One photo reveals monumental change for Princess Catherine

One photo might seem like no big deal. But what we’re witnessing here, from the Princess of Wales, is genuinely monumental.

Forgive me, do, but I really want to start this story with the line: these boots were made for talking. (With apologies to Nancy Sinatra.)

The boots in question are a Penelope Chilvers, long tassel brown pair, which the world first met in 2004, when university student and woman who could do a conditioner commercial for regional TV, Kate Middleton, posed in them at something called a Game Fair.

(Vegans, look away now.)

Today here we are, 21 years on, and that art history grad has shapeshifted into the Princess of Wales. “Kate”, long since monymatic. And still those boots are being pressed into service.

On Tuesday, Kate posted a new photo of herself wearing them to mark World Cancer Day, a shot taken by six-year-old Prince Louis in the woods at Windsor.

It’s an image that confirms a dramatic change in the Princess’s life.

Kate in the woods. Royal life isn’t THAT bad, it seems.

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Just pause for a moment and consider that this sort of photo – of an unguarded, off-duty, wholly private moment – coming from an official royal account would have been, only a few short years ago, nigh inconceivable.

Kate’s willingness to let the world into this raw, unfiltered space in her life lays bare a paradigm shift that has been quietly taking place in terms of how she wants the world to see her.

Clearly, the Kate of 2025 is a woman who wants us to see beyond her title, beyond the occasional tiara, beyond the weaving-from-the-Buckingham-Palace-balcony postcard moments. She wants us to see – and is happy to show us – her.

In 2013, Booker Prize winner Hilary Mantel gave a highly controversial speech, calling the Princess of Wales “precision-made, machine-made”.

“Kate seems capable of going from perfect bride to perfect mother, with no messy deviation.”

That’s a framing that now looks painfully dated and the ghost of that “perfect” Kate has, with Tuesday’s shot, been banished for good.

Kate in a more solemn moment, commemorating Remembrance Sunday. Picture: Toby Melville/AFP

For years and years there, Kate gave so little away about the woman inside the eternal wrap dresses that she might as well have written her press releases in hieroglyphs.

It was all understandable. There she was carrying on under the crippling burden of public expectation and 1000-plus years of monarchical weight.

In hindsight, it seems clear this was all part of her cautious, gently, learning-on-the-job approach. She consciously, I reckon, made herself into an avatar for royalty and tradition and crusts being cut off sandwiches.

Her grandmother worked at Bletchley Park, where they cracked the enigma code during World War II. Which is fitting, because for so very long that is exactly what she was too.

Now join me in waving bye bye to that Kate.

Consider the light years between that 1.0 version of the Princess and the person who has just happily shared with the world a photo of her possibly wearing no makeup, in entirely casual clothes, who has let the world see a very real her.

This fits with the series of personal statements and videos the Princess of Wales has released over the last year: this unfiltered, rawer woman who has told the world about her “good days and bad days”, who made a video about “simply loving and being loved”.

It is hard to deny the power of such vulnerability.

The power of Kate’s new vulnerability is hard to deny. Picture: Justin Tallis/AFP

Interestingly, this new photo was released 48 hours after Kensington Palace announced another major decision concerning the Princess’s image. Going forward, the palace will no longer, according to The Times, release details about her outfits to select members of the press, in an attempt to redirect attention away from her fashion choices and onto her charity work.

A palace source told the paper: “She wants the focus to be on the really important issues, the people and the causes she is spotlighting.

“The style is there but it’s about the substance.”

(Bonus points for anyone who remembers back in 2022 when the palace was making the same sorts of noises, as reported by The Daily Express.)

This change in communications strategy fits very neatly in with the timbre of the World Cancer Day photo – that Kate seems to be gunning to overhaul the way she is publicly defined. That is, not just as an actual person, but as a serious person with meaningful things to say, as well.

I know there are those people out there who will read this as Kate attempting to remarket herself as less of a pretty clotheshorse who occasionally does royal engagements involving finger painting preschoolers, to that of respected changemaker in a smart pair of slacks.

Maybe there is a bit of a hard nosed edge in there too, but looking at Kate on that log in the woods, rapturous, it has an authenticity and a heart to it. Maybe, having coming face-to-face with a terrifying illness, the 43-year-old has officially decided she has far fewer f***s to give.

Mantel jabbed at the Princess’s lack of “messy deviation”, but could there be more of a “messy deviation” in life than a cancer diagnosis?

Mantel died in 2022 and I wonder what she would have made of this new version of the Princess of Wales. A woman who has stepped out from behind her grand position and royal identity. Who wants us to see her exultant in nature, joyful, and most importantly, real?

At least the more that changes, we know the boots will stay the same.

Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.

Originally published as One photo reveals monumental change for Princess Catherine