So Beyoncé and Kate Middleton hung out together at a Brooklyn Nets game last night. The Internet exploded. The fashion world yawned. Why, why don’t we care about the way Bey or Kate dress? They have an influence on style, in that they move units out of stores. That can’t be disregarded. But aside from Kate’s wedding dress or Beyoncé’s leotard in the “Single Ladies” video, can you think of anything either woman has worn that’s really stuck in your mind? And both of those memorable looks were costumes of a kind, rather than expressions of personal style. Anyway, I’d argue that there are two simple, interrelated reasons why neither Bey nor Kate make the cut as forward-thinking fashion icons. Reason one: They don’t have to be. Bey is a multitalented force of nature who, as the meme goes, “woke up like that.” She’s the Queen of Pop. Kate Middleton is an actual princess. (OK, not actually—actually, she’s the Duchess of Cambridge—but you get the point. She married the prince.) They’ve got nothing to compensate for! They’re two MILFs with slick blow-outs and husbands they overshadow. If they dressed with extraordinary originality and panache as well, it would be off-putting. People would start to hate them. Which brings me to interrelated Reason No. 2. Bey and Kate don’t need to have button-pushing style; also, they can’t. The first thing anyone does when they’re winning is fortify the barricades. You get conservative when you’re on top. Kate has her own particular reasons to be decorous—the palace would surely frown upon subversive looks—whereas Beyoncé chooses to compartmentalize her risk-taking into her creative endeavors. Note that when she went a little Gaga, circa Sasha Fierce, the vultures started circling. It didn’t feel authentic, whereas Lady Gaga’s performative meat-dress-wearing, etc., clearly came from her deep-seated need to act out, to provoke, to shift some paradigms in her own eccentric direction. And even if you’re not as out-there as Gaga was in those days, anyone with a great sense of style is flirting, in some way, with danger. With upsetting people. Upsetting the status quo. According to that definition, the true style star at the Barclays Center last night was LeBron James. He turned up to the warm-up in Brooklyn wearing an “I Can’t Breathe” T-shirt.
