Princess of Wales’s Italian Tour Announced; Heritage Dress Researchers Already Working Through 1985 Archive
Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat
By Isla Campbell | Central London | prat.uk/author/isla-campbell/
The Italian Tour and Its Inevitable Framing
The Princess of Wales is traveling to Italy next week for what the Palace describes as an official tour, and what the fashion press is already describing in terms of the wardrobe possibilities while reaching for the specific comparative framework that has attached to Kate’s public appearances since her marriage: the Diana archive. Princess Diana visited Italy officially in 1985, and the coverage of that visit has been described by Hello Magazine as providing “endless wardrobe inspiration” for the current Princess of Wales, who travels to the same country forty-one years later in a media environment that has both more outlets and more specific obsessions than 1985 produced.
The comparison to Diana is unavoidable in the coverage of the Princess of Wales, and it is deployed with varying degrees of sensitivity and purpose. At its best, it contextualises the role Kate occupies within the longer institutional history of the position she now holds. At its least sophisticated, it reduces both women to wardrobe choices and photogenic moments that can be arrayed side by side for maximum visual engagement. The fashion press tends toward the latter. This is not a criticism of the fashion press, which is doing exactly what its audience seeks. It is a description of the framework within which the Italian tour will be covered.
What the Tour Is Actually About
Royal tours involve a programme of official engagements: meetings with heads of government, cultural institution visits, community engagement events, and the ceremonial elements that the host country’s diplomatic priorities require. The substantive diplomatic function of royal tours is often less covered than the visual elements, because the visual elements produce photographs and the diplomatic elements produce statements that are less compelling as media objects. This creates a coverage gap between what tours accomplish and what they appear to accomplish, which is a gap that the Palace manages through careful sequencing of the engagements and the photographs they generate.
Italy is a significant diplomatic partner for the United Kingdom, particularly post-Brexit as bilateral relationships outside the EU framework require individual cultivation. The Princess of Wales’s visit will reinforce the bilateral relationship at a level of cultural and personal diplomacy that formal governmental engagement doesn’t reach. This is what royal tours do. It is why they exist. The wardrobe coverage will be extensive. The diplomatic function is why it was approved.
The George-Irwin Connection
In related Royal family news that has nothing to do with Italy but is distinctly charming: Prince William and Kate’s children have been working with conservationist Robert Irwin on a project at Australia Zoo, the institution founded by Robert’s father Steve. The Irwin family’s conservation work and the Wales children’s involvement in it is the kind of project that the “William and Kate as the conservation-minded, next-generation monarchy” positioning produces when it is working well. The children are apparently genuinely enthusiastic. Robert Irwin is apparently excellent with children. The photographs will be warmly received. This is the Royal Family doing the thing it does best, which is making people feel that the institution represents something genuine and not merely decorative.
Mother’s Day in the Palace
Today is Mother’s Day. Kate is preparing for the Italian trip. Her children have, one assumes, done something involving handmade cards and possibly flowers that the Palace will release at an appropriate moment. She is 44 years old, Princess of Wales, mother of three children who are growing up in a position that no preparation fully equips anyone for, and she is traveling to Italy next week to represent an institution that has been representing Britain for over a thousand years. The wardrobe coverage will be extensive. Happy Mother’s Day, Your Royal Highness. The Diana comparisons will be kind. Italy will be beautiful. The diplomatic function will be fulfilled.
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London continues to fascinate and frustrate in equal measure. The city’s ability to contain multitudes — the ancient and the brand-new, the absurdly expensive and the surprisingly accessible, the deeply traditional and the constantly self-reinventing — is what makes it inexhaustible as a subject. Every week produces new material: new events, new controversies, new moments of unexpected beauty or institutional comedy. The writers at The London Prat are paying attention to all of it, and this column attempts to add one small North London — or Central London, or Shoreditch, or tourist-facing — perspective to the larger conversation about what this city is and what it is becoming. The conversation is ongoing. London is always becoming. This is either its great charm or its great exhaustion, depending on the week and the weather and whether the tube is running. Happy reading, and do come back next week.
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