I’m not British, but I really want to be. I love everything about the culture and the people of the UK. Naturally, I’ve been obsessed with the recent Queen’s Jubilee and always, Kate Middleton. I watched the interview with Katie Couric (I mostly hung my head at Katie’s ridiculous questions) and I was completely blown away by how incredible the Queen is.
She’s never given an interview. Never. Not once in 60 years of being Queen has she sat down and just … talked. That’s not what’s important to her – doing her job is important. She was Queen at 25 and is the first monarch since Queen Victoria to have a Diamond Jubilee (that’s 60 years of being Queen). She has her hands in everything: she decides where people will sit at dinner parties (she wants people to be placed by people they would be interested in talking to), she goes over the menu, she picks the table setting and she runs 16 countries. You know – no big deal.
While the Queen is took center stage earlier this month, it’s usually Kate Middleton who is on the front page. Kate is pretty, stylish, and your average girl. She buys her own groceries and she chooses her own clothes. I’m not ashamed to say I stared openly at the pictures of Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge, Future Queen of England, unloading her own shopping cart on a conveyer belt and walking out to her car alone. It blew my freaking mind.
I also love the fact that Kate Middleton shops on High Street, which means she spends 80 dollars on a dress. She bargain shops. The reason I get to write about her (finally) is that she recently wore the same Emilia Wickstead coat dress ($2,000) twice in 11 days. Now, if I had 2,000 dollars to spend on a dress you better believe I am wearing that thing more than once. The fact that Kate has money out the yin-yang and she still recycles outfits is extremely cool.
England’s economy is not much better than ours – some reports say it’s far worse – so to have the “face” of the monarchy recycling outfits is really classy. You would never see a celebrity wear the same outfit twice in America. They parade their good fortune in front of the beaten masses as often as they can.
In doing research for this article I found out that the Queen also recycles outfits. She names all her dresses, her favorite being “Buttercup” (a simple yellow dress and hat). She does not wear the same dress with the same media present, but she will wear Buttercup in England and then in South Africa. She also is said to be very happy with Kate’s recycling, as she feels it’s the right thing to do in this economy. The whole royal family seems extremely humble and to genuinely care about their people.
On her 21st birthday, Queen Elizabeth made a speech where she said, “My whole life, be it long or short, will be in service to you.” How incredible to have the head of state actually think they work for the people. The press should stop commenting on the fact that the Princess wore the same dress twice in 11 days like it’s a travesty and see it as an extremely thoughtful act. There are more important things than new expensive dresses.