Telegraph: Princess Kate has always obsessively style-stalked Princess Mary

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For years, the Princess of Wales has blatantly copied the style of other, more fashionable women. Kate loves a creepy homage of Princess Diana, and Kate keeps her Meghan Lookbook updated every time Meghan is photographed in a new piece. But it was years before I realized just how thoroughly Kate has copied Denmark’s Crown Princess Mary. Mary married Prince Frederik in 2004 and Mary is ten years older than Kate, so Mary basically did everything first. Mary was wearing all of Kate’s “favorite designers” before Kate. Mary was wearing floral headpieces years before Kate. Mary combined professional working-woman separates with couture decades before Kate. Mary did artsy black-and-white family photos years before Kate. Looking at side-by-side comparisons, it’s clear that Kate’s Mary Lookbook might be longer and more well-maintained than her Meghan Lookbook. The Telegraph helpfully put together a wealth of side-by-side photos to show just how thoroughly creepy Kate has been for years about hijacking Mary’s style. The Telegraph is trying to put a bow on it, claiming that Kate will be watching Mary’s sartorial transition from crown princess to queen.

The Princess of Wales is hailed as a style inspiration to women around the world, but who might her own muse be? Crown Princess Mary of Denmark has long been credited as the woman Kate studied to perfect her own brand of modern regal realness. Whenever the two have been photographed together, their resemblance is uncanny, and not just because they both have sleek, shiny brunette hair and sporty model figures.

“Kate is like a younger sister to Mary, who is both beautiful and elegant,” the designer Karl Lagerfeld said ahead of the 2011 wedding of Kate and William. Ten years the Princess of Wales’s senior, Australian-born Mary has been at the forefront of working out what a princess (and now queen) should look like in the 21st century. From prim frocks to floral headbands (Kate is said to have been inspired to wear one to Prince Louis’s christening by Mary wearing one for her son Christian’s) to the effortless ability to transition from sportswear to ballgowns, the style comparisons between the two women are endless.

“Crown Princess Mary’s signature style is very classic and sophisticated. She often goes for simple lines and streamlined silhouettes,” say Sarah Williams and Heaven LeeMiller, the founders of royal fashion website UFO No More. “She manages to balance Scandinavian minimalism with Australian bohemianism very well. Her outfits always have a touch of trend or whimsy to prevent them from looking dull or boring.”

It helps that the royal family that Mary married into reigns over one of the world’s most fashionable countries. While her signature look is more glamorous and ladylike than your average Scandi-cool ensemble, she can call on labels like Ganni, Cecilie Bahnsen and By Malene Birger, as well as the jeweller Sophie Bille Brahe, to provide just fashion-forward enough pieces to keep her looking relatably of-the-moment.

Not that she limits herself to shopping Danish. Mary, who has worked with her stylist, Anja Camilla Alajdi, since her 2004 marriage (just as Kate has maintained her trusted adviser, Natasha Archer, since her earliest days as Prince William’s wife) has a wardrobe spanning H&M to Prada and Hugo Boss. She loves British fashion, too, which has led to even more “twinning” moments with Kate in labels such as Alexander McQueen and Erdem.

Of all the influential modern royals who have the power to make an item sell out when they wear it, Mary is the one who is perhaps the most genuinely committed to sustainability, attracting shocked tabloid headlines when she deigns to wear something for the seventh (!) time – often, in the manner of Princess Anne, many years after its first outing (symbolising not only her recycling nous but the fact that, as a 51-year-old mother of four, she can still fit into pieces first worn almost two decades ago).

Williams and LeeMiller calculated that she has added 70 new items to her wardrobe this year, almost half that of the Princess of Wales. “Very early on, it was clear that there were expectations about what you wore and how you dressed appropriately to an event,” the Crown Princess told the Financial Times in 2022. “That was pretty daunting for me. I was a T-shirt-and-shorts girl, known to go barefoot.” She will have been able to advise Kate even more candidly in private on the treacherous transition from low-key commoner to international style icon. Now that T-shirt-and-shorts girl is about to become Queen of Denmark, Kate will no doubt be paying particular attention to how she styles out her new role.

[From The Telegraph]

The biggest difference between Mary and Kate is that Mary had already spent a decade as a professional working woman and she already had that base of knowledge – what’s appropriate, what’s good quality, what looks professional and age-appropriate. Kate never had that background – she was a party girl who spent a decade waiting for a ring. That’s why Kate latches on to more stylish women and copies whatever they’re doing or have done. Kate’s a nearly-42 year old woman who is still obsessively style-stalking other women.

Also: given Kate’s years-long obsession with Mary, it’s still very strange that Buckingham Palace went out of their way to UNINVITE Mary from QEII’s funeral in 2022. Remember that? What was up with that?

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, Instar, Backgrid.

Fashion, Kate Middleton, Princess Mary of Denmark, royals
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