Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Weekly Royal Fashion Awards: September 15-21, Plus a Tiara Watch!

Best in Visits
Queen Máxima and Princess Letizia

Video: Felipe and Letizia meet their Dutch visitors at the airport
Willem-Alexander and Máxima got back to their one day visits to fellow European monarchs this past week with a quick stop in Spain to see the King and Queen. So many things to love just in this video: the warm greetings, the best thing Letizia wore all week, Máxima's abundant use of aquamarines, and her excellent response to the Spanish monarchy's anti-hat and currently anti-bling culture.
 
That would be a jeweled butterfly in the hair, of course. Attagirl!

Most Curiously Hatted
Queen Mathilde
Continuing visits across the country with King Philippe
Mathilde had other events this week (she was in New York, and I think we'll cover that when we cover the rest of the people in NYC next week), but this one sort of wiped them all out. There are outfits that you can casually throw a hat on...and then there are outfits that you can not.

Second Most Curiously Hatted
Crown Prince Haakon and Crown Princess Mette-Marit
Visiting Vest-Agder
I don't know what exactly is going on here, but these two together without context humors me. If I hadn't seen them next to each other on video (click here!), I might think someone had Photoshopped this up: one Arctic survivor bundled up for life and one dude in a suit, just out for a stroll.

Best in Family Events
The Swedish Royal Family
King Carl Gustaf, Queen Silvia, Crown Princess Victoria, Prince Daniel, Prince Carl Philip, Chris O'Neill, and Princess Madeleine attend a reception celebrating the King's 40th Jubilee
First, the Jubilee festivities continued with a reception, where Victoria's simple dress was the perfect day dress to pair with her father's order, and a much less distracting choice than Silvia's Easter egg suit...
The Opening of Parliament and the evening performance (King and Queen not pictured)
...and then it was time for the annual opening of Parliament. The black and white on the ladies is the standard dress code, and a throwback to the court dress of earlier days, and Madeleine's winning it (during the day at least).

Best in Variety
Crown Princess Mary
Mary at an awards ceremony, and during the state visit from Vietnam (with her Erdem dress)
Mary had a busy week, more events than this, and she had some interesting designers too. A blue Gucci number - not unlike the Gucci worn by Máxima earlier this year, sans the Bea sleeves - and Erdem! Count that as another royal Erdem that I actually like. I like that blue coat too, and as a bonus it was worn for a state visit, and you know what that means...

Tiara Watch!
Reason #597 why fall is awesome: we usually get a couple state visits out of it, and state visits = tiaras. Tiaras in all their sparkly action, no less:

Video: State banquet for the President of Vietnam
Queen Margrethe is wearing the Baden Palmette Tiara; Mary has on her wedding tiara; Marie is wearing her regular floral tiara; and Benedikte is also in her floral tiara. A regular diamond party! And thank heavens for the tiaras, because I'm not wild about the gowns. Marie's is lovely, but that waist ornamentation has no business being cluttered by a sash and a star. And Mary looks like she's reusing the skirt from one of my favorite New Year's Court outfits, and yet I still don't love it. Hmm...

Who was your best dressed last week?

Photos: IBL/Belga/NRK/Expressen/BestImage/Abaca/Kongehuset