DRESSING stylishly while adhering to Royal protocol is a tall order, but it's one that Carla Bruni Sarkozy seems to have pulled off sans probleme . When she arrived in London yesterday, sporting a demure grey coat-dress and hat, black flat pumps and
matching handbag, she immediately won praise from commentators for her understated, unshowy and deferential style.
Yes, the outfit was by Dior and Mrs Sarkozy is a former supermodel, but neither fact was obvious as France's premier couple descended from their plane to be met by Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall.
The dual requirements of being stylish while appropriately attired have long taxed members of our royal family, especially those not born into it. Remember Princess Diana's early sartorial disasters? The plunging evening gown which barely contained her cleavage on her first public appearance was not only inappropriate to her new role as the future queen, but it was also black – a colour which, as Colin McDowell, the author of A Hundred Years of Royal Style, points out, is "only worn by the royals in mourning".
Even royals who are schooled in protocol from birth flounder when they try to combine it with a sense of fashion. Zara Philips is touted by many as the Great White Hope of the younger royals in terms of street cred, but for every chic Ascot outfit we've seen, there is a pap shot of her out on the town in a cowboy hat. There's a tightrope to be walked between being too quirkily individual, as Philips (and before her, Fergie) often is, and being too conservative for your age, as Diana was in the 1980s and as Sloane Ranger throwback Kate Middleton is today.
Mrs Sarkozy made no such mistake yesterday. Dolly Jones, editor of Vogue.com, says: "Her tiny matching hat and rounded collar were an elegant reference to the late Jackie Kennedy. Without trying too hard to make a statement, she really looks the part. She's certainly not trying to upstage anybody, and for somebody whose business was always to be photographed, she's been pretty clever."
Colin McDowell adds: "When you're a public person, everything's got to be thought through." So, it's probably no coincidence, then, that Mrs Sarkozy's coat-dress is the exact same length as the Queen's?"
"It's a good length," laughs Jones, "any shorter and she would have been showing off her gorgeous legs!"
Kevin Stewart, in-store stylist at Harvey Nichols in Edinburgh, agrees that Mrs Sarkozy didn't look dowdy, even in fabric reminiscent of a school uniform.
"She knows exactly what cuts will work: you can sacrifice colour, pattern and texture if the shape is fantastic."
Stewart reckons that Mrs Sarkozy "will keep up with fashion, but in a way that's not in your face", though he wishes the same could be said for the younger members of the royal family whom he believes tend to play it safe, fashion-wise. "With the British fashion industry going so well, it would be great to see women like Zara Philips and Princess Eugenie as ambassadors for it. There are so many great designers, even if they wanted to stay quite conservative or classic, they could do it – but with a twist. I would love to see younger royals wearing Alexander McQueen, Christopher Kane, Burberry Prorsum."
For Dolly Jones, however, our royals aren't hampered in the style stakes by protocol. "Presumably, they want to be in the press for the right reasons and if they wanted to wear the latest McQueen straight off the catwalk then they'd be written about for different reasons. The fun of fashion is that if you have limitations, you have to be even more clever about how you're going to wear things and ensure that they come up to scratch in terms of what people expect of you in the particular environment. You have to tailor your tastes to the role you've taken."
The full article contains 676 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
