In Britain, where the monarchy says very little, appearances have an outsize meaning. The late Queen Elizabeth II’s wardrobe was a linchpin of her status as a stabilizing presence. The hair, the cardigans and plaid skirts, the pumps and the same bag in different colors gave a sense that she was unwavering, even as the kingdom shrank, and its power waned.
For King Charles III, his finely tuned taste in Savile Row suiting (he’s a devotee of bespoke tailors Anderson & Sheppard) suggests a touch of vanity, but also an eccentric, even playful, personality behind his sad but often silent expression.
The world came to think they knew the late Princess Diana intimately, because she dressed with joy and panache — though she also did much more talking than the rest of the Firm, much to their chagrin.
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In more recent years, the more a royal seems to say, the less it seems their clothes make a statement. When Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and Prince Harry gave their tell-all interview to Oprah in 2021, they wore Armani and J. Crew, respectively — two brands at the opposite end of the price spectrum but known for a mutable accessibility.
For Queen Camilla, who Saturday will be officially invested with her regal powers (yahoo!), clothes are more of a quagmire. Because she spent most of her life as a commoner, we have decades of pictures of her revealing a discernible sense of style, mostly of country clothes such as rain boots and too-big wool sweaters, and baggy jeans and barn jackets. She’s a woman who is most comfortable outside, who sees walking and casual competition as the ultimate forms of leisure.
Lately, she seems to have undergone something of a glow-up.
Beginning when she appeared with Charles at public events, in the lead-up to their 2005 marriage, her outfits have been crisper and her signature feathered hair blonder and more finely coifed (courtesy of Jo Hansford). Her dresses and frock coats, often by British designer Fiona Clare, fit more expertly. Her hats, often sprays of flowers or leaves, perch respectfully on her head. (And that’s saying something — fascinators have a way of looking like lampshades that got lost.)
And more recently, especially following Elizabeth’s declaration in February of last year that Camilla would be known as queen consort rather than the duchess of Cornwall, she’s looked downright regal, in solid-blue dresses and vibrant-red coats. This month, the palace confirmed that following this Saturday’s coronation, where she’ll reportedly wear a dress by Diana favorite Bruce Oldfield, she will be known after the coronation simply as “Queen Camilla.”
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But perhaps better than anyone in the royal family, Camilla has demonstrated how to appear regal while also being fully oneself. She made the rare transition from private citizen to leader, and was for years very reluctant to do so. Her clothes — and the confident, nonevent way in which she wears them — suggest she has resolved the pull between public service and private life in a way that few in the family have.
Share this articleShareNoting her “glow-up,” British papers have suggested that Camilla has taken some cues from her step-daughter-in-law, future queen Catherine, Princess of Wales, whose wardrobe pointedly mixes Alexander McQueen gowns with shirt dresses from mall retailer Jigsaw. But Catherine, as Tina Brown chronicled in her recent book “The Palace Papers,” has taken to her royal role more eagerly, willing to deny her individuality to take on any citizen’s projection. And her clothing says as much: at times relatable, at others royal in the blandest sense (tulle that’s never too big; dresses that never reveal too much). Her lovely but mostly unremarkable dresses belie a happy embrace of the placid, passive realities of monarchy.
Camilla has mastered a look that is remote but relatable. “The Crown,” which last season went to pains to emphasize that it is fiction, nonetheless portrayed Camilla in an unusually positive light — as a woman essentially cosmically connected to Charles, like a Juliet who gave Romeo the slip at their first meeting and is now, years afterward, regretting it. The queen’s decision that she would be queen consort seemed like a cherry on top of the fictitious sundae.
Royalty always walks a balance between reality and fantasy. What purpose, after all, does it really serve? Perhaps the patriotic fervor that led the country to treat as a fairy tale Charles and Diana’s wedding, or Prince William and Catherine’s, is gone forever, quashed by a walloped economy and the hurting ex-royals, Meghan and Harry, with their flailing media empire. (Let’s face it: No fairy tale can possibly end with a podcast launch.)
The desire for reality, or pragmatism, is so far backfiring for the royals. A number of tweaks to the coronation proceedings have been made that suggest a desire to modernize the ceremony — a multifaith service with female religious leaders, an invitation for all British citizens, rather than merely aristocrats, to pledge loyalty to Charles — have been roundly criticized.
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But somehow, Camilla seems to get it. Earlier this year, the palace announced that she will be the first consort in recent history to reuse a coronation crown — sustainable! — and will not include a controversial diamond mined in India that many believe should be returned to the country. Anyone who’s watched “The Crown” knows that a royal isn’t elected but is expected to know exactly what people want and need, in some intuitive and existential way. It’s a role of service, after all, even though it mostly appears to our modern eyes as a life of privilege.
But Camilla perhaps sees this role unusually clearly — as a job she has to do to be with the man she loves.
So Camilla looks sleek, pulled together, her frock coats and fascinators dutifully in position, and her hair essentially unchanged for decades — her own version of the uniform that will telegraph a sense of security. Of all the royals, she somehow seems to look the most natural. Heavy is the head that wears the crown, as they say — though Camilla’s head seems light as her feathery ’do. Perhaps that’s because somehow, she always looks like herself.
correction
An earlier version of this article stated the palace’s announcement about Camilla’s coronation crown was earlier this week. It was earlier this year.
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