Royal style: Max and Wax and whacky hats

[QueenOfTheAndals]

Now that the Commonwealth event is nearly over, we have another treat ahead of us. Maxima in Indonesia!

In light of what happened on the previous thread, I'm going to take a leaf out of Elizabeth SMT Holmes' book and say critique the clothes and the styling but not the physical appearances of various royal women.

Kate in Ralph Lauren

Stripe top, purple jumper, cricket style jumper, dress, black jacket

Jumper dress

Custom jacket

I remember that green jacket, I think it was the first time we saw her after she had George and I thought she looked so natural and more or less like a normal mum with a small baby.

Yeah, it was the first time in public after having George. 🙂

Well, apart from the going home from hospital pics! 😉

I've been looking at rings on Pinterest, idly thinking about what I might like for our 20th anniversary in the summer (assuming we're still here) and came across this from William and Kate's tour to Poland in 2017 and wondered why I hadn't noticed it before. It's very nice.

Kate looks very soft and normal in the green jacket pictures. I also like the jumper dress outfit, looks like they are on date night.

@Frugal I love that ring!! It's beautiful.

I’m always surprised at how different Kate looks facially depending on her weight. Pregnancy shows on her face quite early on and those pictures in the green jacket were a short time post-partum. Very different to her normal weight photos. Lovely in both though. She really is very photogenic.

More in the series, Royals Working from Home (and solving crime).
Carl Philip and Sofia. Both looking thoughtful.

Sofia

I remember Kate wearing that green jumper dress to a homeless charity and seeing that it cost about £300-400 and thinking that it was incredibly tactless to wear such an expensive dress to that sort of charity.

And now I think if any royal women wear anything under £1000 they are staggeringly frugal and what a bargain. I think this may be down to Dior maternity wear.

I don't really have an issue with them wearing expensive clothes for charity visits as we all know they're rich! It would be more insulting if they turned up in their oldest cheapest clothes. I guess they take their lead from the QM who wore her furs and diamonds to visit the East End during the Blitz!

Yes - I think the way I think about how much Royals spend on stuff has changed a lot in the last few years. I would have been keener for her to wear an M&S suit / Zara dress to shake hands with the homeless at the time. It felt quite tone deaf to me then - there are charity events like raising money for mental health, phone ins or visiting cancer patients, but going to stare poverty in the face and say hello to it in a dress that seemed so expensive at the time (and it really doesn’t seem that now!) jarred with me at the time. Now it would seem like she’d positively thought about a low budget option.

The QM knew how to do it! On balance she probably didn’t buy those diamonds. That’s another thing! I am keen on all royals getting out as much mad OTT bling as possible. Let’s call it in the name of sustainability but they’ve not spent a penny on those fabulous jewels and there’s SO much of it, so the more the merrier - I want Diana’s huge sapphire choker fished out and the rest.

I too would love to see the bling again - with modern outfits, rather than looking at old photos.

However, i think the days of the royals wearing big rocks (unless it's at state banquets ect,) is gone.
a) trying to look more 'normal', less them and us,
b) security maybe?
c) sheer comfort reasons:

Royal meet and greets are more physical and tactile than in past times. However fabulously crafted, I imagine a lot of the pieces would be heavy/spikey/pinch small hairs/swing round the wrong way if you're reaching to meet and greet and crouch for kids and do the occasional 'join in' sessions with tasting cakes and knocking balls about.

Not appreciated if one's diamonds get in between one and one's public nowadays

Unlike William, Kate is right handed but she is holding her pen in her left hand. Is the setup used to fully show her face (her skin looks very youthful and almost airbrushed here)?

The papers in her tray are blank, the top paper in her portfolio/folder is blank.

She isn't wearing the sapphire ring, unless it has been turned backwards.

The room isn't an office, it's their drawing room (think back to when the Obamas visited).

The books apparently include: Christmas Carol, Sense and Sensibility, Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park, Tess of the D’urbervilles, Middlemarch, The Picture of Dorian Grey and Bleak House.

William's printer wires cover the cabinet drawers - was this brought in for the photo?Inquiring minds must know!

There's a red plastic bin in the bottom right hand corner of William's photo.

It would be funny if Kate and William were on the opposite sides of the same room.

Swedish royals wfh setup at least looks more plausible, they look like they are in an advertisement for some sort of virtual conferencing software 😂

I'm liking Kate's book selection. Maybe that's what she does for pin-money, sells Classics by the yard for an interior design company.

Maxima is still getting out and about. All she needs is a deerstalker hat to go with the cape and she's all set for Baker Street!

Yes, that's it @MangoFeverDream 😂

Those KP photos are ridiculous. There are lots of good ways to take photos of people working. Look at the amazing photos of the JFK or Obama presidencies at work.

Clearly that’s not a working set up for Kate and public using photos in KP taken last week to highlight how hard they’re working when everyone knows they’ve gone to Norfolk is just crass.

I find seeing photos of Max out and about really cheers me up, so it must be a real tonic for the people she visits in RL.

I must say the concept of monarchy is taking quite a bashing right now. They're not helping themselves at all.

Those staged pics of the royals (all of them) pretending to work have really annoyed me.

So fake. At least it's given us something to talk about though!

So obviously staged.
Surely a good photographer would be able to make it look real ?

I saw a headline saying William wants to do his bit and fly a helicopter again but he is a senior working royal and can’t. First it was said his licence had expired. What rubbish when retired medical professionals can crawl out of retirement. How convenient. Maybe at some stage we will see a heavily managed photograph of him doing one or two shifts. I doubt it would help his image either way. The staged office photographs really highlighted how much they live in their bubble. It is offensive.

No more Sussex Royal.
Anyone else feel Harry threw his toys out of the pram ?