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This past weekend, The Sunday Times broke a story, as they so often do: Kensington Palace would no longer share details on what Kate Middleton wears to official appearances.
The reported reasoning? The Princess of Wales wants the press—and therefore the public—to focus on her work, rather than her clothing. “She wants the focus to be on the really important issues, the people and the causes she is spotlighting,” a palace source told the paper. “There will always be an appreciation of what the princess is wearing from some of the public and she gets that. But do we need to be officially always saying what she is wearing? No.”
Middleton shares a common frustration with other high-profile women who find that discussion of their fashion often overshadows discussion of their work. For years, Hillary Clinton complained about the hyper-focus on her pantsuits as first lady and then secretary of state: In the 2017 book What Happened, Clinton explained her reasoning behind the clothing choice, writing she “thought it would be good to do what male politicians do and wear more or less the same thing every day.” Jill Biden, too, has acknowledged acute attention on her fashion among the media and the public. “I knew the only thing that would be reported about me was what I was wearing,” she once said about dressing for the State of the Union.
It’s inarguable that the sartorial decisions of women are more closely scrutinized. Sometimes it is in good faith—people simply like talking about clothes, especially women, who statistics show spend close to $2,000 per year, on average, on their wardrobes. Other times, however, the conversation takes on sexist undertones. A man in power may wear an ill-fitting suit with little comment, while a woman who does so can face irrational—and often tawdry—criticism. “Ladies, enough with the pantsuit. Okay? It’s not working! Stop trying to have respect for yourselves. You don’t win the office on policy; you gotta whore it up a little!” comedian Bill Burr said in his recent monologue for Saturday Night Live after Kamala Harris lost the election. “I know a lot of ugly women—I mean feminists—don’t want to hear this message.”
It’s also inarguable that the lion’s share of press coverage about Middleton focuses on her clothing. For a long time, it had to be. The young royal rarely gave interviews to newspapers or public speeches. Yet, she commanded a tremendous amount of interest—according to YouGov, 99% of people in the United Kingdom have heard of Kate Middleton. With an enormous appetite for information about her and limited access, all reporters could do was report on the Princess of Wales’s clothing.
She also gave them a lot to analyze. She nearly always wore head-to-toe British brands, giving immense exposure to designers like Jenny Packham, Emilia Wickstead, and Alexander McQueen. Many of them experienced “the Kate effect”—or, a surge in orders of the item she was photographed wearing—making Kate arguably the most valuable ambassador to the British fashion industry. When she wasn’t wearing designer clothes, she often selected items from high-street stores like Zara. It subtly crafted a down-to-earth image in the process and proved that not even a princess needs to own a closet full of expensive wares…while also making the thousand-year-old institution of the monarchy seem somehow relatable. At a time when Kate was a relative enigma, she allowed the world to understand her values through dress.
And then there was her soft style diplomacy. In December, she wore a burgundy Alexander McQueen ensemble that matched the shade of the Qatari state flag as a sign of respect during the Emir of Qatar’s state visit. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, she put on a Ukraine-blue sweater for a visit to London’s Ukrainian Cultural Centre. And when Hollywood’s women wore black to the BAFTAs in 2018 to support the Time’s Up movement, Middleton wore a black velvet band around her own in subtle solidarity. The princess didn’t just throw all these outfits together with no thought—in fact, she put them together with a precise message in mind. (She perhaps borrowed this tactic from Queen Elizabeth, who famously wore bright colors to all her appearances so anyone could spot her in the crowd.)
Yesterday morning, the Princess of Wales made an official appearance at the National Portrait Gallery. She wore a brown blazer, a black turtleneck, and pinstripe trousers. The look sent a message with its lack of one: This is what someone should wear if they didn’t want too many questions about it.
Because that’s the thing. Clothing, whether you like it or not, means something. It meant something when Melania Trump wore an “I Really Don’t Care, Do U?” jacket to visit migrant children as her husband campaigned for some of the strictest immigration restrictions in our country’s history. It meant something when Lily Gladstone wore a Gucci dress with embroidery by an Indigenous designer after becoming the first Native American nominated for best actress. It meant something when pioneering Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg chose to wear a lace collar with her robes. (“The standard robe is made for a man because it has a place for the shirt to show, and the tie, she told the Washington Post in 2009.) It meant something when Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson followed Ginsburg’s precedent and wore a collar of cowrie shells, totems once symbolically used to resist enslavement, to Donald J. Trump’s Inauguration on Martin Luther King Day. It meant something that female politicians wore white to the State of the Union in 2019, the same color worn by suffragettes.
The clothing worn by high-profile women is a deeply complicated arena. And the Princess of Wales can—and should—do what she likes when it comes to her fashion. But power can be, and always has been, expressed through style when using one’s voice wasn’t an option. So one can only hope that Kate still keeps the door to her closet slightly ajar.
