3 hours Ago By Evening Standard
The Princess of Wales wants the public and press to focus on her work, not her wardrobe, as Kensington Palace says they will no longer release details of her outfits as they previously had. Speaking to The Sunday Times , a palace source said: “There is an absolute feeling that it [the public work] is not about what the princess is wearing. She wants the focus to be on the really important issues, the people and the causes she is spotlighting.
There will always be an appreciation of what the princess is wearing from some of the public and she gets that. But do we need to be officially always saying what she is wearing? No. The style is there but it’s about the substance.
” It comes after Catherine’s visit to Tŷ Hafan Children’s Hospice on Thursday, 30 January, where she followed Princess Diana ’s footsteps in becoming Patron of the South Wales hospice. It was headlines about her £89 Zara dress being “The Hardest-Working Item In The Royal Wardrobe” that caught a great deal of media attention, however. The Princess, who is making a steady return to public facing work as a royal after the past year saw her take a step back as she undertook chemotherapy treatment, is said to accept her wardrobe being scrutinised at high profile events.
But she would prefer the spotlight on her everyday outings to support organisations she personally cares about to be shone on the causes she is championing. In 2022, a friend of hers told The Sunday Times: “When she goes to the Bond premiere or is at Trooping the Colour, of course she puts on the ‘uniform’ of the role. But what was enormously frustrating and difficult for her, especially in the early days, was she was going out and doing the work she was interested in and was hugely important to her, and people just talked about what she was wearing.
” While it might be a blow to some fashion houses who will be well acquainted with “the Kate effect” — sales and website traffic booms after the princess wears a product — the likelihood is many of her garments will be easily identifiable. Bloggers and dedicated Instagram pages have made full-time hobbies of recording every item she wears, from @ katemiddletonstyled to @ royalbritishfashion . Alexandra Shulman, the editor of British Vogue between 1992 and 2017 — and the woman to convince the then Duchess of Cambridge to be a cover star for the glossy for the June 2016 issue — has spoken out to applaud her decision.
“Catherine has never wanted to play the clothes horse, as I know from working with her closely on a cover story for Vogue,” Shulman wrote in the Mail on Sunday. “She wants her activities to reflect the real her and what she finds important.” “And – with the examination of priorities that serious illness often brings – she has decided, for now, that what is important is not what brand she's wearing.
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