan is an older, more established woman who is used to the public eye - I would find it weird if she suddenly vanished and pretended not to know anything about activism or to have any opinions. That just wouldn’t be honest.

If Kate had married later, perhaps had her own similar experiences, maybe she’d have been a bit more gung-ho as well, but as it is she seems to have learned on the job and been moulded into a ‘princess’. Whereas Meghan is perhaps a little less malleable.

Those pictures of RH are lovely. I think she's prettier the KM myself but they are both good looking women.

The 'Folk me' title was from 2003. Weirdly prescient!

Rose looks gorgeous in those pics (and very buxom). I always thought she looked a bit plain from recent photos but those are beautiful.

Kate had it pretty bad when they were dating though. Lots of slagging her parents off. I think she just wanted to marry the man she loved and have a family so the rest was always easier - go to events be smiling and interested and then go home. She's picked up a few things now she's generally interested in.

With Meghan she either wants to or feels pressure to "make a difference" and that's maybe trickier and potentially more controversial. I've always found her "boots on the ground" comment she made in her engage interview odd. Like she was sold the idea of being really influential.

Leti looking red-hot though I sense an AIBU brewing - "DH insists on bringing MiL wherever we go - AIBU to think she could stay at home occasionally?"

Meanwhile the Danes have been out and about too - SWFM, Joachim and mini-SWF and Mar & Fre & family.