How Princess Alessandra of Hanover is copying Kate Middleton’s style
A much lesser known but equally as beautiful princess has been emulating the style of Kate Middleton with some stunning results.
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Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge has very little tangible power, unlike centuries past when a grumpy HRH could send a misbehaving courtier to the Tower for a spell or one could casually wave one’s soft hand and assume ownership of an entire nation’s dolphins. (Those were the days, amiright?)
She has not, nor will never be able to, sullenly mutter “off with their heads” and have exactly that happen when her afternoon’s ration of low-carb trail mix is served on the wrong china.
But one front where her every utterance and move has a momentous ripple-effect when it comes to fashion.
The so-called Kate Effect is worth very serious money. In 2012, the year after she and husband Prince William wed, it was estimated that she was worth $1.8 billion to the British fashion industry.
While she might not exactly be setting high-end fashionista’s hearts aflutter with her dogged devotion to predictable floral dresses and conservative blazer/pants combos (which are much too old for a woman still in her 30s) the woman can move (literal) mountains of product.
While it is her sister-in-law Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex who has the innate style nous, Kate has developed a very clear and defined look featuring pretty frocks, clean tailoring, and a certain girlish femininity.
Which is what makes the wardrobe of Princess Alessandra of Hanover’s wardrobe of pretty dresses, clean tailoring, and a certain girlish femininity so striking.
Now, before you go consulting your copy of Burke’s Royal Families of the World (from the same people who have brought you the indispensable Burke’s Peerage), let me explain. Alessandra, 33, is a former model who wed Prince Christian of Hanover in a small civil ceremony in late 2017. (He’s the Prince Harry of the German noble house of Hanover FYI, which is the progenitor of the current house of Windsor.)
In March 2018, Alessandra and Christian wed again at the Basilica of San Pedro in Lima, throwing the society ‘do of the year, with Kate Moss, her boyfriend Count Nikolai von Bismark and Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie jetting in for the ultra-glam bash.
Prince Christian is the younger son of headline-making Prince Ernst August of Hanover who married Monaco’s Princess Caroline in 1999. Ernst August has found himself in repeated hot water over the years, most recently, in March this year he was given a ten-month suspended jail sentence in Austria for drunkenly injuring a police officer and threatening another with a baseball bat.
(He is currently suing his elder son, confusingly also called Prince Ernst August, after the 38-year-old sold Marienburg castle, which his father had given him 20 years ago, to the German state after facing a $43 million renovation bill for the run-down property.)
Anyhoo, family feuding aside, while Alessandra might have quite the impressive title, it does not come with the workload or responsibilities that her British counterpart has been lumped with. Still, when she has stepped out for public events, it is outfits that look like they have been sucked straight from Kate’s secret Pinterest boards.
Take March, 2018 when Alessandra and Christian tied the knot in a big hullabaloo of a religious ceremony in her native Peru in a dress which bore a striking resemblance to Kate’s Alexander McQueen confection. The newly-minted princess’ choice of a high-necked lace overlay over a sweetheart bodice, full skirt, tiara and cathedral-length train bore a noteworthy degree of similarity to the Duchess of Cambridge’s gown. (That said, both dresses owe a huge debt to that of the truly iconic number Grace Kelly wore when she wed Prince Rainier in 1956.)
In October, 2018 Christian and Alessandra made up part of the Euroroyal contingent for Eugenie’s wedding to tequila ambassador Jack Brooksbank. (Quids on that Jack’s arrival in the royal fold really livened up those long days at Sandringham.)
For that outing, she chose a midi length green dress with a floral applique and a fascinator. Now if there is one colour that Kate has slowly co-opted and made her go-to is it green in a variety of shades.
The high neck, fluted sleeves and clutch all looked like they were straight out of the Kate playbook.
Then, there’s the dress which Alessandra chose for a 2019 reception in Madrid, hosted by Peruvian president Martin Alberto Vizcarra in honour of King Felipe and Queen Letizia of Spain at the El Pardo Palace.
She, again, teamed a particularly ladylike green and purple patterned frock with a clutch and co-ordinating pumps which is textbook Kate territory. (For extra points, the mid-shin length is a classic Kate move too.)
Also 2019 was the wedding in Paris of Prince Jean-Christophe Napoleon and Countess Olympia von und zu Arco-Zinneberg, for which Alessandra stuck to her sartorial guns, opting for a below-the-knee blue-on-white frock. Was she wearing a fascinator, matching pumps and a clutch? You bet your coronet she was.
(Fun fact: That wedding united the Imperial House of France with the House of Habsburg for the second time, with the shockingly photogenic couple following in the footsteps of their forebears Napoleon Bonaparte I, Emperor of France and his wife, Archduchess Marie-Louise of Austria who wed 1810.)
Interesting then that Kate has not once but twice worn a LK Bennett blue-on-white frock (in 2014 and 2016) with a very comparable floral pattern.
This week, Alessandra, who welcomed twins with Christian last year, shared a sponsored post on her Instagram for the ultra-high end jewellery brand Chaumet, clad in a chic white blazer.
Interesting thing though: Chic blazers, including in red, white, blue, green and grey have become a key staple of Kate’s working wardrobe. (Only last week, she returned to work after her mysterious, still unexplained 66-day absence wearing a beige double-breasted Reiss number.)
Now, I’m not suggesting that Alessandra is surreptitiously stalking the myriad Kate style look and mimicking her. Rather, Kate has had a full ten years to really nail down a signature look and following her lead is a smart move.
The 39-year-old mother-of-three has spent the past decade honing and refining her wardrobe staples to ensure she walks the very fine line between blandly repetitive and distractingly adventurous and creative. Her job requires her to be stylish enough to mollify the masses but not so much so that it detracts from her good works or gives any impression she is a spendthrift clotheshorse.
Rather, both Kate and Alessandra are clearly very stylish women who are both onto a good sartorial, if very complementary, thing.
Next week, Kate will join Prince William and the in-laws (Prince Charles and Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall for the premiere of the new Bond movie, No Time To Die), the first time we will have seen her gussied up in formalwear since December 2019.
Bring. It. On.
As former Vogue icon Andre Leon Talley so infamously once opined, “it’s a famine of beauty! My eyes are starving for beauty!”
Whatever Kate does wear, will we see Alessandra don a identikit get-up sometime soon? She will if she’s smart.
Daniela Elser is a royal expert and a writer with more than 15 years experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.
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