Fashionable Crown Princess Mary born to be a queen
What sort of monarch will the first Australian-born queen be? She may not have been born royal, but she is certainly born for the job and is a considered, popular, stylish and effective one.
With the ascension of Crown Princess Mary when Denmark’s Queen Margrethe hands the throne to her son in two weeks, what sort of monarch will the first Australian-born queen be?
Technically, she may be titled Queen Consort, but the crown princess I’ve met is far from in her husband’s shadow. Crown Princess Mary may not have been born royal, but she is certainly born for the job and is a considered, popular, stylish and effective one.
In 2016, as editor of Vogue, I travelled to Copenhagen to photograph and interview the crown princess with her family. The trip coincided with the Copenhagen fashion summit of which she is patron. The first of its kind, the summit is billed as “agenda-setting discussions on the most critical environmental, social and ethical issues facing the industry”.
“I try, as effectively as possible, to use the platform that I have built up over the years to advocate and work for the empowerment of women and of their human rights,” she told me at the time.
The day before the event I had run into her on her then five-year-old twins’ school run, which you might expect is a daily parade of black Audis (the Danish royals are driven in or drive Quattro EVs) departing Amalienborg Palace. Instead, I saw a princess riding a pushbike with her helmeted twins in the front, in a box, with no visible security or entourage. Google: “Christiania cargo bike and Princess Mary” for the picture. She waved enthusiastically and crossed the square in front of the palace to have a chat.
Days later, while being presented to her before dining in the most extraordinary golden dining room under giant chandeliers, I marvelled at how comfortable she was on both occasions. That is the special magic she will bring to her new role, as she did to the last: a perfect blend of regal and real, with fierce intelligence and passion to back it up.
In Australia we love the rags-to-riches story of a prince and future princess meeting in a pub, but Mary Donaldson already had a commerce and law degree from the University of Tasmania when she met Crown Prince Frederik, and went on to master the difficult Danish language while living in Paris. She is driven, focused, and clever.
When it comes to fashion, she mastered and modernised princess dressing and I see many of her cues in the Princess of Wales’s wardrobe. The crown princess champions Danish designers and jewellers such as Georg Jensen and Ole Lynggaard, who are both purveyors to the Danish royal house, but still has a soft spot for Australian design. With a keen eye on their sustainable credentials, she requested to wear both Danish and Australian designers when we photographed her for Vogue.
Edwina McCann is editorial director and publisher of News Prestige. She was formerly editor-in-chief of Vogue Australia.
