Royal Fashion – a topic you can almost not avoid anymore nowadays. In the past few years the blogs about the clothes of princesses and queens have popped up, and regularly you’ll find hot discussions on Twitter about designers and other fashionable themes.
When I started writing about royals more than 15 years ago, you’d occasionally see an article in a magazine or online about royal fashion. And although people were interested in the fashion of the royals, it wasn’t really the main topic. In the past ten years or so the focus has been on fashion more and more, sometimes even so much, that you wondered if there was anything else to talk and write about. There were times that some magazines really showed a bit too much fashion. I have the feeling that has normalized a bit at least now. Of course a proper fashion designer has his own website, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or even a blog. And there are tons of websites where you can buy clothes from all kind of designers. Very helpful when you’re searching for the designer of a piece of clothing. I do it occasionally myself too when I have time. There is even a name for it nowadays, when a designer hasn’t been found yet. They call it UFO (unidentified fashion object, at least I suppose).
To my surprise I sometimes even recognize which designer a dress might come from. Not that difficult with some designers to be honest, who are somewhat predictable. And of course there are royals who prefer to buy their clothing at the same designers very often. When Hereditary Grand Duchess Stéphanie of Luxembourg got married and I saw her passing for the first time entering the church (I was there), I knew it was Elie Saab. Shockingly I just knew, and when I asked it turned out to be correct. At a wedding my friends and I sometimes even recognize somebody, just because of the clothes they wear. German nobles, especially the elder ones, tend to show up in the same outfit several times, or combine pieces with something else. It is not that you wear these clothes all the time, so that shouldn’t be surprising.
Although the shops sell lots of great dresses and I have trouble sometimes finding a pair of trousers that fit well, I prefer working behind my computer in sweatpants and a shirt. As I am working at home there is really nobody who complaints. Not that I would go to the shop dressed like that. I have never been so much into fashion, but as work has required some knowledge over the years, you learn something. And all these wonderful blogs have taught me a bit too. I am much more interested in seeing fashion exhibitions and clothing than I used to be in the past. According to my colleagues I also seem to dress better nowadays than some years ago, so personally I might have learned something from all this royalty watching too.
My own style might be something between classic and sportive. There is not a single royal I think whose clothes I love most. It is just a bit of this and a bit of that. And no, I have never bought anything because a royal had it. Although that would nowadays be quite easy, as they also shop at Zara, H&M or Mango. I love some of the more romantic evening gowns of Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway, the fact that Queen Máxima unlike many colleagues still wears hats, some of the cheaper earrings of Queen Letizia of Spain … I find that Queen Mathilde of the Belgians (my age) and the Duchess of Cambridge (some years younger) tend to dress far too old-fashioned. But there is nothing wrong with having another opinion than others. Luckily not everybody has the same taste, otherwise life might be very boring … and fashion too.
Among my favourite blogs in the menu on the right of my blog you’ll find several of my favourite fashion blogs.