bitchy | Suzy Menkes: Princess Kate doesn’t have ‘Camilla’s joy at wearing jewelry’

The current Princess of Wales has terrible style overall, but particularly when it comes to accessories and jewelry. She has a gift for putting the wrong earrings and necklaces with the wrong necklines, colors and styles. The rare times she is allowed to wear big pieces from the royal collection, she either f–ks up the styling completely or she just brings nothing modern to the table and wanders around, looking like an Edwardian ghost. Something else that I’ve noticed throughout Kate’s entire time as a royal woman: she has no idea how to wear big pieces and no one has ever bothered to teach her. All of which might be why Kate doesn’t get to wear the bigger Royal Collection pieces, even now that Queen Camilla is the keeper of the royal jewels. Well, one of Camilla’s fashion-industry allies, Suzy Menkes, also had some harsh words for Kate’s jewelry-style. This is so funny:

The Princess of Wales has been labelled a ‘disappointment’ in her approach to jewellery by a former Vogue editor. Suzy Menkes, 79, from Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, made the scathing comment on the latest episode of her podcast Creative Conversations. The prominent critic – who was awarded an OBE by the late Queen for her contribution to fashion journalism in 2014 – invited British Vogue’s jewellery editor Carol Woolton onto the show, where they discussed the Princess of Wales’ recent outfits.

The former Vogue International editor accused Kate, 41, of appearing indifferent to the collection of rare and precious jewels she is privileged to wear and said she doesn’t seem as passionate about jewels as her mother-in-law Camilla, 75.

She said: ‘The Princess of Wales is a bit of a disappointment about jewellery. She gives the impression that she only puts it on when she absolutely has to. I imagine her looking beautiful in one of those gowns behind the scenes and then pulling a face as if to say, “Do I have to wear this?” She doesn’t give any sense of adoring jewellery and being pleased to put it on.’

Furthermore, the fashion critic highlighted how Queen Camilla – who visited the Monica Vinader headquarters yesterday – seems much more interested in gems. Suzy added: ‘She doesn’t seem to have Camilla’s joy at wearing jewellery.’

However, the critic remains on the fence about whether Kate’s attitude towards jewellery will change as she edges closer to the throne. She continued: ‘We now have a new Queen, so presumably she has a first opportunity to look at the jewels. We can imagine that the next in line to the throne’s wife would be something that was very special, so will we see Catherine wearing jewellery that is more dramatic, that is more personal to her? I don’t know. I can’t help feeling with things of beauty, you either love it or you don’t.’

[From The Daily Mail]

I wouldn’t even say that Camilla finds joy in jewelry – I think Camilla’s joy is the victory itself, the fact that she won, that she’s queen (consort) and to the victor go the spoils. Now, Camilla has always worn big statement pieces, mostly because Charles gave her all of his grandmother’s jewelry, and now that she’s queen, she’s mixing and matching stuff from the Queen Mum’s collection and the Royal Collection. Meanwhile, Camilla is the one limiting Kate’s access to jewelry too – Kate didn’t even get to borrow any Royal Collection jewels for the coronation, for goodness sake. Anyway… I halfway agree that Kate’s jewelry-wearing is rather joyless. Her only real sartorial joy for years now has been copykeening Meghan.

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