Princess Cathy festooned herself with the pearls of power as she greeted guests in Buckingham Palace for the 100th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s birth.
This is one of the few times you’ll ever hear us agree with the usual “loving tribute” framing that the royal press loves to put out every time she – and only she – wears anything that was previously worn by the former Queen or the former Princess of Wales. As we’ve noted more than a few times, the royal press loves to depict the royal family as just a nice group of people with unusually nice jewelry, but the fact remains that royal jewels are symbols of royal status and more often than not, they’re worn to signal that status, not to pay loving tribute to a dead member of the family. And we’ll note again that this sort of thing is only layered onto the daughters-in-law of Diana (Meghan considerably less so since she left royal life). Sometimes the press will do this with Camilla, but for the most part, whenever Catherine wears anything from the vaults, it’s declared a loving tribute instead of the norm for all royal women. But clearly, wearing the late Queen’s pearls to her birthday party qualifies. As for the dress, we really hate it. The color isn’t great on her and the style is entirely too mumsy. The pleated bust is horrible and we hate the shape and length of the sleeves. You could see this rather dowdy frock as some sort of nod to the late Queen’s style, and we wouldn’t necessarily put it past her.
But if that’s the case, she’s the only member of the family who tried QEII cosplay. This is not exactly the picture of a robust institution, but ten years from now, Charlotte and George will probably be taking on engagements and the makeup of the family photo is going to be radically different. In other words, this feels like the last gasps of the second Elizabethan era.
Style Credits:
– Emilia Wickstead Dress
– Queen Elizabeth’s Bahrain Pearl Drop Earrings
– Queen Elizabeth’s Three-strand Pearl Necklace
– Ralph Lauren Shoes
[Photo Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages]
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