Inside Princess Beatrice’s stunning royal transformation

A former royal “laughing-stock” has quietly undergone a stunning transformation in recent years – and it’s got everyone talking.

The resources that King Charles has on ready and immediate call make for some impressive reading.

He’s got $1.9 billion squirrelled away, palaces and estates by the dozen, tens of thousands of acres of land – handy should he ever really get into ride-on lawn mowing – Rembrandts up the wazoo and the world’s largest collection of da Vinci sketches. (No worries about decorating the downstairs loo then).

But there is one finite resource that Buckingham Palace is clearly running low on, besides decent tonic water. Princesses.

Kate, the Princess of Wales has been firmly out of the picture for most of this year as she undergoes treatment for cancer while Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex is off in California prepping to become the Warren Buffett of blackberry jam.

In the young, glamorous and female department, Crown Inc is currently all out of options. The cupboard is bare.

Or is it?

There is another princess, one who has just been named Tatler’s best-dressed person of the year and who has spent 2024 highly capably spreading her charity wings with not a jot of fanfare or applause.

Drum roll please, for Princess Beatrice.

Yes, her.

She of the sculptural loo-seat-esque chapeau. She of the sketchy father (Prince Andrew) and sketchy mother (Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York) and who found herself in a brief spot of hottish tabloid water after her romance with Italian dish Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi, who had previously been in a relationship with architect Dara Huang, was revealed.

Princess Beatrice’s hat became a viral sensation – for all the wrong reasons. Picture: Chris Jackson/Getty Images

Beatrice has quietly, without anyone quite realising it, pulled off one the royal family’s great reinventions – and Charles, should he take a break from weeding his herbaceous borders and fretting about the threat of voles, would be wise to take note.

The princess’ evolution is one that no one would have predicted only a few years ago. It has been a bumpy ride for her to get to this new point.

In 2010, Fergie was caught on tape offering to sell access to Andrew, then a quasi-official British trade envoy, for the bargain price of $980,000. (These days he would have to fork out that much to have someone even condescend to stand in the same room as him for any length of time).

The following year, in 2011, the Princess found herself the butt of global jokes after donning that infamous outré sculptural Philip Treacy number for Prince William and Kate’s wedding.

She then proved she had an admirable sense of humour by auctioning it off for charity and raising more than $200,000.

In 2018, Beatrice and Edo fell for one another at sister Princess Eugenie’s wedding. The father of Huang, the property developer’s former fiancee and the mother of his son Wolfie, then gave an interview to the Daily Mail, saying, “Why would they want to go and break this up? I can’t understand it. It’s not fair but the Royal Family are so powerful. What can I do? I can’t do anything.”

Today, Bea is a style icon. Picture: Instagram

She has just been named Tatler’s best-dressed person of the year. Picture: Chris Jackson/Getty Images

These and various other travails and family embarrassments (see: Andrew) only makes Bea’s current glowing standing all that more incredible.

Quite when did things turn around for Beatrice? It’s hard to exactly put your finger on it, but something was shifting by the time of her 2020 wedding, her choice of a reworked Norman Hartnell gown that had belonged to the late Queen a master stroke.

Since then, she has only gone from strength to strength, including in the style stakes. For last year’s Vogue World glam-a-rama event in London, she donned a fabulously caped Richard Quinn number.

This year has also seen the 35-year-old up her charity game. In February she hosted a tea party for the Helen Arkell Dyslexia Charity at St James’s Palace, and then in May she flew to New York to promote a charity abseil event down the Empire State Building for the Outward Bound Trust. Standing at the very top, shrouded in fog, a game Beatrice gave her first live TV interview to British breakfast TV.

Only two weeks ago, she was at it again, visiting a London primary school to speak to kids about sun safety, proving herself to be quite the natural.

Princess Beatrice visited a London primary school to speak to kids about sun safety, proving herself to be quite the natural.

All of this is why, if there is one thing Charles should be doing, besides possibly learning how to pilot a ride-on mower, it’s paying attention to Bea’s transformation.

Right at the very moment when the Palace is suffering through a princess shortage, here’s one ready made and who has earned her stripes.

There are plenty of other factors in the software executive’s favour. (Oh yes. Bea also happens to work full time as vice president of partnerships and strategy for Afiniti technology).

The mother-of-one might be a Princess, but she is one seemingly devoid of airs and graces after she was spotted toting her own luggage and flying economy to France in June. There, she attended the Cannes Lions festival where she joined Spotify’s chief public affairs officer, Dustee Jenkins, on a panel titled “Emotional Intelligence in the age of AI”.

There is also the fact that Bea represents a very modern sort of family.

In 2022 when she joined the royal family’s annual showy walk to church, it was with Edo and stepson Wolfie. (The couple’s daughter Sienna was born in 2021).

The possibility that Bea could get an official call up to help the short-staffed Palace came in May when she, along with Mike and Zara Tindall, Eugenie and Peter Phillips were invited by Prince William to do some gladhanding at an official garden party.

Princess Beatrice and Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi. Picture: Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images

Bea is upping the style stakes. Picture: Yui Mok-WPA Pool/Getty Images

As an insider told the Times: “It’s a case of ‘watch the gap’, and although there’s no plan for Beatrice and others to become funded, official working members of the family, she has shown she can definitely help”.

So too a royal source told the Telegraph of the younger generation of Windsors: “They’re very willing to step up and do more at this current time, to help … they believe in the institution they grew up in”.

However, palace sources were “swift to downplay suggestions that any of the younger generation will be making an imminent return to official working duties”.

Perhaps the better question here is, would Bea actually want to wave the flag for King and country in an official capacity? If she were to actually become a working member of the royal family, it would come at the expense of her career and independence.

As a source said of the York sisters to PLACE, “They have careers and families and they’re very protective of that”.

‘Perhaps the better question here is, would Bea actually want to wave the flag for King and country in an official capacity?’ Picture: Sebastien Bozon/AFP

Others offer a different read. After the Princess’ July school outing, a source told the Mail: “Beatrice in particular has been desperate for her chance to shine. She was once shy and her style was a little frumpy. But these days she’s ambitious, confident and fashionable. She looks great in photos”.

Should Bea want, she has very ably proven herself. This year we have seen her charm pensioners, charity sorts and small children and proven a dab hand at looking very nice in a dress, all of which is really, if you think about it, the meat and potatoes of royaling. (What’s that? Feminism is on the other line and wants a word?)

The late Queen was quite literally given gift horses. If Charles knows what’s good for him and Crown Inc, he should not look this gift princess in the mouth.

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