Queen Camilla’s dresser has ‘relaxed’ the rules on who can wear a similar tone to the royal during engagements after encountering problems with other stylists over the color blue, insiders have claimed.
Sources have told The Express, as the most senior woman in the royal family, the Queen is able to choose her outfits before others, such as the Princess of Wales and Duchess of Edinburgh. Yet the insiders said Camilla’s stylist Jacqui Meakin initially ‘ruffled a few feathers’ at Buckingham Palace by being too strict over outfit color choices.
They revealed Queen Camilla, Kate Middleton and Sophie all love the same tone of blue, causing some difficulties for their royal stylists. However, it appears the rules have now been relaxed, with Meakin allowing women to wear the color blue at the same time as the Queen — as long as it is a different shade.
It’s not the first time the conversation about royal outfits and colors hit the headlines. Speaking in her Netflix series Harry & Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex spoke of her decision to ‘tone down’ the colors in her wardrobe during her time as a working royal. She said, “Most of the time I was in the UK, I rarely wore color. To my understanding, you can’t ever wear the same color as Her Majesty if there’s a group event, but then you also shouldn’t be wearing the same color as one of the other more senior members of the family.”
She added, “I wore a lot of muted tones but it was also so I could just blend in. I’m not trying to stand out here. There was no version of me [that was] joining this family and trying not to do everything I could to fit in. I don’t want to embarrass the family.”
There was much discussion over the rules after the Netflix series premiered, with a number of royals stepping out in coordinating burgundy coats at Kate Middleton’s Christmas concert hours later. The Princess of Wales, Zara Tindall and Pippa Middleton were all seen wearing near identical shades as they attended the event.
Originally published in Tatler.com