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!

Kate is very attractive and has a great figure. Her clothes are not really my style - I was far more into what Meghan wore - but neither of them, or indeed any current royal, is the kind of style icon that Diana was and I don't think their clothes will be still discussed in 30 years time like the way hers are. But as we know, that all came at a price for poor Diana so perhaps it's for the best.

I know what you mean Killing, but I wonder if it's less about the clothes and more about the very different eras? Nowadays with SM and Instagram influencers, the stage is much more crowded, whereas in Diana's era, who was there to really compete with her star power (apart from maybe some Hollywood film stars)? She was as much a product of her time as anything else I think.

All of the above, and also because Diana had a luminous quality that neither Kate nor Meghan She was a compelling presence. Also she was taller than average, and blonde, so she stood out in a crowd. Both Kate and Meghan have dark hair which makes them less noticeable.

Oh for an edit button
“neither Kate nor Meghan share”

Good point @MotherofPearl but I also think Diana had "it". A certain star quality that very few royals have had. There was just something about her and also her ability to connect with the public.

I agree with the "it" factor. It's hard to define, but you know it when you see it. I also agree that Diana's star quality was very much of its time.

Keep wearing the kaftans, @ArcaneWireless - style it out! Middle aged has come and gone for me in all honesty, but I do like to be stylish. Although if stylish = Nosferatu in a John Lewis trouser suit 😉

We’d be style and beauty’s little and large 😄

😂

I think Kate came into the role understanding that it wasn't all about her, and perhaps conscious of stepping on toes, shall we say. She's tried to walk a path of being a support act and not falling for any flattery. Those of you of a Scots persuasion will understand my late mother when Diana came on the scene: "she's fair away wi hersell"

@Maireas what does that mean please ?

She's very self satisfied. Pleased with herself.
That's a contentious point I know, but in the early days it was very obvious how thrilled Diana was and excited by her situation. She did love the role. Had my Mother lived she would have seen Diana grow into the role and become more than a blushing clothes horse.

Diana was very young though, just 19 or 20. It was all completely insane when you think about it, really.

It was! You're so right, @KillingMeDeftly - the response to her was huge. She became a superstar so quickly! It must have been thrilling for a young woman, but also daunting and eventually just too much.

Back to Kate's clothes and general demeanour - I get the impression that she's trying to avoid pitfalls or going down that track.

I think so.

I know that Kate will be very aware of the scrutiny and may have made a deliberate decision not to put herself front and centre.

I will also be contentious in that Diana did come to love the attention - even if it may only have been to cock a proper snook at her husband (or anyone else).

William and Kate have always seemed more equal in that respect. She seems happy and secure in her role and she is a steady hand. She just doesn’t seem ‘awa wi hersel’ at all.

She is aware of the scrutiny always but just carries on being her. She has no need to seek the shine.

I can see why Diana did -the adoration and affirmation must have seemed a handy crutch in times of trouble. It isn’t healthy though. I went clean off her with the Taj Mahal picture.

I like the balance that our new Queen and the Queen to be have. Attitude wise, support wise, clothing wise.

I am from an area where you ‘jist get oan w’it’ without being flash or whinging. Maybe that is why I prefer Camilla and Kate (Princess Anne and Sophie too) to others.

I'm the same, @ArcaneWireless - those are the ones I admire too. Kate is treading a more careful path.

Completely off the topic of Style and Beauty Maireas will send me to the Bold Tower but I'd love to get Diana's sisters' "take" on it all. Then and now.
Their " little sister".

No Bold Tower for you, @LadyEloise1 - that would be a most interesting take on events.

I will also be contentious in that Diana did come to love the attention - even if it may only have been to cock a proper snook at her husband (or anyone else).

And maybe her birth family as well. It can't be easy for these second and third (and more) born daughters of heirs to ancient titles and vast estates who have yet to have a son. I'm sure Diana knew that her sex was a disappointment to her parents, and especially after her brother was born, she may have felt a bit surplus to requirements growing up. Nothing quite like becoming Princess of Wales to shoot right up in the family importance stakes. I have a lot of sympathy for her on that score.

I have been through "middle age" and come out the other side. I didn't mean the term to be derogatory - I meant that the way she dresses has always made her look older than she is. And "staid" might be a better term than dowdy.
Kate always looks perfectly "nice" and well turned out, but there's nothing particularly eye catching about what she wears. She's not fashionable in the way that some of the European queens and princesses are. At least she seems to have moved on from the coat dresses though. .

Good points, @SenecaFallsRedux . The Spencer family were certainly ambitious for their daughters to marry well.

And I think Diana enjoyed fashion far more than Kate seems to. Mind you, their relative ages may also be a factor - by the age Kate married, Diana had been PoW for 10 years, and by Kate's age now, Diana had been dead for 5 years. Her clothes got more conservative as she got older (she seemed to be settling on a kind of uniform of shift dresses for formal daytime things, and she had fewer big evening events post-divorce).

I will also be contentious in that Diana did come to love the attention - even if it may only have been to cock a proper snook at her husband (or anyone else).

I think she was a very complicated person, but would agree that there was some part of enjoying the attention and the uses she could make of it in her character.

The “revenge dress” was one example of that, and another being her choice in her last summer to swim out to a pontoon raft anchored outside Mohamed Al Fayed’s villa in the South of France, She was wearing a leopard print swimsuit and she made several graceful swan dives into the water, all in full view of the press pack she knew was there. And she also knew that that night Charles was hosting a 50th birthday party for Camilla in London, and that photos of her diving would be juxtaposed against photos of Camilla in the next day’s papers (as indeed they were).

Didn't Diana say that when she expressed doubts to them about her upcoming marriage, they said "too late Dutch, your face is on the tea towels"?