Royal Style and Beauty: Carpe Diadem! No tears or tiers, just tiaras please

[Maireas]

Afternoon, a new thread and thanks to @ArcaneWireless for the great title! On we go!

I know! I saw pics of them last summer and they were quite tall, but young Sofia must be 6ft.

There's something vampiric about him there! Funny how he looks like his father now when he didn't look remotely like him as a young man. More's the pity!

That's rather funny because the front of house man at our hotel looks soo like Felipe, we now just call him the King.

I would rather like to be part of the Spanish RF. They always look so chilled.
I hope they are as happy as they appear as I assume Felipe's childhood wasn't much fun.

I love the way the European royals get on socially all generations, ages, and families. The British could do with a bit of that.

Isn't Letizia tanned, wonder if she lies on a sun lounger in the garden with her kindle 😊

They all meet up at Balmoral? I've seen lovely pictures of the late Queen with great grandchildren there.

Yes but that's just a Brit fest.

?

Queen Sofia has been through so much in her life bless her.

We were in Minorca many years ago during classic yacht racing. We saw the most amazing yacht our Spanish friend said ah that belongs to the king and he is on board.

Actually Queen Sofia was in the Olympic yacht team for Greece in her younger days.

They all trot up to Scotland on a rota. Only William and Kate have broken the mould a bit fleeing to the sun to relax.

I know and her brother I think. The war made them refugees, that must have been hard. She's a well educated, sports woman who's endured a lot.

Harry Enfield 😆

Can't unsee it now and suspect Charles can be a bit of a Kevin the teenager at times!!

Yes, although I think they join them at some point.
I think on Mallorca it must be a Spanish fest!

Indeed. Her sister Irene lives with her in the palace now, and as we've seen, holidays with her and the family, so that's a positive.

@justasking111 "......Queen Sophia has been through so much in her life bless her.
I agree.
The ex King, her son in law etc.

As in they dont mingle with other Royal families in the same way the Scandis and the others do. They don’t seem to have the same (public) friendships with other Royal families. The photo at Ingrid Alexandra’s birthday with all the young heirs and heiresses to Euro thrones was lovely to see and George wasn’t a part of it.

Only have a few minutes but I think Meghan's stripes dress is both very flattering and not quite right! . She is not naturally curvy and the dress gives her curves so I'll put that in the plus column. But agree with whoever said it needs to be hoiked up - it looked like it could fall down any second!

The Spanish always look so relaxed and "normal" (albeit in a glowing, rich kind of way) don't they? Most of what Meghan and Kate wear I'd never wear even if I was skinny but they (Leti etc) always seem to have outfits I can actually imagine wearing, or being around people wearing.

I've thought about this in the past. I can't help wondering if it's a hangover from basically being German? And even going further back, it never really felt like the British kings and queens were terribly friendly with their European neighbours - most of the time they were fighting them or making marriages of convenience that just turned things all a bit off eventually. I always sort of suspect that the British royal family is not really rated by the rest of them as individuals and as a "brand" they've gone a different route. Let's face it, in large parts of the world, Elizabeth was simply, "the Queen" and many people who know who Charles/Kate/William/Harry etc are wouldn't recognise the bulk of the members of the European royal families.

Good points, @MsMarch . Georges V and VI were always anxious about the connections, for obvious reasons. I think they just wanted to promote themselves as British and having midgey moorland holidays. Although Charles and Diana and the boys went to stay in Mallorca with Sofia and Juan Carlos

@MsMarch it's a good point about the clothes. I'd never consciously realized before.

very true, especially the ‘brand BRF’ bit. I do think though there are so few people in the world that live the life that George is living/will live. It seems like it would be a good thing to foster that support for George and siblings , through friendship and godparenting and all the rest of it. I’m not sure it has served the BRF to be in their own slightly anachronistic bubble.

I think the Middletons input is changing things. He holidays with those cousins, which is great.

I’m assuming there’s no Euro ‘Heiress/Heir to the throne’ WhatsApp they all dip in to 😂. But access to ‘someone like me’ for children in whatever position they find themselves is always a good thing. William and Harry don’t ever seem to have had high profile friendly Royal counterparts , listening ears to guide them through Royal life. They always seem to have been very inward facing and the loss to William and Harry has to be immense.

William and Harry have Spencer cousins. I wonder if they were friends growing up.

Apart from the Dutch, the euro royals are reasonably closely related to the BRF, although perhaps the ages don't quite match up for the different generations to have close friendships. Eg Felipe/Fred/Haakon etc are much younger than Charles but about 10 years older than William and Harry. And the younger generation are a lot older than George and Charlotte etc.