Courtiers the release !

[jeffgoldblum]

In preparation for the books release , and with permission from randompenguin , I thought it would be good to start this thread now !

I totally disagree that Kate is more evocative of simpson. Kate has breasts and hips and apart from being slim has curves naturally. She was not as slim as she is now before she married William. I read years ago that Kate works out quite hard and runs regularly and is sporty which accounts for her trim figure.

Wallis didn't have much natural curves and had slim ankles like Meghan, she had a classic 1920ish boyish frame. Looking at her wedding photo here:

images.app.goo.gl/7ChhzsLTn1rwRfju7

she also had a slightly high up boxier waist. The difference is Simpson seems to have worn very good corsetry or shape wear under her clothing (I wish I had some decent corset wear) to give her an appearance of curves. Meghan has also put on weight since the children.

If you compare Meghan's wedding dress and shape

images.app.goo.gl/YVPs9GGps36Toe7m9
with Simpsons, they are not very far away in style and proportion.

Simpson gets bad rep but she tried to get out of marrying Edward and didn't want him to abdicate for her. Edward apparently wrote her a letter that amounted to emotional blackmail after she intimated that she was prepared to walk away.

Or maybe she has and is subtly ( or not) saying FU to the royal family.

My 2p - I think Meghan is just looking to evoke the look of certain acknowledged style icons - like Wallis Simpson, at times Princess Diana and (certainly when she and Harry were newly engaged) Carolyn Bessette Kennedy. I may be proved wrong, but I don’t think it needs to go much more deeply than that - none of these women had very “happy” lives and two died young, but they left a long lasting impact because of their personal style. In the same way, I think Kate’s wedding dress was influenced by Grace Kelly, and some of her outfits by Diana. Others I think just reflect the fact that 80s fashions are on trend again (ugh!).

The belted white coat Wallis was wearing with the gloves certainly looks like it was an inspiration, but that was also a Chanel look off the runway (coat fit altered slightly, also no gloves on the runway) so if inspired by Wallis that may have come from Chanel rather than Meghan - the Wallis coat may have been Chanel itself, and they were drawing from their own archives? Or Meghan may have seen it and thought it perfect to recreate a very chic look of Wallis? We will doubtless never know!

I also think that fashion is so cyclical and so influenced by its own past that when you have two women from different generations who are photographed a lot it’s not too difficult to find silhouettes/colours in common (a bit like the twitter threads comparing Liz Truss to bins etc 🤣).

(I also note that the red draped top Wallis was pictured wearing may not actually have been red - I saw a twitter researcher had looked into it and determined that it’s a later colourised version of an original B&W photo, and it’s impossible to tell what colour the original would have been)

I do sort of agree with you.

But what I’m saying is Meghan (as her figure is now) does not in any way shape or form wear clothes similarly to how Wallis would have done - she’s much broader, for one thing. Yes she has a straight up and down figure but that’s as close as the comparison can possibly go - nothing that Wallis wore will ever look similar on Meghan to how it did on Wallis. It’s not a smart strategy for style inspiration. So if it’s being done because she or her stylist thinks it’s a good move then that’s really misguided.

And just in case there’s any suggestion I’m being disparaging about Meghan’s figure, I’m absolutely not.

That could be possible and as pp have said Wallis was very stylish. However, their connections with nazis is very much my first thought when I think of them. I don’t think I’m alone in that within the UK but that could be different in US. I believe a letter has been uncovered that alleges The Duke of Windsor agreed to be a “puppet ruler” for UK once we’d been defeated by the Nazis. I would that thought that would have been perceived as treasonous if it had come to light in his lifetime.

The belted white coat Wallis was wearing with the gloves certainly looks like it was an inspiration, but that was also a Chanel look off the runway (coat fit altered slightly, also no gloves on the runway) so if inspired by Wallis that may have come from Chanel rather than Meghan - the Wallis coat may have been Chanel itself, and they were drawing from their own archives? Or Meghan may have seen it and thought it perfect to recreate a very chic look of Wallis? We will doubtless never know!

Correcting my own post here, but Meghan’s white coat was of course Dior, not Chanel, d’oh.
And I see fashion historians think that Wallis’ white coat was a collaboration between Balenciaga and Hubert de Givenchy

👋 to @Serenster! Didn’t see it was you I was replying to! 🙂

I’m still holding to my opinion that Dior could not possibly have had any close collaboration with Meghan in regards to that coat (Unless she had it fitted with nothing underneath and then decided to wear a dress under, or gained a little weight in the intervening weeks/months) as it just didn’t fit nicely!

Or maybe they don’t actually mind about the aesthetic as long as people see it and want to buy Dior. Which is perfectly possible I suppose.

Doubt that was intentional. She would probably prefer to be compared to Diana than Wallis.

They look very similar to these

It’s interesting that she mimicked another royals iconic looK whether consciously or not.
she is an actress so used to ‘becoming’ someone else, and these current ‘someone else’ is the duchess of Windsor.

Well I really hope it's a coincidence, I'm sure she doesn't know the connections between the Windsors and the nazis , they were at one point very friendly with hitler! , it's something that is not unknown in the U.K. but I don't think was known in the US , however now we have the World Wide Web , it's going to be common knowledge and look particularly bad if Harry dressing as a nazi is splashed about again!

Harry has grown up with tales of the duke of Windsor so if their mimicking is deliberate it means he is determined but to return

@ShamedBySiri they're by Lanvin and probably cost a bit more than Claire's Accessories!

Yes I agree.

They’re lovely. I do like emeralds (my birth sign)

I like emeralds too ! , but my favourite are rubies, which are my birth stone !

Totally agree.

She's also had form for quoting things from other people. So I wouldn't put it past her to have studied the style and bearing of some of the past Royal spouses.

She perhaps feels she has to mimic royalty, looking at it like a job or task? Too seriously perhaps? As opposed to being herself. She used to wear a lot of short clothes before marrying Harry. Since they've moved to California she hasn't gone back to that style even though she can do what she wants, which is interesting.

@RandomPenguinHouse 😆usually I'd have thought courtesy but your name threw me!

Oh fgs sake this is what happens when I post whilst cooking a new recipe. I actually wasn’t replying to @Serenster at all but to @DysonSpheres! 🙄🙄

Anyway, Meghan needs to find another figure whose style to emulate is my two cents.

To be fair, Meghan is a great deal prettier than Wallis ever was.

I’m not sure people have much, if any, say over how they look. Style however is choice.

No worries, I picked up that it was a reply to me, I agree since she's put on a bit of weight Megs doesn't pull off the Simpson vibe as well as she might have done pre-children and that's just the way it goes sometimes. Often your hips widen post child bearing and your chest gets fuller.

Simpson never had children and smoked a lot so kept her frame till she got old. Her style was her. I doubt she ever had stylists. Having a stylist must interfere with your natural sense of personal style, but maybe I'm wrong.

I agree with a previous poster that if you like pared down style, then you need to concentrate on form and fitting. Wallis had that down.

I think its just fashion and what suits their bodies. Kate has worn outfits that can be compared to Wallis Simpson too. As has Beatrice. Beautiful, well cut outfits on beautiful women.