Last week, we were a bit overcome by the fact that the Duchess of Cambridge chose a very smart-looking black suit to tape a video for the Natural History Museum. The cut of the suit and the camisole underneath absolutely reminded everyone of a very similar look worn by the Duchess of Sussex in 2018. Pretty much as soon as Meghan came onto the scene, she began wearing trousers and slacks to various “official” events. Which was great, because we’re not Edwardians and we can handle seeing a duchess in a pair of trousers. And as soon as Meghan began wearing trousers, Kate soon copied her. And yet, even then, the British media only had anger, hatred and angst about Meghan’s trousers. They tried to say that Meghan was “breaking protocol,” and there’s some evidence to suggest that palace courtiers likely told Meghan to stop wearing pants too. Hilarious.
Anyway, several British and American outlets devoted some space to how Kate was blatantly copying Meghan’s look last week. And now this! People Magazine is running a story called “Kate Middleton Just Wore Another Pantsuit — But Are Her Chic Outfits Breaking Royal Protocol?” DO IT. Just say that Kate is Breaking The Holy Royal Protocol!!
Kate Middleton is rocking a power pantsuit…again! After Kate and Prince William stepped out to meet some of the finalists of her Hold Still photo project on Tuesday, the couple headed to film with British broadcaster and journalist Kate Garraway for the Pride of Britain Awards in London — but not without a quick outfit change. The royal mom of three traded her long red coat by Alexander McQueen for a tailored blue suit paired with a light blue button-down. Just last week, Kate appeared in a video shot at London’s Natural History Museum in a black suit by McQueen, the designer behind her fairy tale wedding dress.
Despite many royal women around the world — from Queen Maxima of the Netherlands to Queen Letizia of Spain — adopting the trend of pantsuits, Queen Elizabeth almost never wears slacks for royal engagements. The 94-year-old monarch is said to not be a fan of the style.
Kate’s sister-in-law Meghan Markle often opted for slacks and a matching blazer for royal engagements. A source previously told PEOPLE that the Duchess of Sussex “found certain rules in the royal household difficult to understand, like the fact that the Queen prefers women in dresses or skirts rather than trouser suits, and is often asking Harry why things have to be done in a certain way.”
At the end of the day, People doesn’t even say it outright, that Kate is not really “breaking protocol” because I guess everyone would have to admit that Meghan wasn’t breaking protocol with all of her stuff either. Anyway, just further evidence that it’s completely insane to put a 90-something woman in charge of royal fashion, royal behavior and everything else. Who gives a sh-t if the Queen doesn’t like pants? Kate clearly doesn’t give a f–k about what Petty Betty prefers anymore. Isn’t that the real story??
Photos courtesy of WENN, Avalon Red and Backgrid.
I feel like this is shady towards Kate, yes? Or maybe shady towards the british media? It’s saying “she’s wearing pantsuits….the Queen doesn’t like them…..Meghan was accused of breaking royal protocol when she wore them…..”
I do think Kate needs help though finding trousers that work for her body. there’s something off in how all these pants fit her.
When I saw the headline, I thought the issue was that she was wearing black — didn’t Meghan catch a lot of sh!t for that? They said royals only wore black in mourning or some nonsense? So she’s doing at least two things here that Meghan got bashed for.
ETA: Yup I checked and she was accused of “breaking protocol” by wearing both pantsuits and black 🙃
https://www.glamour.com/gallery/meghan-markle-breaking-royal-protocol-fashion
They said Meghan wearing black was depressing and insulting to the parents and children at the event. It was against proper child development and showed Meghan was selfish and unprepared and inappropriate for her role. Cue the handwringing about Harry marrying her and why didn’t they listen to William.
No exaggeration. Go back and look at comment sections. This is really what was being said on mainstream sites by woman who would lose their minds if you pointed out this was racism.
Meghan got bashed for wearing black all the time, remember?? Something about how royals only wear black for funerals. it was so stupid.
It’s only breaking protocol because it was Meghan and that was the narrative that was being pushed.
I think it’s the latter like “We were told that the Queen doesn’t like Meghan wearing pantsuits so why is it okay for Kate to do the same?” Not quite shade towards Kate but more so the people who try to uphold these silly, but let’s be honest non-existent, rules
Kate is long waisted. She would fare better in high waisted, LONGER pants with a color coordinated shoe that would elongate her lower half. These ankle pants (which if worn with a GREAT shoe, again color coordinated) would look MUCH better if they weren’t so skin tight. She has great legs, but her thighs are muscular. You can REALLY see how “off” she looks in those rose pants. Low rise/super tight is not her fashion friend (IMO).
For someone who always raises the waistline in her dresses to elongate her legs, she just doesn’t get this in pants
Those rose pants are just off. Even the black cigarette pants had an odd fit where the pockets hit and gapped. The longer trousers look lovely on her.
None of these trousers look perfect on her, that’s for sure. I think part of the problem is her dismal taste in shoes.
I think Kate is very slim and it can be hard to find tailored trousers that look flattering when you don’t have much shape going on. I’m not trying to say that to be shady because I have the exact same issue.
As for this being shocking or Kate only suddenly doing it, why don’t jeans count? Kate has been wearing skinny jeans to evens since pretty much the very start. I’m sure we talked about how she was breaking royal protocol with that too. Also Kates skirts that everyone hates because they fly up. Again, we’ve heard so many times about how much the Queen hates them. I don’t think Kate suddenly doesn’t care, I don’t think she’s cared much from the start.
With so much money at her disposal, why can’t she find a pair of pants that fit right? They always look so off, as if she is getting them tailored poorly?
Trousers (not jeans) do not always look good on people with short legs and a long torso no matter how well they are tailored. I do not think tailoring is Kate’s problem.
If she is looking to lengthen her leg then wearing trousers that sit hit above the ankle are the opposite style to wear. The black trousers look much better because they sit at a normal height for a professional look. The pink trousers aren’t long enough.
Everything would look better if she ditched all of her ugly shoes. A chunky heel with cropped trousers is hideous.
@Nic919. But then Kate can’t copy Meghan if she wears her pant legs longer.
I am a member of the long torso short legs crew and this is pretty much it. Tailoring the hem lengths is easy enough, but the pants/ trousers rise is what causes issues. Too low a rise can make me look short and squatty. Too high a rise puts me in Steve Urkel/ Ed Grimley land and looks bizarre.
She looks so much better wearing trousers than those infantile coat dresses and Hand Maid get up she usually wears.
She actually looks like she’s shown up to work instead of merely passing by (although she’s still doing nothing).
I like her look in the middle picture, the one outside with the coat. She looks more modern. And her hair looks a bit shorter or just not so beauty pageant, it’s a good look.
The issue was not that she wore trousers, but rather that she wore them first and made Kate look ‘bad’. By bad I mean old fashioned, out of touch, tired and haggard.
The protocol Meg broke aside existing outside the accepted Dulux shade range , was that she continually made Kate look bad.
It does not take much to make Kate look bad.
William must be incandescent with rage.
No one will care because royal watchers find Kate’s whitness and privilege soothing and comforting to watch. I think if it came down to it, they would pick Kate over every other member of the family except maybe if William divorced her. Kate is the queen of their little Karen hearts.
But seeing how Meghan was blamed for Kate crying over royal protocol, is Kate making the Queen cry? Scandal! The Queen can’t have Christmas in her preferred palace and the women are wearing trousers!
Kalana, your last sentence is hilarious and also true.
Me too! “Her preferred palace” did me in. 😂
You’ll know this will somehow get spun that Meghan corrupted Kate by first wearing pants suits and that’s why Kate is wearing them now. Because she’s under the influence of that she-devil!🙄
Except no one notices that Princess Anne wears slacks occasionally and no one makes a stink about it! The issue is that while Meghan didn’t do it first, she did it best and emphasized that Kate looks like the dowdy, passive hausfrau she is. And god forbid anyone overshadows the FFQC no matter how dull and lazy she is.
@ FEESHALORI
They already tried that angle when they said Kate experimenting with her wardrobe was a result of Meghan’s presence and “now that she is gone, Kate no longer feels under pressure to dress differently anymore.” This was right after Kate’s favourite media mouthpieces released multiple nuggets about how Kate experimenting with her wardrobe was a result of “confidence from being a mother”. Watching them flip flop on how to spin her SWFing Meghan’s closet, going back and forth between “Meghan’s expensive ‘designer Duchess’ ways are putting pressure on poor Thrifty Kate” to “Trendsetter Kate’s sudden style switch has nothing to do with Meghan, she is just a confident yummy mummy!” is hilarious.
I have never understood why everyone in the RF has to follow the fashions/rules of a 90 year old woman who is too frail to even support a crown- that is be beyond ridiculous. AND only a petty B*TCH would require that.
@Bitchy Architect (fabulous username, by the way!) The Head of the Firm acts in a feudal manner and believes that she was appointed and anointed by God to rule her subjects. She’s old-school droit de seigneur, ruling by diktat, rather than consensus. It is fascinating to observe her as a psychological subject: the rigid attention to detail, the utter intransigence, the arrogant proclamation of privilege. Every single detail of her in-laws’ lives are arbitrarily controlled. She’s Mussolini in a flowery hat.
The press doesn’t want to admit that wearing pants was not breaking protocol and that the real reason they printed those stories was that Meghan made Kate look old-fashioned and dated. What People should be asking is why there’s no criticism for Kate wearing pants and why is Kate dressing more like Meghan now? There’s no doubt in my mind that Kate was jealous of Meghan and viewed her as a threat.
Anne and Sophie have worn trousers at engagements for years, especially Anne so it was always a non issue. Even Diana has done so. It’s like the British media had a memory wipe once Meghan arrived and the only point of comparison was Kate, who has never done what the other women have done before her. Kate is the exception here in terms of work ethic, passion for causes, speech making ability etc. Meghan is actually more like Sophie and Anne and Diana in terms of doing serious work for causes, with the obvious difference only being her skin colour. Kate is the one who hasn’t matched what the others have done. But the media pretends that is not the case.
@Nic919 – Thanks for taking up for Anne & Sophie regarding their work ethic. I sometimes think I am the only one who notices Anne & Sophie.
Seriously, because I don’t follow her AT ALL, but what does Anne DO, other than just show up to all the bread and butter events around the country? Cuts a ribbon, unveils a plaque, says a word and she’s out as far as I can tell. Does she have “projects “ or fundraisers that SHE actually is part of planning?
She’s like her mother in so far as her only passion is horses (which SHE is allowed to make buck off of!). Didn’t Phillip say, “If it doesn’t fart or eat hay, Anne has no interest in it”.
Anne seems to do a lot of the small events that probably the other royals spurn. With her charities, she seems to give the most time and effort to Save the Children. There was an independent study (actually published in the Daily Mail) showing that having a royal patron didn’t really lead to financial benefit for a charity. They studied the court circular from July 2019 to March 2020 and counted visits to various patronages by each royal. Anne had 300 patronages but only 73 visits during the year. Will and Kate came out well percentage-wise in visits because of having only 39 patronages between them. They claimed that Meghan wasn’t included because she didn’t have appearances on the court circular. I recall many things on their Instagram during that time though. It makes it look like they ignored her events to keep her numbers low.
There is an argument to be made about the depth of the royal work done by Anne and Sophie and others, but they still show up to things five times as much as Kate. Anne gets about 500 engagements per year and Sophie close to 400. Kate barely got over 100 and many years didn’t even do that. That’s with all the meetings with Jason included. Anne and Sophie actually leave their homes, at least pre covid. And they have young kids at one point too but didn’t claim that it stopped them from attending the engagements.
My point is even if the royal work is basic and simple, Kate isn’t even meeting that standard of just physically showing up. Her laziness really is beyond compare for any woman in that family for the last three generations. And she sure as hell isn’t making up for it in quality larger projects. The gardens or that survey remain jokes. And she spent a few days ago looking at pictures when children are going to have free meals cut off because of the Tories. Someone who actually cares about kids would set up something to make up for that issue. Instead she trots around in her new designer McQueen coat that costs thousands and which is simply wasteful.
@TheOG I think that in the majority of cases, it’s better to have a patron (royal or celebrity) who shows up consistently for the little stuff and does what the charity asks than one who insists on being involved in the planning of the fundraising events or agenda-setting. In Megan’s case, her being involved has so far worked out well. She appears to be intelligent, curious, and willing to learn, which likely makes her contributions welcome. But for most of the other royals, every idea they could ever suggest has probably been thought of already by someone who works at the charity. It is better to listen to the experts who have devoted their lives to these causes than to shove in and steal the glory.
(Most of the time.)
That’s why I think the best way for the royals to “serve” these charities/organizations is to ask the people who run them what they need and then to help them get whatever that is, either by leaning on rich acquaintances for funds or helping bring in press attention. It’s better to have Annes than Kates.
Yes, and so did Carole Middleton.
Kate’s clothes wear her, and her styling stays so much the same, it’s like a paper doll with outfits that are flat and attach with paper tabs.
Exactly right. She’s like a walking clothes hanger – completely shallow with no style, personality, accomplishments or goals (other than landing PWT).
Poor carbon copy of Meghan once again. Now it’s long open coats and inner T-shirts and camisoles. Poor Kate, cosplay Diana for years now cosplay Meghan but she’ll never be either.
I predicted this ages ago. The FFQ is now in the firing line because Meghan and Harry are in charge of their own news cycle and the tabloids get nada. If the FFQ thought she was safe, because the vicious racist B-Ds were mercilessly pummelling her sister-in-law during her pregnancy and beyond, she should saddle her unicorn and ride off into the lollipop forest. Lacey’s book is just the tip of the iceberg. I think it’s going to get progressively nastier as Meghan and Harry’s star rises mercurially.
I can’t feel any pity for Kate. She actively helped the tabloids by refusing to speak up for Meghan at any point and mean girling her at the Commonwealth ceremony. She spent ten years making her bed: now she has to lie in it.
And the prize is lying next to her is her cheating and raging husband. What a deal!/s
Truly. Cute pics of the kids, shovelled frantically at the BM/RRs will only work for so long. After a while, the shiny objects are no longer shiny or distracting the way they once were.
Their ‘friends’ have been turning on them. First in Tatler now in the new book. People who don’t have the clout to stick up for Harry publicly are outing the entitlement and rage stories.
I remember reading from an archived newspaper from the 1960s about how some woman met the queen and was wearing trousers. Whilst everyone was shocked , apparently the queen “didn’t mind”. I remember reading that thinking how weird it was that she would mind a woman wearing trousers, because it’s so normal. I can’t believe that this is even a talking point in 2020.
The queen certainly didn’t care about the multiple divorces her family had, William appearing on a gay magazine and Meghan’s entry into the family (or at least initially). She’s probably more ‘open minded’ than we may expect. Does the RR realise that all their whining about fake protocol makes the Queen look like a prick?
I think this too. I think the media and the historians and courtiers have built up this huge web of supposed iron clad protocol that’s really jus based on the queens personal preferences for what she, herself, does and wears. Or how she chooses to work or do family life. She chooses skirts but doesn’t care otherwise. She chooses hats at this event but doesn’t care about what others wear. She chooses to cross her legs this way but really doesn’t care otherwise. She goes to this palace for summer and this one for Christmas but doesn’t care if some people skip out.
And for the bigger things too. She doesn’t care of everyone is getting divorced or remarrying, or marrying a black American woman, or presenting or not presenting their baby, or doing their charity work differently, or supporting certain social causes.
The problem is that she doesn’t LEAD. She doesn’t correct her courtiers or the press when they’re smearing others for stuff she doesn’t care about. She seems like she’s just so uninformed about what’s actually going on in the real world, and she just trusts that everyone else will figure it out on their own. And she’s always been like that, but she’s also getting worse because she’s super damn old right now. She just lets the courtiers run things in this horribly archaic way, enforcing, in her name, rules and protocols and traditions that she doesn’t actually care about. But she also doesn’t comfort her family when the Royal machine, the courtiers, are devouring them and tearing them apart for not following the “rules.”
I get the feeling sometimes that she’s just trying to not make waves and get eaten up herself by the machine. Like as long as they’re not attacking her anymore or making her do things she doesn’t want to do, she doesn’t care. I think she faced a lot of misogyny and very powerful men behind scenes micromanaging everything when she was younger and now that she’s a thousand years old, she’s the most senior person, the most experienced, the one that everyone looks to, and she’s just enjoying her time now doing what she wants. And maybe she feels like the hazing period of being thrown to the wolves for “protocol” violations is just something everyone has to go through, but the reward is when you’re old, your preferences become the set protocol. She needs to care more. Be more involved. Be an actual CEO who manages her courtiers. I get the feeling that she sees herself as just a place marker monarch. Someone who’s just there to sit on the throne and keep it warm for the next person. Like the Monarchy does it’s own thing and is it’s own thing run by the courtiers and she’s just the current PR “face of the monarchy.”
@February-Pisces – at around the same time (60’s) Mary Tyler Moore as Laura Petrie wore capri pants on the Dick Van Dyke show, and it was a very big deal. She pointed out that women didn’t wear full skirt dresses and heels to vacuum in, other women agreed with her, and everyone survived the shock.
I do remember hearing in one retrospective on the Dick Van Dyke Show that every time she was going on to do a scene in trousers she had to turn around and be looked over to make sure there wasn’t too much ‘cuppage’ of the rear, as they termed it.
And if there was indeed too much she had to turn right around and go back to costume to change into more acceptable trousers.
Kate and Meghan have opposite bodies, so Kate’s constant copying is super unflattering. Meghan has a shorter torso with longer legs. Lower cut, cropped pants work great on her to even out proportions. The fit is designed to lengthen her torso and highlight the length of her legs. Kate has a longer torso with shorter legs (in comparison to her torso). These pants only make her middle look longer and her legs look shorter. You would think a stylist could point that out for her.
Kate actually has short legs – one of the silly pants she has (LK Bennett Parker trousers/I’m a little sailor boy) has an inside leg of 27.5 inches/70cm, which should be crop leg on a tall woman, but it was full length on her. Petite inside leg in the UK is 28 inches, small is 30, average is 32, long is 34 and extra long is 36. Duchess short legs.
Meghan has wonderful stylists who she listens too. Waity has stylists but she doesn’t let working class people give her advice.
How come ‘royal protocol‘ as advanced by the press only seems to be wielded against the women?
Anyway it’s BS. The protocol was only used by certain press to suggest Meghan didn’t ‘fit In’
This first photo… Kate is looking frightening to me. Like something not human in her face. Maybe because all the photos I see of her are photos from official events. Definitely not her cup of tea.
I came to say this. It’s an uncomfortable photo. She looks deeply angry in it – maybe that’s what her staff see all the time.
So…..I love (and would love to emulate) Meghan’s style and agree that Kate’s looks are often tough, but commenters on this site have complained for YEARS that Kate doesn’t wear enough trousers and now that she is, damn her for trying?
Kate needs to publicly apologize to Meghan for being a racist bully towards her. So sorry if poor little Kate can’t catch a break about her clothes on here.🙄
Nope, Damn her for such failures when there is no reason for poor tailoring.
Exactly. The nerve.
To be fair, Kate received a lot of flack when she wore black dresses to formal events, but then the noise magically went away.
Having said that, it’s ridiculous to say Kate changed her dressing after the birth of Louis and magically became more confident. Um..no. That’s when Meghan arrived, fresh and modern. I just hope she stays on this path and loses the ridiculous, tight, air sucking coat dresses.
And for ALL the negativity and picking apart Meghan’s tailoring and her body shape, Kate and her couriers need go take their own advice and get her pants that fit and are long enough that she doesn’t look like they’re from the kid’s department.
Why should she, she won’t get flak for it, with Meghan gone, Britian thinks she walks on water. Her team treated Meghan like a political rival to make Kate look like she has purpose. Kate’s team don’t care about royal protocol, they care about looking good, providing entertainment and keeping supporters. They’re really good spin doctors maybe Trump should hire them.
BTW Kate looks ridiculous in the pink suit, William and the other man look fine, but she looks like a laughing stock. It’s hard to take her seriously.