‘Something shifted’: Princess Kate’s secret makeover sees her ditch signature look
The Princess of Wales has debuted a major new look recently – and it reveals a quiet but massive palace revolution is already underway.
If there’s one thing royal wives supposedly spend a lot of their time doing, it’s honouring rellies via the glittering semaphore of their jewellery.
Every time Kate, the Princess of Wales or Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex turn up somewhere wearing some priceless baubley thing that once belonged to the late Queen or Diana, Princess of Wales, out comes the “H” word faster than you can say, “hang on, which problematic Crown Prince paid for it?”
But I wish, I hope, I dream the day will come that we see Kate honour – there it is – King Charles by going to his Savile Row tailors Gieves & Hawkes or Anderson & Sheppard for a nice lightweight wool number.
For more than a decade, the prospect of a blazered Kate would have been about as likely as her taking up weekend Morris dancing – but the last two years have seen she and husband Prince William undergo quite the clandestine makeover.
Or should that be, make-under.
She’s ditched the dresses, he’s junked his ties. They’re not a regular Prince and Princess of Wales anymore, they’re a cool Prince and Princess of Wales. And they mean business.
Nowadays, Kate has binned (hallelujah) those irritatingly prim pieces that she uniformly wore for a decade in favour of suits or, gasp, a nice pair of slacks. Meanwhile, William’s bravely grown a beard, kept it and introduced business casual to palace life. (“Cheeee-nos Gerald, chinos. You should try them, old sport”).
Those Waleses – they’ve been quietly rolling out a sartorial regime change and staging a stealthy style overhaul and they haven’t told anyone. Naughty.
There was a time when Kate’s knees nearly needed their own communications secretary.
Day in and day out, when the princess was undertaking engagements she generally dressed in some sort of ickily demure frock with matching clutch bag, all worn with more nude heels or cork wedges than is medically advisable.
Basically, she dressed like a vicar’s wife having the Bishop round for tea, only less cool.
And then, in the wake of the death of the late Queen in September 2022, something shifted.
Those legs of Kate’s disappeared inside trim, tailored pants paired with co-ordinating blazers and a certain can-do businesslike verve.
Increasingly, the Princess of Wales started to dress like a junior law firm associate unable to go past a candy-coloured two-piece set at Zara.
In the last three months of 2023 alone, this year having seen Kate off the official clock as she underwent chemotherapy, on the 17 occasions she undertook official outings (aside from State and black tie evening outings), she wore a suit, pants or jeans on 15 occasions.
That works out at just shy of 90 per cent of Kate’s daytime work wardrobe now having legs.
The inner seam has it.
It has also been so long since we have seen Kate in nude hose that I think, whisper it, those days might now be past. Thank Christ.
The underlying message is clear: the princess means business.
She has an entire generation of under-fives to radically help and no time to be fannying about the place with hemlines and thinking about having to make ladylike exits from cars in front of snappers.
And William has undergone his own transformation too.
There was a time when to see the prince out and about doing his Good Works meant seeing him dressed like someone preparing for a court date or the Flemington Bird Cage.
He generally dressed like a Very Nice Boy about to be hauled before his grandmother and made to explain what had happened to her second favourite topiary right near the Windsor Castle gates.
(Whoever of us has not reversed over a hedge, cast the first stone).
Those suits and ties have now, aside from more official outings, been neatly tucked away, replaced with chinos and open necked shirts.
Again, the signal that William is sending here hardly requires any sort of royal Rosetta stone – he wants to make the monarchy seem like a more relatable institution and not some haughty outfit of stiff-necked, overprivileged old Etonians.
He’s quite literally doing away with his old school ties.
But more has changed for the prince and princess than just their looks.
Time was that a royal visit to some regional garden centre or Women’s Institute outpost meant seeing some nervous-looking delegates bobbing and dipping like 19th century scullery maids as the Waleses arrived. It didn’t matter if they were war veterans or Nobel prize winners – Kate, through dint of marriage, and William, courtesy of the whims of fate, enjoyed a degree of deference usually reserved for Field Marshalls. Their Royal Presences earned them a curtsy or a bow.
Now, when William and Kate arrive at official events, they are generally received with a warm handshake.
You would have to assume this was coming from their office briefing those they will meet ahead of time.
These modernising efforts have been rolled out sans fanfare or any clipped press releases, but obviously signal a shift to drag the royal family politely kicking into the 21st century.
Clearly happy to respect Her late Majesty’s way of doing things, with her passing, it would seem they feel able to run things how they now see fit.
These changes also give us a taste of what the reign of King William and Queen Kate will be like.
While it would be extremely foolish of them to overly relax Crown Inc and strip out all the formality of royalty – we the people need some frippery and regular healthy injections of pomp with added double servings of circumstance – the Waleses would seem to foresee their time on the throne as being one that ushers in a more approachable and contemporary feel.
And in the meantime, I’m going back to dreaming of seeing Kate in something from Kathryn Sargent, Savile Row’s first female master tailor, or ultra cool suiter Daisy Knatchbull.
What better way to slyly honour a system built on centuries of male primogeniture than for a future Queen to remake the suit in her image?
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
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