Netflix, as we know from The Crown and the forthcoming Harry and Meghan documentary, is good at eye-catching, heartstring-twanging trailers. Go in strong at the start with a searingly emotional image. Keep going with the searingly emotional images. Overlay with some searingly emotional music. Pound a bit more until even a slug would get the message. Et voila, $100 million well spent, even if all concerned feel totally twanged out.
The Prince and Princess of Wales, should they ever find themselves in the business of making trailers – and don’t bet against it – have another approach. Enter slowly and softly, keep some elasticity in the narrative tension so that it can adapt to any unforeseen hiccups from former ladies-in-waiting or current in-laws. Build to a single crescendo. Exit. Smiling.
And so it proved last week with the couple’s three-day visit to Boston to promote William’s Earthshot project. The couple’s arrival on a commercial BA flight – dix points – was understated to the point where you wondered whether they had perhaps misjudged the stakes.
Never underestimate Kate.
That beautifully-cut Alexander McQueen trouser suit and matching high-necked pullover, in a business shade of dark navy, may have lacked the charming prettiness of many of her previous Disembarking Outfits. But wait. That was entirely the point. Without wearing matchy-matchy Beckham-style outfits, and with zero hand holding, Kate and William, both in dark tailoring, looked like equal partners in a successful and particularly stylish law firm, though obviously not the Suits school of law practice, which involved pencil skirts and slinky tops.
This wasn’t about sprinkling fairy dust, but a carefully thought-out mission to present Kate and William as senior royals promoting a serious initiative. And while Kate wears them well, it couldn’t be all about the clothes, since that would have undermined the entire project.
The Earthshot Prize, lest we forget, rewards groundbreaking green innovation with a £1million prize. It is William’s baby and it desperately needs the oxygen of publicity to maintain its momentum, especially in a week when the US-based in-laws are on one of their media blitzes. But the right kind of publicity. The kind that keeps an organism alive rather than making it high. The kind that can’t be blown off course by scandals and publicity-seekers because it’s rock solid. The Kate kind.
We always knew she could dazzle. But Boston was about being seen to be an equal partner, not some decorative adjunct. And about flying the flag, which post Brexit and post Boris and Liz, is starting to look a bit moth-bitten in certain US quarters. The New York Times, never slow to take up an opportunity to bash Britain, which it views as an un-developing nation teeming with yellow-toothed racists, duly ran a piece called “Bostonians’ [sic] Are Unimpressed by Prince William and Princess Kate’s Visit”.
On closer reading this contained little that should make Kate and William lose sleep. Talking to a handful of people anywhere doesn’t confirm anything, but the NYT does have a serious point – US interest in the British Royal family is personality dependent. Moreover, although the NYT doesn’t say this, perhaps because it wouldn't support its theories about backwards Britain, climate-change deniers are far more abundant there than in the UK.
The point is, this was an important visit. The first royal trip Stateside since the death of the much admired Queen Elizabeth II. Pastel skirts and couture gowns were never going to cut it. Anything that might have drawn comparisons with the sleeker tailoring and custom Dior evening dresses Diana began to wear post Charles in the early 1990s, when she took her increasingly assured steps away from Dynasty Di to Humanitarian Di, was out. So too was anything too “couture”. There’s a cost of living crisis.
Also Boston prides itself on its republican pulse (tea party, anyone?). Let Duchess Meghan engage in her own private competition to see who can wear the most expensive “hot” label. The Princess of Wales who, like the late Queen, has firmly placed herself beyond and above that particular form of sartorial armageddon was not going to make the mistake of ladi-dahing it here.
So yes, the trouser suit, in its way, was quite radical. Prior to the pandemic, we almost never saw Kate in trousers at formal events, even though modern female politicians such as Jacinda Ardern and Sanna Marin were championing their liberating no-nonsense, streamlining smartness. Whether this was a genuine royal diktat, or evidence of Kate’s natural caution, is moot. In lockdowns she began experimenting with them, as they seemed to strike the right smart-but-unassuming note, especially that early one from M&S.
The investment in McQueen and the Roland Mouret plum-coloured one she wore to visit Greentown Labs in Somerville suggests that under the new hierarchy at The Firm, we can expect to see the Princess wearing them more often. It wouldn’t be a bad idea. They’re what millions of working women wear. They also, even in 2022, symbolise emancipation. Think back to the late Dame Hilary Mantel’s controversial observations about royal women being expected to look like dolls and stay mute. Kate is no doll, and through her work on childhood development and the arts, she is finding her voice. Neuf points for the trouser suit.
The rest of her outfits last week followed a similarly disciplined, single-minded line – sophisticated, non-flashy elegance. The Burberry check dress Kate wore to the Earthshot launch at City Hall was another Union Jack waver – and more evidence of how meticulous the Princess and her styling team are about ensuring her clothes are altered so that they fit and flatter her. The long-sleeved blue houndstooth Emilia Wickstead dress she wore to the Center on the Developing Child At Harvard University just outside Boston is similar to the sleeveless style available on Wickstead’s website now.
That dress might have been new, as was the brown McQueen wool coat she wore to Boston’s Harbour Defences, but we can be sure there will be many rewears of both. The red wool skirt and jumper co-ords she wore under the coat are by Gabriela Hearst, a Uruguayan-American designer of stealth luxury with strong eco credentials. Kate’s accessories didn’t leave any hostage to political fortunes either. The Chanel bag, like the 1995 cobalt Chanel jacket she wore to a basketball match, was vintage. Mulberry, the British company responsible for two of the bags she wore on this trip, has implemented fully traceable farm-to-wardrobe leathers in its collections.
But sooner or later Kate was always going to have to ignite some Green Carpet dynamite. Inevitably it would be green in colour. But no one expected the shade of lime green she chose from relatively unknown label Solace London. Nor quite how bodycon it would be. Nor did anyone anticipate it would be rented from UK platform Hurr Collective.
While Carrie Johnson and numerous celebrities have worn rented outfits to prominent events, this is the first time the Princess has in public. Perhaps she’d been saving it for the right moment when its messaging would have maximum impact. Laura Taylor and Ryan Holliday-Stevens, the two founders of Solace, must be beside themselves at the publicity coup. Who knows what alterations went into this £365 dress to make it look as expensive as the Earthshot Prize – certainly the Queen Mary 1911 emerald choker that used to belong to Diana helped. Remember when Diana wore it as a headband in Melbourne in 1985 and caused a sensation? Different times, different stratagem.
Relatability and royalty is not an easy tightrope, but Kate walks it with grace. For all the unfeasibly bouncy hair and serenity-in-the-face of shelling, there’s an authenticity to the Princess that’s impossible to fake.
It has only been enhanced by those bizarrely uncandid “behind-the-scenes” Netflix stills of Harry and Meghan. Who has a photographer on hand, taking stylishly black-and-white pictures while you’re having an intimate snog in the kitchen, or a tearful breakdown against an artfully arranged Hermes blanket?
But drama is what Netflix needs to promote its Sussex property and precisely what Kate and William don’t. The Waleses must keep their eye on the slow burn of a long-lasting legacy. Kate’s outfits in Boston show she’s emerging as the queen of soft power.
See all of the Princess of Wales's outfits: Inside Catherine's Boston wardrobe, piece by piece
The Princess of Wales's Boston outfits show that she is the queen of soft power
We always knew she could dazzle – but Catherine's US wardrobe was about establishing herself as more than a decorative adjunct to William