Kate Middleton has great style... just lose the yellow hotpants!

By LIZ JONES

Showing promise: Kate Middleton has walked the tightrope between boring and appropriate, sensibly priced and cheapskate, fashionable and farcical, with aplomb, says Daily Mail fashion expert, Liz Jones


Now the engagement has been announced, Kate Middleton’s looks and fashion sense will come under unprecedented scrutiny.

Whether she likes it or not, she will soon become Britain’s number one global fashion icon.

There have been those who have swiped at what they have called her ‘lack of innate sense of style’, but I think she shows much promise.

Kate has walked the tightrope between boring and appropriate, sensibly priced and cheapskate, fashionable and farcical, with aplomb.

But now? She needs to take it up not just a notch, but into a different stratosphere.

The American designers are going ga-ga over our new ‘Queen of clean’, which is how Michael Kors described her to me when I asked him to list the women he would most like to dress.

Insiders at Calvin Klein and Narciso Rodriguez are plotting to woo our most British of beauties.

But before all that, Kate will have to ditch, overnight, much that she loves: the long, scuffed boots and woolly or fishnet tights. The sequins. The awful, ubiquitous baseball cap. The skinny jeans and wedge shoes. Wearing a Topshop dress on her birthday. The wraparound shades — we need to see her eyes.


All-out glamour: It Is in her choice of evening wear that Kate has shown most potential, and sex appeal. She favours halternecks almost slashed to the waist from designers including Issa and Christopher Bailey at Burberry - lean columns of duchesse satin that shriek sophistication, rather than net puff balls that reek of dressing-up boxes. Kate's shorter cocktail dresses are most often by Issa - she is proud of her legs and her arms - and she loves a colourful clutch from Mulberry and Longchamp.


She will have to do more with her hair other than simply dousing it in what looks like Pantene Pro-V. Kate shouldn’t lose too much length, but a Scarlett Johansson-style chignon would be good for big occasions.

Most of all, she will have to stop not being too bothered and simply pulling on something nondescript in black from Next.

Diana became the world’s most photographed woman in an age before Tweeting, YouTube and fashion blogging. Kate will need to be prepared for near-constant critique.

She is tall and willowy like Diana, with fabulous legs and a small bust, which means dresses fall better and jackets look streamlined.

Kate even wears hats brilliantly: she has a perfectly symmetrical face, which means any headwear suits her.

But unlike Diana, who had navy courts and twinsets from Peter Jones etched into her DNA, Kate came of age in an era where there are no uniforms, no rules and no boundaries when it comes to fashion. She is faced with too much choice.


A lesson in formality: At society weddings and race meetings she has avoided looking frumpy with silk frocks - most often by favourite designer, Issa - under a curvy jacket. Kate can also carry off a large picture hat, usually by Philip Treacy, and even the ridiculous fascinator. How does she do it? 'Humour,' says Treacy.


She needs to develop her own style, her own taste and to be a little bit brave. She favours Issa, but she needs to summon the big guns to her salon: John Galliano and Jasper Conran.

My best piece of advice? Ignore all the politically correct doom-mongers who will insist she shows restraint in these austere times: Princess Primark will not do at all.

We need a world-class ambassador who will boost the fashion industry, worth £37 billion to our economy, and our standing on the world stage.

Kate could be our ultimate secret weapon now that Samantha Cameron has retreated into stay-at-home mummydom and political unpopularity. We need a fantasy fix and, as Prince William said yesterday, the time is right for Kate.

Who will be her Catherine Walker, the designer who dressed Diana for much of her life as a princess, even making the dress she was buried in?

Vogue is predicting Alice Temperley, Julien Macdonald, William Tempest, Roksanda Ilincic, Erdem and Preen will be her first choices when it comes to filling her wardrobe, while Brides magazine predicts she’ll choose Bruce Oldfield to make her wedding dress.


Country chic: For fishing, shooting and polo, Kate gives the traditional country look a feminine, modern twist which is very on trend right now. She will add a big Ralph Lauren belt to a white shirt and tweeds, or a jaunty hat, or brown suede high-heeled boots.


We shall see, but in the meantime I can see her in Stella McCartney, a designer who knows how to make an impeccable tailored jacket, one of Kate’s staples.

London couturier Suzannah makes vintage-inspired tailored classics for day and night, all hand-made in Britain — a rarity these days.

And for those big, formal receptions? The soft draping of Vivienne Westwood would give us the fairytale romance we crave. And the Alexander McQueen label, under the direction of Sarah Burton, will transport Kate from girl next door to princess.

But please, don’t stick her on the cover of Vogue, airbrushed by Mario Testino. Don’t make her lose weight or put her in bondage platforms. Don’t make her old before her time or turn her into a fashion victim.

Let her find her own feet, shod immaculately, elegantly and expensively in Manolo Blahnik.

‘It’s quite a daunting prospect,’ she said last night, emerging with William (in a suit by Savile Row tailor Gieves & Hawkes and a Turnbull & Asser shirt) on to the world stage in a demure Issa dress in royal blue (what else?) and Diana’s sapphire ring. I adore her already.

...AND A FEW FASHION FAUX PAS



Fashion faux pas: Never again will she be allowed to get away with bright yellow hot pants... even as fancy dress. Every sartorial choice from now on will be fraught with significance. We want her to look happy, but sober. And as for her 'I can't be bothered' officewear - it is anti fashion. Send it back to Next. The black and white dress is too short and, it sounds snobby, but big holdalls look cheap.





source: dailymail

The engagement that almost never was: Wills didn't realise what he had until he almost let her go...

By GEOFFREY LEVY

Will it be our turn next? The couple seem to be sharing a confidence at the wedding of friends last month


For some it is fate, for others, chance. Anyone who has experienced a lengthy courtship will understand how easy it is, in moments of uncertainty, to walk away.

In just such a moment, Kate could have lost her prince. That she and William loved each other was never questioned. They ‘fitted’ so well, friends said.

But three years ago, when William was hit by doubts and they split for three months, the story of their relationship could easily have ended very differently.

It is intriguing that Kate had the strength of character to win back her prince by doing all the things that his circle had urged her not to do.


Drifting apart? A chill in the air at the Cheltenham races in 2007, and right, Kate and William celebrating his 26th birthday in 2008


She went out partying in thigh-skimming skirts; she went roller-skating (and was photographed spreadeagled on the floor after falling over in a most unladylike fashion).

In fact, she and her sister Pippa partied so hard they were nicknamed the ‘Sizzler sisters’. In the wake of this, the Queen was privately said to consider Kate Middleton ‘something of a show-off’ and courtiers were ‘appalled’ at such a display.

So, what was Kate up to? She was taking the biggest gamble of her life. Weeks before, she had asked William for reassurance that she was the only woman in his life — particularly since he had been photographed in a nightclub with his arm around a pretty young woman, his hand apparently cupping her right breast.


Skater girl: Kate's high spirits helped recapture William's affections


‘She felt that William was making her look a fool,’ recalls one of her oldest friends. ‘What she wanted was a clarification of where she stood, and what was going on.

'She wasn’t looking for an engagement ring, she just wanted to know that he was committed to her, and only to her.’

Faced with what he saw as demand for his long-term commitment, especially his fidelity, the 6ft 3in Prince declined to give in. And on that sad and uneasy note, the romance was terminated.


Kate could have slipped away into oblivion, but instead she risked her reputation for quiet modesty in order to show William just what he was missing.

It wasn’t easy. The first thing William did after their separation was to rush off with friends to the Mahiki nightclub in London’s West End, leap on a table and cry: ‘I’m free.’

But like so many young men who never know quite what they want until they no longer have it, he rapidly began to realise just how much he missed Kate.


To make matters worse, there she was, appearing in photographs looking slim and stunning, apparently enjoying life without him. She wasn’t, of course — in fact, she was devastated by the end of their romance — but she was playing a blinder.

After three months apart, she got an unexpected invitation from William to join him at a fancy dress party at his Army barracks at Bovington in Dorset. It was June 2007, and they never parted again.

Yesterday, at last, no one was calling Kate Middleton ‘Waity Katie’. In fact, from now on she wants to be known as Catherine, the name she has always asked her friends to use.

A ring is finally on the finger of the middle-class girl from the Home Counties — that beguiling beauty with long, dark hair who was first seen kissing William in the Sea Life Centre in St Andrews early in 2003.

It soon emerged that she was the girl who had earlier ‘brought his eyes out on sticks’ when she sauntered down the catwalk at a charity fashion show in a diaphanous dress which left little to the imagination. ‘Wow!’ William whispered to his friend Fergus Boyd. ‘Kate’s hot.’


Their romance was initially seen as one of those liaisons that princes have before a girl from the ‘right kind of family’ comes along a bit later in life for them to marry.

But it wasn’t like that. Kate was different. She was cool and intelligent and, most significantly, she didn’t treat him with the deference he often encountered.

William was 21 and — although he was tall, broad- shouldered and handsome — he had sown remarkably few wild oats. Indeed, this lack of experience — so different from his father, who had many girlfriends in his 20s — is what has always worried royal courtiers.


Some remain uneasy about the possibility of William sowing those wild oats in later years.

But right from the start, the Prince has enjoyed having such an attractive woman on his arm. And Kate has been happy to play a quiet supporting role — albeit too quiet for many who have questioned her ‘enthusiasm’ for public life.

Still, back in 2003 few would have predicted that theirs would be a long-term romance.

But almost from the start, Kate was more than just a girlfriend. With astonishing speed, William took her home for the weekend to Highgrove and introduced her to his father, Prince Charles.


She met his friends skiing at Klosters, he took her (aptly enough) to the Middleton Hunt in Yorkshire and soon, with two other St Andrews students, they were sharing a house at university.

Although many doubted the romance, it must be said that Prince Charles was instantly comfortable in Kate’s company, noting that one of her most attractive features was that she was not given to bowing and scraping.

Yes, jibes pursued her family over their social background, especially the one that said her mother, former air stewardess Carole Middleton, had dispatched her to St Andrews just because she knew the Prince was going there.

Friends have always laughed this off, but it hurt the family, as did the smirking ‘doors-to-manual’ mockery of Mrs Middleton’s former career as an air hostess.


Well, whoever those cruel so-called jokers were, they’re not smirking now.

In fact, far from giving William doubts, the taunts brought him closer to Kate. They encouraged his characteristic support for the underdog, a trait that so defined his mother Princess Diana.

Until their split in 2007, Kate was herself disturbed by the things she knew people were saying, not so much for herself but for her family. But after their reunion later that year, a friend says, ‘she was much calmer about it, and so were Mr and Mrs Middleton’.

By then, Kate was regularly staying with William at Clarence House, where he has his own flat. At the same time, she continued to live at her parents’ home in the Berkshire village of Bucklebury, in the same bedroom she’d had since she was 14.

Kate remained the classically middle-class (and middle-brow) girl she’d been when she went up to St Andrews. According to friends, she has scarcely changed despite the new world into which the future King has introduced her.

All his friends have become her friends, though Kate herself has never collected many close personal confidantes of her own. ‘They like Kate because she’s always herself,’ says a friend of the Royal Family.

‘She’s cool and decisive and is never scared of telling William he’s wrong if she thinks he is. He loves that air of independence she gives out — so very different from the girl that people think has done nothing but wait for the phone to ring with him on the other end.’

And ever since Prince William was posted to Wales as a search and rescue helicopter pilot with the RAF, Kate has quietly been spending weekends with him at the remote farmhouse he has rented near the base, RAF Valley in Anglesey.

Apart from his police bodyguard, they live like any other service couple, making themselves as unobtrusive as possible and shopping in the local Tesco.

True, Kate Middleton never had much of a career. She was briefly a buyer for the fashion chain Jigsaw, owned by friends of her family, and most recently she has been acting as the Party Pieces photographer, taking pictures of items for the website.

Just a few months ago, photos of her and William frolicking in the alpine snow emerged. One of the pictures showed them on a snowmobile, with her clinging on to him.

Well, we know now that he was clinging on to her just as hard. As for that career she never fashioned for herself — one is certainly being fashioned for her now.



source: dailymail

Kate and Wills finally announce their engagement after eight years together

By MICHAEL SEAMARK

The commercial channel’s political editor has become a close friend of the Prince, who chose him for the exclusive interview rather than the national broadcaster, the BBC.


Kate: 'It's a daunting prospect but I hope to take in in my stride'

William: 'Giving my mother's ring means she won't miss out on excitement'

'When I first met Kate, I knew there was something very special about her'


Their very public appearance as a newly engaged couple was all but subsumed in a blaze of camera flashes and quickfire questions.

But a little earlier, in a quiet side room at Clarence House, William and Kate gave the first glimpses of the closeness of their relationship.

Seated side by side in their first interview together, the happy couple spent more than 15 minutes chatting informally to ITV News’ Tom Bradby.

Relaxed and often sharing a joke together, William and his bride-to-be revealed that they want to start a family.

And the Prince explained why he took so long to pop the question, saying he wanted to give Kate a chance to ‘back out’ if she felt she couldn’t cope with life as a future Queen.
Here is what the couple had to say:

THE ROMANCE

Bradby: When did you first set eyes on each other?

William: It’s a long time ago now, Tom, I’m trying to wrack my brain. We obviously met at university – at St Andrews, we were friends for over a year first and it just sort of blossomed. We just spent more time with each other, had a good giggle, lots of fun and realised we shared the same interests and had a really good time. She’s got a really naughty sense of humour, which kind of helps me because I’ve got a really dry sense of humour, so it was good fun.

Bradby: Kate, what did you think of William?
Kate: Well I actually think I went bright red when I met you and sort of scuttled off, feeling very shy.

Bradby: There’s a story that goes around that you had a picture of him on your wall.
William: There wasn’t just one, there was about 20.
Kate: He wishes. No, I had the Levi’s guy on my wall, not a picture of William, sorry.


We're very happy: Prince William and Kate Middleton give their first interview after announcing their engagement


THE 2007 SPLIT
William: We did split up for a bit. We were both very young, it was at university, we were both finding ourselves as such and being different characters and stuff, it was very much trying to find our own way and we were growing up. It was a bit of space and a bit of things like that and it worked out for the better.

Kate: I, at the time, wasn’t very happy about it, but actually it made me a stronger person. You find out things about yourself that maybe you hadn’t realised, I think you can get quite consumed by a relationship when you are younger and I really valued that time for me although I didn’t think it at the time.

THE PROPOSAL
William: It was about three weeks ago on holiday in Kenya. We had been talking about marriage for a while so it wasn’t a massively big surprise. I took her up somewhere nice in Kenya and I proposed.

Kate: It was very romantic. There’s a true romantic in there. I really didn’t expect it. It was a total shock... and very exciting.
Bradby: And he produced a ring there and then?
Kate: Yes.

William: I had been carrying it around with me in my rucksack for about three weeks before that and I literally would not let it go. Everywhere I went I was keeping hold of it because I knew this thing, if it disappeared I would be in a lot of trouble and because I’d planned it, it went fine.

You hear a lot of horror stories about proposing and things going horribly wrong it went really, really well and I was really pleased she said yes. It’s my mother’s engagement ring so I thought it was quite nice because obviously she’s not going to be around to share any of the fun and excitement of it all – this was my way of keeping her close to it all.

Kate: It’s beautiful. I just hope I look after it. It’s very, very special.


Great significance: Prince William has given Kate Middleton his late mother's engagement ring


WHY WAIT TO PROPOSE?

William: I wanted to give her a chance to see in and to back out if she needed to before it all got too much. I’m trying to learn from lessons done in the past and I just wanted to give her the best chance to settle in and to see what happens on the other side.


Lady in waiting: The couple prepare for yesterday's media photocall


KEEPING THE SECRET
William: We’re like sort of ducks, very calm on the surface with little feet going under the water. It’s been really exciting because we’ve been talking about it for a long time, so for us, it’s a real relief and it’s really nice to be able to tell everybody. Especially for the last two or three weeks – it’s been quite difficult not telling anyone, keeping it to ourselves.

Bradby: Did you ask Kate’s dad and what did he say and what did your respective parents say?

William: I was torn between asking Kate’s dad first and then the realisation that he might actually say ‘No’ dawned upon me. So I thought if I ask Kate first, then he can’t really say no.

Bradby: What did your mum say?
Kate: She was absolutely over the moon. We had quite an awkward situation because I knew and I knew that William had asked my father but I didn’t know if my mother knew. So I came back from Scotland and my mother didn’t make it clear to me whether she knew or not, so both of us were there sort of looking at each other.

MEETING THE IN-LAWS
Kate: I was quite nervous about meeting William’s father, but he was very, very welcoming, very friendly, it couldn’t have gone easier really for me.
Bradby: Meeting the Queen?

Kate: I first met her at Peter ( the Princess Royal’s son) and Autumn’s wedding and again it was amongst a lot of other guests and she was very friendly.
Bradby: You clearly are tremendously fond of each other’s families.

William: ‘Kate’s got a very, very close family. I get on really well with them and I’m very lucky that they’ve been so supportive. Mike and Carole have been really loving and caring and really fun and have been really welcoming towards me, so I’ve felt really a part of the family.

DIANA’S LEGACY
Bradby: William’s mother was this massive iconic figure. Is that worrying? Is that intimidating?

Kate: Obviously I would have loved to have met her and she’s obviously an inspirational woman to look up to. Obviously on this day and going forward and things, you know, it is a wonderful family, the members who I’ve met have achieved a lot and very inspirational and so, yes, I do.

William: There’s no pressure, though. Like Kate said, it is about carving your own future. No one is trying to fill my mother’s shoes, what she did was fantastic. It’s about making your own future and your own destiny and Kate will do a very good job of that.


Relief: The couple said they were delighted to break the news of their engagement


CRITICISM OF KATE’S WORK
Kate: I think I know I’ve been working very hard for the family business, sometimes those days are long days and I think if I know I’m working hard and pulling my weight, both working and playing hard at the same time, I think everyone who I work with can see I am there pulling my weight.

STARTING A FAMILY
Bradby: Kate, you very evidently have a close-knit family.
Kate: Yes. It’s very important to me. And I hope we will be able to have a happy family ourselves. They’ve been great over the years – helping me with difficult times. They are very, very dear to me.

Bradby: People are bound to ask... children, do you want lots of children? See what comes?

William: I think we’ll take it one step at a time. We’ll sort of get over the marriage first and then maybe look at the kids. But obviously we want a family so we’ll have to start thinking about that.

EXCITED OR TERRIFIED?

William: We are hugely excited and we are looking forward to spending the rest of our lives together and seeing what the future holds.

Kate: It’s obviously nerve-wracking, I don’t know the ropes, William is obviously used to it, but I’m willing to learn quickly and work hard. I really hope I can make a difference, even in the smallest way. I am looking forward to helping as much as I can.




source: dailymail

Wills and Kate: We'll take it one step at a time but we want to start a family

By PAUL HARRIS

Beaming: Kate Middleton and Prince William pose after announcing their engagement


She was wearing Diana’s ring, holding the arm of the late princess’s son.

Every word she said was being reported around the world, every nuance and gesture broadcast live to hundreds of millions of TV viewers.

There could hardly have been a more testing debut for Kate Middleton than her first formal appearance before the cameras as she stood side by side with Prince William.

But with a beaming smile – and a clear determination to overcome her nervousness – the young woman in line to become a princess, maybe a Queen, confidently began the first day of the rest of her life.

In a state room at St James’s Palace, plain Miss Middleton prepared to embark on a lifestyle under scrutiny as the newest recruit to the royal family.


The happy couple: Prince William and Kate Middleton in relaxed form


And although she was deemed to have emerged triumphant from this difficult baptism, you couldn’t help feeling we had been here before.

Some of the phrases she chose to describe her engagement bore an uncanny similarity to those used by Lady Diana Spencer when she and Prince Charles went through the same process in 1981.

Some of the looks they gave each other echoed those which Charles and Diana shared between the laughter and rather cautious enthusiasm.

The difference yesterday was that Kate and William were unmistakeably in love, clearly a couple who actually knew, to borrow Prince Charles’s phrase, whatever love meant.

But, blimey, they took long enough to get around to it.
Her nine-year transition from Home Counties girl and university chum of a future king of England took longer than some royal marriages last. (They don’t get to celebrate too many silver weddings in this family).

Fortunately, perhaps, the recruitment of a commoner to ‘The Firm’ was a slow and carefully researched process.

Continuing this gradual theme, six hours passed yesterday between the official announcement and our first sighting of the gleaming new royal couple.

For a privileged few journalists, that came not in the blaze of flashguns and TV lights that practically seared them into the St James’s Palace carpet, but over tea and bone china at a far less formal private chat with William and Kate.

What they told us here was all off the record, simply a courtesy. But the impression they gave was of a couple completely at ease with each other, sometimes teasing one another, holding hands, touching gently.

Perhaps significantly, the prince allowed his new fiancee to be encircled by a posse of journalists for a time, leaving her to fend for herself, except for an occasional glance in her direction and an ear to the questions.

Not surprisingly for a chap who told his father and the Queen about the engagement only hours before it was made public, Prince William didn’t betray any real secrets.
Elsewhere though it emerged yesterday he had carried the ring around rather precariously in a rucksack before proposing to Kate at the ‘romantic’ location he had chosen to do the deed.

He already had her father’s permission, and although his brother Prince Harry wasn’t formally told until yesterday, one suspects he would have had a good idea.


Taking the plunge: Kate Middleton and Prince William attend the wedding of friend Chiara Hunt in 2006


Many of their friends, after all, had already taken the plunge; not being first among them must have made much easier for Prince William.

Kate, too, would have been bursting to break the news – she was repeatedly asked about the prospect of engagement when she and William attended a friend’s West Country wedding recently.

‘Maybe he’ll get round to it some day,’ she diplomatically replied, even though she had already said yes to William’s proposal.

Apparently she has also been making it clear she prefers to be known as Catherine. A clue to a forthcoming title of Princess Catherine or Queen Catherine? Or just revenge against headline writers who prefer the brevity of Kate?

Whatever, back at St James’s yesterday, it was patently a relief for each of them to talk about their engagement at last.

So that’s what she sounds like! The voice was a surprise at first, slightly more upmarket than many of us imagined.

Her responses were pretty quick too, including a couple of clever quips and suitably deferential compliments to her newly betrothed beau. ‘She’s very good at flattery,’ the Prince told us.

What about joining the royal family? ‘It’s quite a daunting prospect but hopefully I’ll take it in my stride,’ she said. ‘And William’s a great teacher so hopefully he’ll be able to help me along the way.

‘He’s treated me very well, as the loving boyfriend he is. He is very supportive of me through the good times and also through the bad times.’

The proposal? ‘It was very romantic,’ she said, adding intriguingly: ‘And it was very personal.’

Uh-oh. Dangerous territory here. One of the watching Palace press officers put a hand to his chin. He must have known the down-on-one-knee question was about to follow.

William intervened with a laugh. ‘That’s going to stay a state secret,’ he said. Just as Kate had predicted, her ‘great teacher’ was helping her along the way.


Calm and collected: Kate Middleton and Prince William remain poised after announcing their engagement


Nervous proposal: Prince William admitted he planned popping the question meticulously


His responses to how he felt about the engagement, however, were somewhat blokeish. Maybe he knew he would be ribbed by his RAF mates when he got back to base. ‘The time is right now,’ he said.

It was when he was asked about the engagement ring that the tone changed. This time he spoke with great poignancy.

‘As you may have recognised, it’s my mother’s engagement ring, so of course it’s very special to me. And Kate’s very special to me now as well, and it’s only right the two are put together.

‘It was my way of making sure my mother didn’t miss out on today, the excitement, and the fact that we’re going to spend the rest of our lives together.’

Kate gave him that look again. The TV lights made her peacock blue dress shimmer and she bowed her head slightly. From time to time as she spoke, she crossed her legs to give the impression she was relaxed.

But study the strength of the grip she kept on William’s right arm and you might get a pointer to the kind of strain the scrutiny put her under. It surfaced even before they had finished speaking.

A couple of female journalists concluded she looked ‘too skinny’. (I was berated for suggesting she looked comfortably slim). Someone else said the shoes were a little plain.

Oh well. Here we go again. There will be much more of this in the months running up to their wedding, and undoubtedly beyond.




source: dailymail