Bizarre detail in new royal portrait of Queen Mary’s daughter Princess Isabella

The Danish royal family has released a new photo of Princess Isabella and one detail reveals a shocking world-first decision.

OPINION

If ever anyone was going to assemble a handy list of pejoratives likely used by the royal family, ‘bicycling monarchy’ — like ‘vegetarian’, ‘Corbyn’, and ‘drip dry’ — is up there.

The term’s history: the Netherlands’ late Queen Julianna used to be relatively anonymous peddling her way around Amsterdam and the term emerged as a particularly British put-down of the Scandi monarchies’ decidedly homespun approach.

Those over the North Sea and herring-adjacent have always done things differently – and this week they took it even further.

Denmark’s King Frederik and Queen Mary’s eldest daughter (and second child) Princess Isabella has just turned 18 years old and, therefore, it was time to signal her notional entrance into adulthood by forcing her into a ceremonial sash and a ball gown for the royal right of passage, the stilted official portrait.

Already, Isabella’s choice of a deep amber, off-the-shoulder number, suitable for Cinderella’s lesser-known, saucier, funner, non-ugly sister, was a departure from the solidly predictable staple of deep blues, greens, reds and the occasional white.

However it’s what’s in her hands in one of the shots posted to Instagram that is really a turn up for the dusty, dates-back-to-Canute books — her phone.

HRH Princess Isabella of Denmark. Picture: Instagram

Forget bicycling put-downs — Denmark has just given us the first mobile monarchy.

It’s not hard to work out why. Since Fred ascended to the throne in January 2024, with craft and Marlboro-loving Queen Margrethe abdicating to spend more time with her favourite solid gold Zippo lighter and the nubbins of her Caran D’Ache sketching set, he and Mary have been busy doing things differently.

The King and Queen have truly embraced another word that would have sent a cold shiver down Prince Phirlpi’s ramrod, straight, steely spine — modernising.

In the last 15 months they have been ushering a program of progressive, get-with-the-times changes such as ditching the protocol that dictated she was meant to walk two steps behind her husband, the pair always seen side-by-side, phasing out the royal warrant system that dates back to 1840, making public a list of gifts the monarchy was prepared to accept, debuting mini Insta docs about them meeting Danes, and bringing in a new lord chamberlain and a nearly completely new staff.

King Frederik X, Princess Isabella, Queen Mary, Princess Josephine, Crown Prince Christian and Prince Vincent arrive for Isabella's 18th birthday celebration at the Royal Theatre's Old Stage in Copenhagen on Tuesday, April 15, 2025. Picture: Ida Marie Odgaard/Ritzau Scanpix via AP

Mary even had her own minimalist and contemporary tiara, if that is not too much of an anachronism, refashioned out of a waist chain of gobstopper sized diamonds.

The goal of all this revamping and new-brooming: To prove to Danes that the Kongehuset, which if your Danish is not up to snuff means ‘royal house’, is not made up of a collection of ossified courtiers fretting about the best epergnes for state dinners but that it’s fresh and dynamic outfit eager to meet the challenge of the 21st century.

Thus, the Isabella portrait features Apple’s best and only royal promo to date.

I know, I know, it’s meant to be relatable and to make the princess look like a very normal young woman who is not served boiled quail’s eggs and soldiers of a morning or takes a footman to Sephora to stock up on Drunk Elephant products.

Yes, it’s easy to see why the Danish royal family has gone down this portrait route, but far be it from me to not be just a bit censorious.

Princess Isabella is the eldest daughter. Picture: Ida Marie Odgaard / Ritzau Scanpix / AFP

The average human being in 2025 looks at their phone 144 times a day and Isabella’s cohort, Gen Z, spends upwards of six hours a day on their phones, depending on what survey you read.

It’s not just the yoof. We are all well and truly hooked on our devices, junkies of the first order and who among us, of the world’s 4.8 billion smartphone owners, really wants to get the ball rolling and put their hand up to admit we celery have a serious problem on – or in – our hands?

There is a fast growing awareness of the harm that our phones are doing to our brains, mental wellbeing, neuron pathways and ability to even sustain a basic conversation without giving in to the itch to compulsively refresh our feeds like gagging Pavlovian pooches.

We have all become chronically, inescapably addicted to the dopamine that devices give us.

There endeth the Debbie Downer lecture, but you take my point. Phones might be as ubiquitous as oxygen and tap water but are they innocuous? No siree.

Princess Mary holds Princess Isabella when she was just a baby. Picture: AP

Just because it’s easy to see why the Kongehuset released this Isabella photo doesn’t mean it was the right thing for them to do either.

This palace phone shot also raises a particularly thorny predicament, that for the first time in history, royal parents face. HRHs are not just like us.

Also in the same boat as Fred and Mary, are Prince William and Kate, the Princess of Wales, King Williem-Alexander and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands, King Felipe and Queen Letizia of Spain and the Crown prince and princess of Norway, Sweden, Belgium and Luxembourg, all of whom have children under the age 18-years-old.

These young princes and princesses are the first royal kids to grow up in a world saturated by social media, which throws up questions that Europe’s palaces are still troubling over.

Prince William and Princess Catherine will also need to navigate the world of social media with Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis. Picture: Samir Hussein/WireImage

From a crown’s perspective, there is now an unspoken public pressure if not downright demand for royal parents to share regular and at-home shots of their kids, an expectation that did not exist only 15 years ago.

How does anyone even begin to juggle and meet both the responsibilities of royalling and parenthood?

We are watching HRHs walk this tightrope in real time, most notably for us William and Kate who take and post snaps of their three kids semi-regularly, a conscious breaching of the line between their public and private lives.

Layer on top of that the question of how the Williams and Kates of Europe are and will manage letting their children personally access social media.

Can or will they let Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, when they are in their adolescent years, stay in step with their peer group and have accounts?

Princess Isabella of Denmark next to her father King Frederik X of Denmark. Picture: Ida Marie Odgaard / Ritzau Scanpix / AFP

(Let’s be honest here, it’s only so long before some enterprising 16-year-old claims their parents denying them access to Tik Tok contravenes their basic human rights.)

No matter how many lectures William might one day give an 18-year-old George about not boozily taking selfies slamming back sambuca shots with the lads, teens are going to teen.

And how long until such normal, but still not a great look, images find their way into the public domain?

Factor in too that social media accounts and even phones are emantenly hackable. The potential for extreme embarrassment and 99 crises is immense.

The phone aside, the Isabella portraits also revealed another coming-of-age moment, her first official outing in a tiara.

The diamond and turquoise bandeau, which was originally part of the Swedish royal family’s collection, was a gift from Queen Margrethe.

It’ll be perfect to pair with a White Fox hoodie to wear to Sephora.

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

Originally published as Bizarre detail in new royal portrait of Queen Mary’s daughter Princess Isabella