The thing is, there has genuinely been a lack of portraiture around the Duchess of Cambridge. She (arguably) will be the Princess of Wales and Queen Consort, and I’ve always wondered why Kate doesn’t organize real, formal portraits done for her birthday. Maybe she was just waiting for her big 4-0. Kensington Palace released these three portraits, all of them by photographer Paolo Roversi, last night in advance of Kate’s birthday today. They will be installed in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery (of which Kate is patron), but before that, they will be part of a traveling exhibition called Coming Home. They will be exhibited in Berkshire, St. Andrews and Anglesey. Hm, why not Norfolk??
The portraits were taken at the Royal Botanic Gardens last November (when she disappeared for several weeks). Roversi, an Italian fashion photographer, came in from Paris to do these (why not a British photographer?). In the color photo, Kate wore a new, custom Alexander McQueen gown. In the daguerreotype-esque black-and-white side portrait, Kate wore diamond-and-pearl drop earrings which belonged to Princess Diana.
As always, Kensington Palace can’t stick with one narrative for Kate, and it’s especially notable for her 40th birthday. Literally all of the press around Kate – every British outlet ran huge editorials on and before her birthday – is that Kate is a normal person, she’s shy and withdrawn, she’s unglamorous on purpose, and most importantly, she’s not attention-seeking in the slightest. And yet she masterminded a wall-to-wall “I’m better than Meghan” PR campaign for her birthday, AND sought attention with three portraits taken by an Italian fashion photographer.
As for the quality of the photos… while the daguerreotype photo is crazy for a Millennial woman in the year of our lord Beyonce 2022, I find it the most striking in a “her ghost still haunts Houghton Hall” sort of way. The close-up is very 1980s mall-glamour shot, or better yet, it looks like a soap opera actress’s headshot in 1985. The color photo is also striking… striking because she’s weirdly unrecognizable. The airbrushing elves worked overtime on that.
PS… Please don’t threadjack, yes, I have seen all of the birthday keenery. We will have extensive coverage in the coming days.
Photos courtesy of Paolo Roversi for Kensington Palace.
Omg Glamour Shots! 🤣 That’s exactly what that middle pic looks like.
These images are a cross between Gone with the Wind, 80s glamour shots and some of the early days Instagram filter. Just what we expect from a woman whose best qualities are keeping her mouth shut and making everything all about herself and getting her minions to bash other royal women.
She is nearly unrecognizable. Good heavens.
I agree, she doesn’t look herself, and not a button in sight. I do like the side one because it looks sort of otherworldly/1800ish
The forehead is botoxed to death.. too smooth and her cheeks have been rounded out, possibly fillers, and little angularity. She reminds me of Lily James for some reason.
I did not recognize her in the red dress AT ALL, and I was looking at the pictures on KP’s Instagram. And it still took me a second to realize it was her.
I had no idea who it was in the red dress at first. I think it’s lack of heavy eyeliner. She looks better.
I think they’re good photos of her. Not great composition-wise, but good photos of her.
@spanky- Agreed, I was looking at the one in red close up trying to figure out why is doesn’t look like her and it’s definitely the lack of eye makeup, which is fine, but she’s never seen like that so why have an official portrait like that? Also, that’s not how she styles her hair ever so why are we doing all of these things at once that combine to make her unrecognizable in portraits that are supposed to be all about her?
seriously who dis woman
Yes, this is weird. Something is just…off. All these photos something is off about her.
IDK If it’s new work done. I can’t exactly place it. But she looks different.
Yes, as not only that but her hair looks awful as well!! I wonder if she got a look at her hair! It’s looks tangled and her wiglets are looking duller than usual too!!
None of these look like Keen!! She should ask for her money back. Oh wait, Charles should ask for his money back.
Meant to reply to this thread but mobile phone made it a new comment way way down below. She’s unrecognizable because they made structural changes to her face, more than just airbrushing her skin.
Eyes:
1. Moved eyes further apart
2. Reduced deep-set eyes with less prominent ridge of upper brow, smoothed out lower lid
3. Made eyes more symmetrical and less round by straightening lower lid
4. Made eyes smaller in first and third pics
Bone structure:
1. Straightened and elongated nose
2. Smoothed out cheekbones
3. Straightened square jawline
4. Reduced the size of chin
5. Flattened ridge between brows
6. Flattened forehead
7. Elongated and made neck thinner in third pic
Fat:
1. Reduced size of cheeks
2. Got rid of fat under chin
3. Removed fat along side of face (area spanning from cheekbone to ear)
Who is that?! My god… how insecure or narcissistic can you be to approve of an image that isn’t even you!
I’m imagining the New Orleans Saints fans trying to be fooled by someone who isn’t a member of the team. Who dat? I know that’s not what it means or stems from. But, Who dat are they trying to sell as Kate, Duchess of Middleton?
She could be Khloe Kardashian, lol.
Her hair is very RoseBushy inspired.
Wow, the portrait where she’s looking at the camera in the puffy white dress doesn’t look like her. At all. Not only do they make up feel good stories about her, they also make her look like a entirely different person.
I think in that one she looks the most like herself, in their engagement photo, where Bitter Bro is holding her close (last time we saw that!).
I like the close up shot the most. Something about it reminds me of how she looked in college, before she got super skinny. There was a softness to her face then that I found very beautiful.
DLC
Her college years she looked softer because she had younger skin and a bit of healthy weight to her. Since then her skin has taken a hit from sun, smoking and procedures. The blurry lens softens everything because she’s out of focus.
Yes they make her look like RoseBush
It’s the eyes for me – it looks like they photoshopped someone else’s eyes onto her face. It’s just very weird.
The sideways photo is lovely though.
Omg yes!!! It’s totally an 80’s glamour shot LOLLLL
That middle photo is 80′ s glamour yearbook photo. Most likely to marry a prince?
I was laughing so hard at these, thanks for that.
Who did this to her and why did she approve? Only from the profile pic looks like her. (sideways photo, thank you for teaching me English) I showed the pics to my mum and asked me “who is this”.
Kate approved because she thinks she looks good.
I think she looks like mutton dressed as 1980s lamb.
Well, apparently mutton is where it’s at now, @Tom.
@Tom: this reminds me of the Tina Fey joke from Inside Amy Schumer where she jokes that some famous while male middle-aged celebrity married an ACTUAL baby lamb. 😆 That show was genius.
Only the last one looks remotely like her.
You are so right! The middle pic is true garbage and should be thrown away. She’s so washed out there you can barely see her nose. Pic #1: I actually love the dress and the pose, but her face… The photographer should’ve let some shadow in at the top of her for head and along her nose, because her hair looks really thin here. Her forehead looks super high, it’s just not good proportions. Photo #3 is amazing, it’s so spectacularly better than the other two it doesn’t even deserve to be in the same area as the other two. #3 is the only one that should’ve been issued, it’s gorgeous, both the lighting and the styling. She should’ve asked Annie Leibovitz or someone truly talented in portraiture.
I’m sorry but I just don’t like them. Beyond my personal beef with Keen I just don’t think these photos are objectively good. The soft focus is weird, the color grading makes her look like a ghost and the photos overall just seem joyless/life less. In the words of the great drag queen Ra’Jah O’Hara: I’m not gagging.
She’s channeling Wuthering Heights whilst cosplaying the mistress of Houghton Hall.
Love your comment! Just as commented in the article, I couldn’t sit straight and not giggle if someone tried to photograph me like that, me
being a woman born in 1987 not 100 years earlier.
I like the Victorian ghost one; at least it makes sense and looks like her (or how she looks in her own mind). But the skinny red prom dress one is tragic, and unrecognizable.
This might be some of her own photographic influence at work. She supposedly wrote her masters thesis on Lewis Carroll’s photographs. It reminds me of photos from that time period. Well, more likely these are the photographer’s vision, although surely somebody else had a hand in all the photoshopping? Would you want your photography photoshopped to hell & gone? The gown’s are reminiscent of Diana’s–the red one reminds me of Diana’s big green satin ballgown & the off-shoulder one (third photo) reminds me of Diana’s off-shoulder one in which she was photographed falling asleep at a concert. Nothing seems originally, distinctly Kate. And my goodness, she has big teeth!
@beaniebean Masters? There is no masters.
I know what BeanieBean is talking about it, not her Master’s, her senior year thesis I think, but the phrasing may be different in the UK.
St Andrews doesn’t give out bachelors in that program and so it is called a masters but it was only four years of university.
Someone said “Not Daughters of the Confederacy” on Twitter and I howled. Serious Scarlett O’Hara cosplay going on here. Just TURRIBLE (in Charles Barkley’s voice)
Yes !yes !I thought Civil War era photo!
I don’t think that style is thought of as Civil War in the UK. They had their own Civil War in the 17th Century and I don’t think the AmerIcan Civil War is part of popular consciousness. Their point of view of that era will be more British Victorian. The one in the long dress is like a portrait by Winterhalter.
YES, I so agree…they’re like pictures someone crafted to make her seem ethereal, but instead they ended up looking vacant. She could have looked much better than this if she had any actual personality to shine through.
This is the thing: she has no personality, or at least none that we can detect in those bland photographs. By the age of 40 a person should have a personality. I’m sure she has one, we are not being shown it. Or maybe this is all there is to her: flummery.
I don’t understand why people think Kate has no personality. Of course she does, she’s shown us many times. She’s a mean girl of the first water whose only true interests are her own comfort, convenience and status. But that reality won’t play well with the brand the RF needs to project, so Kate adopts various personas (Diana, Meghan, etc.) because she thinks by emulating them that’ll be the key to what she wants to project – incredibly keen, oh so regal, working so very hard coming into her own. Problem is, all she can really copy are the clothes, hair and jewelry. At heart she just doesn’t care about anything significant outside of herself, so can’t connect with the qualities that make/made those people stand out. And that’s what shows. Hence, she just ends up seeming bland, her pictures lifeless.
Her personality is that of an insecure mean girl who attacks any woman she sees as competition. The press just doesn’t cover it.
Yeah you have to have a softer face to do ethereal. Her clothes and hair are all wrong together. The photoshop is too much. Like she looks like they mixed Jecca Craig and Rose together and then stirched in Kate’s smile. Like it is so bizarre. And the Victorian side profile looks like she’s stuck. It’s really not good.
Yikes. Not flattering at all. The first one is kinda okay, then we’re straight going to Victorian ghost town. How did anyone look at those photos and was like “yeah, looks great”.
I would ask for my money back.
Imagine if Meghan had posed with her hands in her pockets.
The Queen did once. Is that who she’s trying to be? Meghan wasn’t posing for an official portrait, she just put her hand in her pocket and was lambasted. So, yeah, there would have been much to say if it were M.
They are so bad. It looks like he was being paid to sabotage her! She is photoshopped within an inch of her life and she is literally posing like she is recreating a Home and Gardens magazine scene taken over by Tara in the “Gone With The Wind” anniversary special. It is so bad, objectively awful. It harkens back to Britain’s colonial days.
Meg also got crucified for wearing a one shoulder dress (the black Givenchy to the PRIVATE ceremony honoring her wedding dress designer, the time she was also lambasted for wearing the black nail polish, again, on her OWN *PRIVATE* time).
YET, here we have McMutton, wearing not one, not two, but THREE off the shoulder gowns. And not a peep. AND not a word about the cost of said bespoke gowns, that you *know* will NEVER see the light of day again.
Wonder how many of her Early Years kids the cost of these gowns could feed and house?
Her face looks very flat and washed out, especially in the red dress. In fact, I would say she resembles Rose more than she resembles herself. William must love these photos.
The giant sleeve on the red dress is wider than her waist which is terrifying
I don’t recognise the woman in any of these.
But sure, ‘glamour’ is bad and ‘Hollywood’ which the BRF are just too good for. Maybe that’s why she’s been photoshopped to oblivion, it’s prep for a future gaslighting campaign when the press start telling us this isn’t actually her.
I seriously thought someone had photoshopped Gal Godot’s face badly and pasted it onto someone else’s body in the first shot. Had it not been for the headline I would not have known who it was in the red dress shot.
I wonder how much the three different (designer??) gowns cost for this.
The red dress is awful. The gathers and puff sleeve. It’s like Xmas met Dynasty and mated with Little House on the Prairie.
This: It doesn’t look like her. I totally got Gal Godot too. And only the red one “feels” like her but only barely. It feels like so much cosplay. At 40, she still has no discernible identity that feels authentic to her. It’s like the she is just taking on and off costumes.
Thank you! I was trying to work out who I thought it was.
The first one she asked to look exactly like Lily Collins in ‘Emily in Paris,’ and the photographer did his best.
The second one she asked to look exactly like Jennifer Connelly in ‘Labyrinth.’
The photographer asked, ‘Exactly?’
‘Yes, EXACTLY.’
’‘But she was 14 when she made that.’
And Kate said, ‘So what?’
That’s when the photographer fired up his Photoshop Secret Ultimate Deluxe Version.
Yes, thank you, it’s totally bad Gal Gadot.
Why did her eyes triple in size between picture 1 and picture 2? Her eyes are tiny in the first one and her forehead looks really tall and then the eyes take up so much more space in photo 2 that her forehead is noticeably smaller. What is happening here?
Photoshop. Lots of it.
Why take photographs if you’re going to Photoshop the heck out of them? It would have taken less time to get someone to paint these.
These photos have driven home to me like nothing else how much Kate buys into her own PR. Like, we mock the “coming into her own rock of the monarchy peacemaker savior jewel of the tiara early years expert,” and roll our eyes at KP’s heavy handed puffery that seem like a front for who she really is behind the scenes, but I think she actually BELIEVES it.
She’s mean, malicious, insecure, deluded by her own grandeur, and has absolutely no self awareness. The echo chamber she lives in must be deafening.
Yes @Lara”, the heavy handed puffery is performative to “I didn’t make Meghan cry, I didn’t participate in a smear campaign against my biracial SIL. I’m the embodiment of the illusion of the BRF.
I wish that just once— when one of the RRs are on some tv segment or whatever and makes the obligatory “she’s finally coming into her own” comment — the host or another panelist or whoever would follow up with,” Yes, we often hear that said about Kate! What exactly do you mean by it?”
Because it’s such an inane, nonsense phrase and it’s doubtful that any of them would be able to come up with a coherent answer on the spot (or at all, for that matter).
I absolutely think she buys into her own PR – I mean, she’s the one driving the PR. You can tell by the way she smiles when arriving at a big red carpet event, like BAFTAs or the Bond premiere. She’s the cat who got the cream. I don’t think she’s dumb (lazy and intellectually incurious, yes), or at least she’s figured out how to play the PR game, because she has figured out that if she does a handful of small events over the course of a year, and a few big red carpet events where she is in a big formal gown and tiara, no one asks about what she does the other 360 days a year.
But I really think she thinks that showing the public pictures of her in a big formal dress are the equivalent of QEII serving in World War II and the public seems to buy it so……guess she’s not wrong 🤷♀️
So according to the telegraph the pictures are supposed to represent different royal era’s. The one with the side profile is supposed to be reminiscent of Queen Victoria and in my humble opinion this is the best picture in the series. To me, it looks proper regal.
The black & white one where she is looking at the camera is supposed to be reminiscent of Diana and her shoot with Mario Testino. Now, the pic isn’t bad, but it isn’t good either. Diana had something ethereal about her which is what Kate lacks. I didn’t even get the reference until i read so on the telegraph’s instagram page. She should really stop to try to emulate her mother in law.
I find it quite ironic that the picture that is supposed to represent her era (the future of the monarchy) is without argument the worst one. Any hairstyle that Kate has worn in the past would have been better than the one they used here. The angle at which the picture is taken is absolutely awful and makes her head look gigantic. The make up is bland, and i don’t know what camera/filter the photographer used but it makes her skin look grey.
It’s actually quite sad that even in her own milestone birthday portraits, they feel the need to reference other royals that came before to try and inject some kind of character into Kate’s pictures.
@Belli: I hadn’t thought about that but you’re so right. This could have been a chance for her to show herself as her own person similarly to what Diana did after the divorce. It is disappointing but I guess it says that Kate still doesn’t know who she is.
Her whole birthday pr has been about other women.
But weren’t we informed that, unlike Meghan, she isn’t trying to be Diana? She really cannot make up her mind.
When it’s Meghan it’s “trying to be like Diana”
When it’s Kate it’s “paying tribute to “
Hadley Freeman has the most perfect tweet for the Kate birthday coverage.
It said: All Kate Middleton coverage, forever:
“She’s, like, really real, just like a
normal person. But also completely
perfect, to a degree never before
witnessed by the human race”
This has been what her coverage has been about. They have no idea what narrative to use on her because no one knows who she is
( including herself)
Also, those photos are awful.
Diana had genuine warmth about her. Kate comes off as very cold and calculating. Especially since these photos came after a massive PR push for her.
Diana had the “it” factor. Something Kate does not and it shows. Its a nice picture but that is where it ends. I could stare at diana pictures of Diana, taken by Mario Testino, forever and not get bored of them.
Kate is as plain as they come and instead of trying to make her into this hollywood starlet, they should play into the plain jane that she is.
Yes her head looks gigantic. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but that’s it! And the red dress one—I just don’t like it. My first impression was it looks to big and why is it wrinkled…
So the red dress that represents her era is what, a chic” Handmaid’s Tale ensemble? I guess her hair in the wind are her angel wings?
The third one is reminiscent of Cecil Beaton’s portraiture in the 1920s-30s. Don’t know if that’s what they were going for, but I think it’s cool. It also looks like her, which is a plus!
I would never, ever connect the second one to to Mario Testino’s Diana photos. It’s in B&W, OK cool, but that’s it. Didn’t Testino take the Cams’ engagement photo? Even that straightforward photo is way better than this.
And the first one. So the future of the monarchy is … a different woman?
Number 3: “Our most racist and colonialist Era,” number 2: “our most hatefully misogynist era” and number 1: “combo of 2 and 3: Racist AND misogynistic all rolled into one silent, white woman!”
And make no mistake, they’ve done that on purpose. They’re leaning into the racism for a reason.
Yeah her hair is awful. And her hair is her thing!! WHY did they try and do something different here??
Looks like she’s got Rose’s hair. When has she ever had it that curly?
And when has it been this blonde?
Whoever did her hair did her dirty. It looks AWFUL. She’s got nice hair and I can see how you might want to do something different, but … not this. I guess the plus side is that at least she didn’t do her usual granny bouffant up-do?
These remind me of a friend who let a stylist talk her into doing her hair in a completely different (and not flattering, IMO) style for her wedding. When she looked at the wedding photos, my friend truly regretted the hairstyle because it wasn’t her style and she doesn’t look like herself.
I agree. All I can see is hair too flat for such voluminous clothes. Not the time for a change of hairstyle. Better suited for outdoor, country photo shoot.
Thanks for adding that helpful info, Chloe! And I agree with everything you said.
I saw the Queen Victoria reference immediately– I actually think how she is posed and dressed is ok here. I like portraits that aren’t straight on, and the dress is pretty. I don’t know if I would use that sort of photography? Or maybe if so, it would have been better to make the styling and pose more modern.
I actually didn’t get the Diana one AT ALL. Some of that (for me) is it looks so similar to the Victoria photo, but (as previously said) with 80s Glamour Shot flourishes. It’s funny that the original photos of Diana look MORE MODERN than what Kate is doing in 2022.
The red dress one is a hot mess. Her hair is terrible in all three, but worst in the red dress photo.
So in other words, copy kate past Queens and Iconic Princesses…fail.
The royals are working so, so hard to make her into someone of substance, someone decent. I suffer second-hand embarrassment from their naked efforts to prop her up so much. A woman that needs so much help in absolutely everything she does is not queen material – she couldn’t even make it as an ordinary person let alone someone who is supposed to a symbol to a country.
The only one that even really looks like her is the Cecil Beaton rip off with Big Blue front and center.
@TeamAwesome: Oops, posted my Cecil Beaton comment before I saw yours! Agreed on all points.
That’s because Big Blue is all important to Kate – it is symbolic on so many levels. THE trophy, if you will.
That’s the only one I recognize her in too.
That red dress really shows how skinny her waist is (which I do not consider to be a positive thing). I know some people are naturally that slim, but I really don’t think Kate is. I really feel for her on that front.
The picture with the red dress is just so terrible. Her head looks huge. The dress looks like its wearing her and her skin looks grey. She looks older than she is and at the same time like a young girl trying to play dress up.
KP usually has a firm hand in these type of things so these are actually the best pictures they.
This dress swamps her and exposing her bare shoulder is doing her no favours. I preferred the others mood photographs but they are not recognisable as her and yes the jewellery reminds me of Diana and that makes me sad because she never got to be 40! They remind me of the famous portraits of the Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron?
And let us not overlook the fact that she is wearing RED. Did we not call that she would try to pull off red at the soonest opportunity after Meghan rocked that red gown at the military gala?
@swirlmamad @chloe
Just to point out, the red dress isn’t even originally red. It’s been MADE red in NOVEMBER.
I’ not surprised. Many wifes and girlfriends of royals seem to have that struggle with their eating.
The red dress picture is kind of fun, but her face looks really strange in it. Like I’ve never seen her forehead and nose look so large before. Her waist looks tiiiiny, which may be why they picked this one, but it’s not a good picture of her face.
And her teeth! They look bigger? Or something? It doesn’t look like her smile at all.
Yes – this!
I, too, thought that she grows her teeth to be just like William’s. Ridiculous thougt, I know. But her teeth look huge.
I wondered if she had new veneers, but they didn’t look that big at the Christmas carol thing.
Like she was messing around with selfie angles!
The opposite of what is said about Kate in the press is the reality. Plus I thought black and white/sepia pictures were unroyal, I guess that was a lie too. I also noticed that the press didn’t go with the picture KP had released last night instead going for the colour photo that KP released this morning. That should tell you that these photos are not great. Kate needs a whole new team.
They’re really just intentionally trolling Meghan at this point to show that the white duchess can do anything and everything the black duchess got slammed for. Not only b&w/sepia toned but also a one shouldered dress AND hands in pockets?! And a glamour photo shoot with a foreign photographer?! KKKeen is a really nasty person and I hope karma comes for her. Soon and hard. She and The Other Brother deserve each other.
Aside from that, if the “royals from different eras” crap is true it just reinforces the fact that KKKeen is a stalker with no personality of her own. She can’t even be herself after 20 years of “coming into her own!” She’s pathetic and her advisors do her no favors.
Kate is not a nice person. She keeps getting called “classy” she is not classy and it is obvious how she really is behind her PR when she rolled her eyes at the mere mention of Meghan.
@royalwatcher- about the trolling, I said the same thing down thread before I read your comment. It really does seem like Kate and her team are purposely trolling Meghan to show that Kate can do it white while Meghan gets slammed for the same thing.
Kate has always shown that the rules are different for her. Remember when Meghan wore that one shoulder dress in black at the fashion awards and she was called vulgar because it was against protocol to wear a one shoulder dress? Kate wore the EXACT same style dress a few months later and was praised to the heavens for it. Kate knew this. She clearly does this on purpose. She is a horrible mean girl.
Glamorous shots by a fashion photographer with 3 different outfits would also be unroyal if done by someone else.
@equality: Oh, definitely.
Three different sides of Kate that the public don’t get to see is the blurb so how come there isn’t one of her hard at work?
I mean, we have all known here that the rules were different for Meghan, but somehow I still find it surprising and disturbing when KP is SO blatant about reminding us of that fact. These pictures really are saying “Kate can do what Meghan did and be praised where she was crucified.”
(But Meghan did it better, which is always the problem lol).
Yeah, that’s where I am too, Becks. So many flaunting of the things the RR has slammed Meghan for, in three photos. We get it, the English rose is above reproach. That’s fine, we’ll keep Madame Duchess, they can have KKKeen.
They look very dated to me. The one where She’s wearing a red dress at least has a bit of movement in it. The last one (where she’s looking into the distance) has the feel of a 1920’s German expressionist movie, and that’s not a compliment. I really wish they had gone for something more modern.
Well, since there is nothing modern about Kate, maybe these photos are meant to reflect that.
That doesn’t bode when for the supposed FFQ as it looks like she’d be more happy and useful as a Pre-Raphaelite catalog model.
Maybe that’s the point? Telegraphing the message that the monarchy remains unchanging and unchanged?
Unfortunately, the old guard monarchists will be dying out before Willnot ascends and the younger generations will not tolerate a monolithic and racist monarchy for long.
So, she took off all that time to get more injections for this, then spent a freaking fortune on stylists and custom designer gowns, not to mention the Italian fashion photographer/airbrush expert, and all this will be preserved for posterity in the portrait gallery. All to look like a 19th/20th century debutante. And unrecognizable. My god.
The dragging she’s getting on Twitter is awesome.
Where are they dragging her on Twitter? All I’ve seen are endless tweets about how she’s truly the Queen For The Ages.
Yeah, I’ve seen those, but the Sussex Squad and a bunch of blue checks are on it.
Could you please provide a link? Thanks so much.
Here’s just one: https://twitter.com/brokenbottleboy/status/1480156664607170568?s=21
Please feel free to search further.
Thank you, C-Shell!
I saw some dragging her for the money when children are going hungry in the UK.
I think she looks absolutely stunning. Now we know why she disappeared for a few weeks, presumably letting the face work settle…or if it’s due to different makeup as well, she should really keep going in that direction.
That said, our problem with Kate isn’t that she isn’t pretty enough or doesn’t clean up nice, but that she’s shallow, selfish, lazy, and vindictive.
Lol she doesn’t look like her at all. They photoshopped to hell and back that too very bad. The angle is not flattering and she is sick and pale.
She looks okay but shouldn’t the point of an official portrait be to actually capture the likeness of the person being photographed? Without a caption would people recognize her?
Royal portraiture has never been about accuracy! It’s all about projecting a certain image. Kate doesn’t look like herself, but the images will do well for posterity, if the Windsors survive.
@shawna: kate is an attractive woman which is why i’m so shocked these pictures came out so bad. Especially the red dress one. The pictures taken of her at prince Philips funeral look far better than these.
I have to agree with Chloe. Kate is attractive and these pics make her look no bueno. The first two look nothing like her and are heavily “touched” and the last – looks like a cover for a Harlequin romance novel. Or a Jane Austen cover. I went back to look one more time before I submit my comment and yeah, these are just BAD.
I never saw her as stunning, but she looked better when she was not so thin, back in her University years.
She was pretty, but never the beauty the media hypes her up as. And there is so much photoshop here that it’s not even her in these photos anyway. Anyone posting here could look like this with the level of photoshop used.
Kate’s “beauty” has definitely been overblown by the media. I know a bunch of women that look like her. Anyone can be a great beauty if they have a team of makeup artists, hair stylist and a stylist working on them 24/7.
I agree Kate is an attractive woman esp before the marriage – she was toned and I always liked her hair darker.
Now, it’s painfully obvious that she is not happy – what life she had in her eyes is now long gone and it’s not all down to Royal duties. THIS is the price she has paid to get where she wanted to be.
At some point in your life, your face reflects the soul.
She is very pretty and always has been. I don’t know how she maintains that slim look. She is not naturally thin. I like the black and white photos the most.
How would you know if she is naturally thin or not? And, if she’s not, that must mean she takes extreme measures to stay so, especially after childbirth.
Yeah, I’ve been trying to figure out what’s not quite right about these portraits. The misty black and white looks like she’s waiting for Heathcliff, but at least she resembles herself. I think the one in the red dress is pretty, but that doesn’t look like her face – the shape seems different, her nose, mouth, jaw. And the same with the prom photo close-up. I can’t quite put my finger on it – maybe that photographer taught her how to smile without grinning? Whatever, none of the portraits look authentic to who she is and has been as a person. There’s no personality, just a random person playing dress-up.
It’s like the photographer went back to his studio, didn’t like how Kate’s real face photographed, and reshaped it into his idea of some local girl he saw once vacationing on the Riviera.
Maybe. The close-up one looks so generic that it could be one of those photos that comes with a store-bought picture frame.
@Eutydice, Kate is a pretty woman, but as others have pointed out before, looks-wise she’s no different than many of the other women in the milieu in which she grew up. Her looks are generic to start with, hence you’re right – perfect for the kind of attractive yet bland image used in photo frame ads.
Yes, I feel the same way about those portraits although the dresses are beautiful the whole look is forced, faked. posed & stiff to the point makes me feel uncomfortable there’s no warmth or honesty about this subject lol the side profile gives me the vibes of queen victoria mourning looks
LOL. I thought of Victoria in mourning too. You are also right about the complete lack of any warmth in these photos. As for honesty from her, what a laugh.
These don’t even look like Kate, not even a younger version. They have managed to airbrush away anything slightly interesting about her face. And once again Kate manages to make a new expensive dress look cheap and dated (not in a cool, vintage way).
It’s her forhead. Like the hair and the lighting and the angle they were shot highlights her forehead really weird. And she barely has any colour on her face so with that filter she’s giving Victorian lady ghost
They have a green tint to them which really doesn’t help.
I really like the hair and dress in the 3rd photo. BUT, these look nothing like her. Is this supposed to be like the Obama presidential portraits which were painted in the style of the artists they picked? What I mean is, are these photos are meant to be as much about the photographer and his art, as they are about the subject? If so, then these photos make sense.
There was something really incongruous about these pictures. I first only saw the red one and it felt incongruous in that there’s been so many articles about her being the anti-Meghan, definitely not all about the glam life. But the red one is definitely going for glam so it makes what was written nonsense.
And then, I saw all 3 together and it was even more jarring because there just wasn’t any flow in the story. They go weird together.
Since then, I read they were going for that, to evoke different eras, I guess? It just doesn’t work when you initially look at the pics together. I need that written subtitle for that to make sense, which isn’t great if photos are supposed to tell a story. Shouldn’t they tell that without me having to read the caption? But maybe that’s not this style of portraiture? I really don’t know enough about portraiture to say.
I did look up other photos by this photographer and they do seem to fit in with his aesthetic. Idk it just seems the aesthetic of the photographer and the subject didn’t mesh well.
The hair in the 3rd picture absolutely screams Rose Hanbury!
Happy birthday to Kate. I had predicted she would do a magazine profile with glam pics for her birthday. Wasn’t that far off as she’s done a fashion shoot. I think I know what they were going for especially in that side profile shot but it looks SUPER old fashioned & I don’t think these pics are great. but her wavy hair looks nice
Yes, that side pic reminds me of a Jane Austen book for some reason. Very old fashioned – which was done in a negative and could have been done in a positive way. As far as her hair, it just looks out of place with the dress and the poses of last pics. And as @Jay stated below, why use the background he did.
Yeah, those black and white ones are very civil war widow, not the vibe I would choose for my 40th. The red dress is nice, but that angle makes her look like a bobblehead. And I see that a one-shouldered neckline and putting your hands in your pockets is now okay for duchesses! Good to know.
My big questions: why pay for a professional to take your photo at the botanical gardens, and then use a beige background?
Exactly. These would look more alive if they actually used the gardens instead of a beige background. She blends in! What a strange choice
@Jay:Yeah if she wasn’t going to use the scenery at Kew Gardens as the backdrop she could just done them at KP. In fact I if she had just done the shots in a normal outfit at one her rooms at KP, the photos would have come out better.
Someone mentioned daughter of the confederacy and it was hilarious and on point. Besides is evoking an era of imperialism and slavery really what the monarchy wants to do right now? It shows once again that kate is pretty dumb when it comes to history. Even if this is supposed to echo Victoria, it’s dumb because Victoria let Ireland starve and colonialism was at its high, including all the racism.
@Nic, I think this every time the royals harken back to the glory days of colonialism, when the sun never set on their empire, you could just declare yourself empress of a country you had never visited, and all those nasty peasants and savages could be put in their proper place.
It’s a bit of a tell when your “peak” era is the source of so many other people’s pain. There’s a definite connection to the confederacy there, too.
Jay 💯 I look at those photos and hear songs from my childhood “wish I was in the land of cotton…” this is not the vibe a modern FFQ should be going for, especially when she is totally not competing with her SIL whose red dress pictures obviously shook her to the core 👀. Seriously though, these pics are haunting in a bad way and they look like they erased her so much in photoshop there isn’t any her left
I don’t dislike any of these and I actually really like the red dress (the dress, not the photo) – but her face doesn’t look like her. None of these photos look like HER.
Hilary Mantel is proven more and more right every single day. The royals, including Kate herself, see her role as being a “jointed doll on which certain rags are hung”.
Personality and soul can shine through on a photograph. I wouldn’t be surprised if KP were hoping these would be compared to Mario Testino’s portraits of Diana, but the stark difference is that Diana’s are full of life. I’m getting nothing behind Kate’s eyes.
Someone reposted the Testino photos last night and they are 25 years old, but also more modern and compelling than this photoshop mess. Kate is bad a photos because there is nothing there to give the camera. She’s had enough photos taken that she’s just not going to get any better than this. And no one will be looking at these photos in 5 years from now because they are manufactured and no different than kardashian postings on IG.
I remember when the Testino photos came out. They really said this is a new Diana–sleek and sophisticated but with the same laugh in her eyes and that half-smile that made you feel she was thinking something saucy. Whereas in these pics, Kate has covered herself in ruffles and bows and curls and is refusing to move on from copying the early years of Diana. That’s probably how CarolE best remembers Di and that’s why she nudges Kate in that direction still.
I remember the Testino photos too and agree — what shone through was Diana’s sense of herself, her hard won freedom (including unfussy, shorter hair), a mature kind of joy and playfulness. Kate would have to be a much better actress to capture that. Or a deeper more authentic person to come through as her own self at this age, even if that’s truly a mean girl…that actually would have been more interesting I think. These are just trying to make her look young and pretty…nothing wrong with that but so generic…
@Harper The fact that she’s still copying other women at her big age is one thing. But it’s also interesting how she always chooses to copy the young, voiceless, eager to please, and fearful Diana of the early 80s rather than the grown ass empowered Diana of the late 90s, even though late 90s Diana is much closer to her age.
The last shot says to me, photographer copying an Annie Liebovitz theme spread in Vogue (something we know Kate’s familiar with). Middle one says, Duchess at home on her country estate. First one says, Meghan wore red at the Intrepid, so I will too. I don’t mind that one, except the skin and background color seem off, and if the photographer was going to do so much retouching, he should have softened the dark mark on her left collarbone, a sign of how thin she is, and which draws the eye, when it shouldn’t. Fashion shoot isn’t the look I personally would go for in her position – but it does express who she is, a person who believes the job is all about dressing up.
Pictures are dynamic not just because of what the sitter projects, but also because of what thoughts the viewer brings. Testino’s Diana pictures stand the test of time, for me at least, because of the warmth I feel with what I know of her as a mother, an advocate, a caring person, which impacts what I see in them. Other people without those feelings might just see them as basically a fashion shoot. Even so, however, Diana – younger in those pictures than Kate is now, and no longer a working royal – still projects an air of maturity and competence. Kate, currently a working royal, just looks like a party girl.
Kate is a lovely woman(looks-wise not in terms of personality where her vapid, incurious, racist, mean girl persona has little to recommend her) but I am struck by the fact that we don’t get any sense of who she is at all in these pictures. The are so bland and they offer little sense of the woman. I do wonder if Kate between her mother, her choices, and building her life around The Other Brother has any sense of self that could be captured through a photo.
I LOVE the third photo of her in side profile – it is hauntingly beautiful. But omg I don’t think I would have realized this was Kate if I saw these photos out of context.
I first saw them on Twitter- and truthfully, I thought “pretty girl- who is it?”
I think it’s laughable the narrative of Kate being ‘a normal person, she’s shy and withdrawn, she’s unglamorous on purpose, and most importantly, she’s not attention-seeking in the slightest’ – considering how long and hard she chased that ring. She knew the life she was getting into, so that description of her just cannot be taken seriously.
I have not stopped laughing at these photos since they were released 😂😂😂😂😂
Twitter went in though, couldn’t happen to a more deserving woman.
Fail on Sunday have produced their own supplement of photographs and what is sad is the genuine affection and rapport between her and Will captured in the past and the only one from 2021 has him looking dubiously at her. Where has the love gone?
It went gardening.
LMAO, Lady D!
These do look like her. And her is boring bland and try hard. These are just sad like lazy Kate herself. So embarrassing
I really dislike these photos – these are the kind of dated glamour shots that you did in late 80s/early 90s for the mantlepiece that you later cringe at. Also the styling looks like someone took one of them from Ancestry.com.
This is also another Diana cosplay stunt – Diana looked fab, Kate just looks blah. Kate had more personality showing in the Testino engagement shots.
Kate has looked better – she has been photoshopped beyond all recognition. I had to look more than twice at them.
The only positives I have is that her hair is the best I’ve seen it in a looong time and she suits the minimalistic makeup.
Good point on the hair – she’s not sporting a full mane of shiny ringlets! No dolls had to be shorn for these portraits. Small mercies.
Copy Kate struck again, because this type of hairstyle full of deceptively rebellious shiny curls is a favorite Rose Hanbury hairstyle look.
She looks for sick and pale and she clearly have eating disorder. Is she this thin?? Which is worrying.
1. The first photo red dress is bad but I bet it cost 1000 pounds of tax payers. She is trying to get attention like meghan red dress. Now i understand what they mean by finding her voices because if there no head how she find her voice. Her head and body doesnt match. No professional photographer want to attach their name to tragic.
2. In second she looks like rose . Which is funny because all these photo she cosplay as someone else not her authentic self .
She looks like plantation wife ( which is very accurate for her hatred towards poc)
3. She is cosplaying diana as usual and that dress looks like she worn to earth shots with additional bows but this would be new dress. She is cosplaying Victorian era.
She is truly aryan queen and she doesnt hide it.
Yes, in the third I can see Victorian era. I get Sisi of Austria comparisons. I was also thinking Queen Alexandra when she was Princess of Wales: another beautiful woman whose husband had a wandering bald spot.
Sisi! That’s exactly it. If a viewer didn’t know any better, they would think that side profile was taken ~100 years ago.
It’s the racism for me. The difference in reaction to these photos from white women and WOC is interesting, that’s all I’ll say. Kate an her team knew exactly what they were doing by looking backwards to the past with these photos. Oh, and peep the color scheme. We know how she looooves to reference flags when she dresses. It’s St. George’s flag.
The daguerreotype one is clearly homaging Elizabeth of Austria, who was famously miserable and anorexic. Interesting choice.
Kate’s hair looks rather tangled as it blows in the breeze.
Yes. Elizabeth of Austria. I was trying to think what this photo reminded me of. That’s it!
How fitting indeed. Besides the obvious ongoing issue, you can’t exactly see much genuine joy or contentment in these shots imo. The eyes look rather empty.
Kate also looks very stiff and uncomfortable in the seated posture, compared to the elegance of Sisi’s portraiture.
The first two look like 80’s prom glamour shots. The third is actually nice. I thought Kate was going to have a low profile birthday. It’s funny that Kate is being praised for these photos but Meghan was attacked for promoting mentoring on her birthday.
Eh, I think the photos are fine.
Not “we flew in a professional photographer from Paris” but…..fine.
Kate so rarely gets it right, she’s an attractive woman but she just doesn’t seem to have a sense of style or spark.
Amateur photographer here.
I’ll start saying something nice: I like ther red dress! It has pockets.
For someone who “promotes” mental health she sure loves some photoshop.
The first photo.
She doesn’t look like herself.
Too much light, too white.
The bn I like the profile one, mostly because to me it represents what she is: something that belongs to another era, and probably because it’s not a close up shoot and they didn’t airbrushed her features too much.
The close up.
It seems a photo taken with a phone, and modified with some filter.
Hopefully not threadjacking but where are the complaints about the cost? Three different dresses and flying in a fashion photographer from another country (and not even commonwealth) adds up. Where is the environmental concern?
I’m so confused by this. A week of stories about not seeking attention and then these photos. By a fashion photographer who regularly photographs Hollywood actors/models/celebs.
The color and even fabric of the red dress just immediately evokes Meghan’s gown in ny. Why set yourself up for comparison? Kate is lovely looking, but Meghan is just blessed in that department so why purposely evoke her in these photos, or at least the red one? I don’t mind the daguerreotype one because it feels like a royal throwback portrait.
I honestly wonder if Kate is trolling Meghan sometimes. As in, yeah that’s right, you Meghan, are going to be slammed for being a glam Hollywood attention-whore and look I’m going to do the exact same thing just because I can. That is probably me over-reading this but it’s just so confusing to come out with this after a week of articles literally proclaiming her to not want attention. I’d have more respect if she just owned it.
Kate does not think of how she can improve herself or start working on her work numbers. I really do think she has a lot of time on her hands and calculates how she can get attention and put down Meghan even though Meghan is in another country. I think Kate has always been competitive with other women and has no real friends. She missed an opportunity when she turned against Meghan.
There was a mood board used here.
@jais, if I were a royal reporter who’s had to spin stories for weeks about how low key, unglamorous, and unassuming Kate is, I’d be pretty miffed. It’s the piano recital all over again, isn’t it?
@jay- you’re right, it is pretty funny, but some of those reporters have to be feeling miffed and strait up annnoyed that they wrote so much about Kate not wanting attention and then this. The images of Kate and what’s written about Kate just don’t often match up.
@tessa and nic919- yeah she has time on her hands for all the mood boards. It was a missed opportunity bc Meghan really could’ve given Kate ideas directly.
Someone mentioned on here the other day that reporters knew Kate was up to something for her 40th, and they were less than pleased with her plans. If they had to write their sycophantic ‘she’s so lowkey’ crap knowing she flew in a photographer for the event, they probably are pissed at her. Truthfully, they will be pissed at her over and over again, and still they will write their lies.
I got the photoshop part right in my prediction but not Chris Jackson. But really she should have used a home grown UK photographer for her birthday celebration of doing nothing at British taxpayers expense.
100% Kate does this. She deliberately dresses like the women she’s insecure about and has since the girlfriend years. It’s her Karen flex to point out that her white skin protects her while Meghan gets attacked. Her one shoulder and off -the-shoulder looks are not a coincidence.
Also remember when Kate wore off-white to Meghan’s wedding instead of light yellow? When Meghan was now post-partum, that’s when Kate wore a light yellow outfit for Trooping the Color. That’s when Kate was photographed meanly smirking at Meghan in the carriage ride.
Kalana, do you think she consciously does this? Or does she get fixated on a person and then copies without realizing? I really go back and forth. Mostly, I think she’s purposely trolling and copying but then I think that’s just so freaking embarrassing and why would she do that so publicly?
She had a history of copying Jecca’s looks in the dating years so nothing is new, she just has a different target. And of course copying Diana is a constant, especially once married.
Jais, I think it’s definitely on purpose. Kate’s whole adulthood has been about chasing after William and having either her mother or her husband make her decisions for her. She’s not going to have mature emotional responses. Look at how she behaved at the Commonwealth Service. Even William knew better.
Yes. I though the rr reported that there probably wouldn’t be any photos released and that she wasn’t going to do anything “fussy like Meghan did” for her birthday.
Lol right. ‘Fussy Meghan’ did a video call looking gorgeous wanting to help people. Naturally. The BM tries hard at their revisionist history. Meghan’s 40th wasn’t fussy, it was festive and fulfilling to those that needed, wanted and appreciated hope.
Weird vanity project – all week tabloids have been selling Kate as modern woman, wanting low key celebration and then these 3 odd photos are presented. Though I’m not a photographer I don’t see them as captivating or classic – v. pedestrian, heavily photoshopped and lighting too ‘glamour shot’, so v. basic. Wonder if NPG will quietly archive them post tour? Would be interested in hearing anyone who has professional opinion.
This whole birthday celebration has been shady🤷🏻♀️.
She’s very pretty. I think it would be difficult choosing photos that will be a part of the history of the monarchy. I would not want to be Kate for many reasons.
She could have posed in a simple suit and not have had photoshopping. I don’t feel sorry for Kate, since the way she treated Meghan.
So shy and humble… hates the spotlight… and yet we have not one but THREE portraits with new expensive gowns and jewelry and hair in the wind… I mean… it makes me so mad all this praise when I know that if Meghan did the same she would be ripped apart.
Despite all of the photoshop, expensive dresses and jewelry and a fashion photographer, Kate still managed to look outdated and boring. A mix between 80’s glamour shots and Victorian photos… really weird mix.
P.s: sorry for threadjacking! Sometimes I just have to let it all out…
Not her biggest fan but I think she looks beautiful and definitely recognizable
Whereas I think she looks awful and completely unlike the real Kate, but that’s apparently the purpose of these photos. To cosplay other women.
Her actual portrait showed her as she is. Maybe she went completely bonkers with photoshop because her actual self esteem isn’t as flattering as her animated, photoshopped self?
The only one I like is the middle one (black and white with straight on view) but it has been retouched to the max. The one in the long flowy dress is kind of creepy (gives me a ghost-like vibe as if she’s been floating around someone’s haunted attic) and the one in the red is ghastly. Since when does she have that high a forehead? And I don’t happen to find her bony shoulder attractive. This is the best they could come up with? I also read one head line (DM?) that says these photos outshine any Hollywood star, or something to that effect. Gee, wonder whom they were referring to? Again, can’t they write anything about Kate without somehow bringing Meghan into it? Bizarre.
Very photoshopped and the hair looks so bad.
She’s photoshopped to the point of being unrecognizable -esp the red dress.
The Victoria one would have been stunning if she’d done her hair up.
I quite like them. Kate usually looks so nervous or forced in photos, but she looks lovely here. I’m not going to fault her for these particular pictures. They are quite flattering.
Can you imagine what the reaction from the DM or the RR if the Other Duchess had pulled this stunt for her 40th?
I actually can’t, considering how thoroughly they lost their shit at Meghan choosing her 40th to ask for service to others. She could not have chosen a more charitable way to mark the day, and get others to volunteer as well, and they still aren’t over it on Salty Isle. It’s stunning.
The black and white photos are eerily familiar: https://www.instagram.com/p/BD5ZYsJgBcA/?utm_medium=copy_link
Copy Kate strikes again!
Very interesting! Also note how much wavier Rose’s hair is… just like Kate’s in the pics. She always seems to take on the characteristics of whomever The Wandering Sceptor’s interested in at the time….
Hmmm….wonder if Bitter Brother has gone back this past fall/winter to prepare the soil for spring planting?
And that photo of Rose is 1000x better.
Rose is beautiful.
Holy Cow Etty you are correct…she is KopyKeening 2 women at once!
Surprisingly, not a single button to be seen!
To me, what makes a great photo, is the look in the subject’s eyes. I’m by no means an expert and this may be my only meandering weirdness, but I think I can see love or happiness or sadness or fear in people’s eyes. I don’t see love in her eyes. The closest one is the up close mall glamor shots one. Maybe the photographer asked her about her kids. But mainly, in all the photos, I see just a lot of sadness. A lot of unhappiness. I know she’s mean, but you can’t be both mean to others AND happy with your life choices. I hope she gets help.
She should have been helpful to Meghan. She could have denied the crying stories and she and William should have called off Jason Knauf in the campaign to “Get something” on Meghan. I don’t feel sorry for her. She probably does not think she needs help.
If she’s really that unhappy then she can leave. She is not chained to this family and her mother in law a generation ago created the precedent. Kate chooses to remain in this situation because she wants the perks and likes the rank. If her eyes are dead and she doesn’t 100% love the situation that’s on her. She’s now 40 and not a trapped woman. She wants this.
Nic919- much as Kate sucks, let’s please never say “if she doesn’t like it, she can leave” about any woman or person in an unhappy relationship. It’s not always that simple, especially when you have 3 kids.
I don’t think Kate wants to leave anyway, but if she did, it would be more complicated than just going. There’s lots for her to consider if she wanted to really leave Will. The kids for example: do you think Will would just let her take them? And what would he blame her for in the press? She knows she she’d be crucified for leaving, so just walking away wouldn’t be easy, and I would understand her having difficulty doing it.
Anyways, just a thought. It’s all a moot point because Kate doesn’t want to get rid of Will. She’s a limpet who will cling for as long as she can. And she’s not unhappy in her marriage. Or, to be more accurate, any unhappiness she feels is due to fearing William will leave her. Her pain, if any, is feeling her marriage crumble. Her stress is she knows she’s not up to the duties of marriage (her role), and her husband knows it and she’s desperate to try and convince him otherwise.
Agreed, Nic919. She’s not trapped, she has chosen this for 20 years. She is not a victim, she is not a pawn. She’s a 40 year old woman who chose a marriage of convenience in exchange for a lazy, wealthy life.
Let’s stop pretending kate is in a domestic abuse situation with no options to leave. She’s not and she is fine with what is going on. She can’t 100% hide that she not happy with William being a distant husband, but she is choosing to stay here and has many resources to leave. She is not trapped and it is offensive to compare her to women who truly don’t have a choice. She absolutely does and this is what she wants.
Nic919- if that comment is directed to me, please note I never said Kate was a domestic abuse victim with no options. I never compared her to other victims. And I specifically said she wants to stay cause she likes it and it only worried William might take that life she chose away from her by leaving.
I simply pointed out a fact: if Kate decided to leave, it would be complicated. She could not just up and go. No woman, abused or not, privileged or not, can just up and leave a 10 year marriage with 3 kids, even if there’s nothing preventing them. Kate might have no real obstacles to her leaving, but that doesn’t mean she can just pick up and go. It would be a complex untanglement even for KKKate. Her vanity alone would make it a difficult situation. You don’t have to be trapped in a relationship to not be able to just pick up and go. Sometimes, it’s just complex and not easy to go even when you’re free.
Pointing this out isn’t sticking up for or excusing Kate. Nor is it a reason to sympathize or feel sorry her. It’s just reality.
And a moot point: Kate does want this and is in it to the bitter end.
Kate is free to up and go at any time. William won’t stop her as he doesn’t want her around. She isn’t going to disappear. Even Princess Haya didn’t disappear, and it was far more likely Mo and his goons would have tried something.
Nota- sure, nobody’s gonna make Kate disappear. Nobody is saying that here (at least, I’m not). But free to go physically doesn’t mean you can, will, or should just up and go.
You’re spot on Will wouldn’t give a damn if she left. And why is that? Because he knows that’s the best, easiest way for him to look golden in a divorce– to have her leave. In fact, I sometimes feel like his inability to interact properly with her in public is baiting her to do just that. If she leaves, he’ll massacre her in the press. And that actually makes it more complicated for Kate to leave. If you know you’re gonna be hated on a global scale for leaving, that’s not a pick up and go situation. That’s a think carefully before you act situation. Kate’s vanity would see to that.
But I’m not gonna say anymore on whether Kate can up and go. Kate ain’t going. I’ve said that all along. No more on if she’s scared to leave. She’s scared of being left.
Kate would not be hated on a global stage for leaving; no one cares if she stays or goes. If she and her family left quietly, they wouldn’t be torn apart on the global stage. If they kept up their famewhoring ways, they’d be rightfully torn apart in the tabloids. The choice is Kates, and she choose to stay because she wants the Prince, the lifestyle, the silly portrait sessions, the attention.
She has the ability to leave at any time. She is a 40 year old woman who made a deal to be in a loveless marriage of convenience in exchange for status. She is not a child, she is not a victim, she is not a pawn.
Ah, but Nic919, some people are determined to turn Kate into a victim, to ignore her fingerprints all over some of the false stories about Meghan, and to overlook the way she gleefully benefits from the press attacks against Meghan. #WhiteTears.
She’s a racist. I don’t care if she’s happy or not.
I believe in treating people the way you want to be treated. Kate has spent the past five years showing us exactly how she wants to be treated. Seek and ye shall find.
Exactly this. I could care less what happens to her with this sham marriage. She’ll reap what she has sewn.
Her nose looks more prominent in all of these photos… almost as if the photographer decided to accentuate it. Her hairline also looks manipulated, thus giving her face a different shape. I like her hair, but it is so odd to take a portrait for posterity and have it look nothing like the real life subject. That scary black and white one looks as if she’s floating off into the ether only to come back and haunt the halls of Anmer, wailing and banging the cabinet doors in the middle of the night and then appearing at the foot of the bed as an apparition. But I truly dislike the Victorian aesthetic so I can’t relate to wanting to be preserved in that way.
HEr hair looks tangled it would have been better if it had been straight. and The Windblown look does not suit her.
Her nose looks prominent because that’s how much the rest of her face has shrunk with the extreme weight loss. Fillers, botox and photo shop only covers so much.
I think it looks bigger because the rest of her face is lighted so much all her features seem flattened out. Her nose is really tiny; I’m surprised they made it look like a potato, and she still chose this pic!
Those photos are so bad. She is obviously a beautiful woman but the photos are just so terrible. That red dress is to die for yet the lighting and airbrushing make her look like a totally different person! Imagine paying all that money for these terrible photos. Was someone TRYING to make her look bad?
The first thing I thought about the black and white ball gown picture was: wow , now she is cosplaying emperess Sisi of Austria just without the juwel encrusted starshaped brooches in her hair.
The level of narcissism one must have to not only go for three portraits on your 40th but then to put these photos on tour? None of these photos are unique works of art that can only be seen in person. Any talk of being normal is blown away with an ego trip like this for a birthday. But as with everything else, kate likes to get praise for simply existing.
She and William are well-matched in that respect. The level of their narcissism knows no bounds.
Right?? She’s married to the second in line, and yet we are getting three official portraits that will be displayed in the NPG like she’s the next monarch.
At least now we know where she was when she disappeared this fall 🤷♀️
I think William will have portraits on his 40th with all going on tour.
That will be the most time they spend together.
What I think would have been better would have been one portrait of Kate, a few of William released in June, and then a portrait of the two of them together, also released in June.
william is the future monarch and whatever portraits are released of him in June will even then be overshadowed by these.
What’s the carbon footprint of all this nonsense?
I had to look twice because that does not look like Keeny. In the first one she is unrecognizable, in the second she is wearing 80’s fashion with tacky ruffles and in the last one, she is giving us 1890’s realness. She is really the modern woman that the RF was asking for. Great work Kate!
“Mall-glamour shot” indeed. For all the money that was no doubt spent on this photo shoot, it looks incredibly low budget. Is this seriously the best they could do? I’m so confused by the choices that were made.
I didn’t even recognise her in the red dress photo. She looks like someone else. I genuinely like the side profile one and while I’m not a fan of the close-up one, at least it looks more like her than the red dress one. I get that these photos are going in a gallery so they had to be artistic but I just don’t think it looks quite right. They’re not the worst photos ever taken (they’re average to me) but they have missed the mark. Not a professional photographer, just an observer.
And honestly I would have put her in the full regalia. Bring out the bling and tiaras and really hammer in the queen mother comparisons. But I guess it doesn’t go with the whole “Kate is just a simple country girl” image they’ve got going for her. Or just do a casual photoshoot at Anmer with her dogs or something and link it with that country girl image I mentioned above.
Good point. A single really well-executed full regalia but still somehow modern photo would have worked well, and her fans could get a tiara shot, which they love and Kate wears well. Her team just can’t focus and execute, and she can’t or won’t lead them better.
I think Charles would have a nuclear melt down if McMutton had these portraits in full “I AM THE (NEXT TO THE NEXT) QUEEN!” mode with tiara and big jewels. It would be a SERIOUS hip bump/push out to Cam, and he would *not* allow this, esp. when he’s embiggening her with her Garter Award.
The problem is that Kate only has meagre regalia at this point. The family order for not being Meghan and the order for staying with William as he openly cheats on you are the only two things she’s got ten years in.
I think they could have gone in the vault and given Kate a grand tiara and a killer necklace. Of course some can say “maybe HM didn’t allow that” but she still could have worn the Lovers Knot tiara at least. IMO it’s the best of the tiaras she wears.
She also has the Tuvalu Order of Merit. LOL
The queen has lent more tiaras to Camilla than kate and she’s done that for a reason. She is generally stingy with the use of tiaras and she will keep the future Queen consort above the lower ranking future future.The queen still doesn’t like kate much but she gave a few orders when William’s cheating became more public. She’s going to let charles and Camilla handle the tiara situation when he is king.
All that money and they still can’t find someone to blend those extensions…
Whatever. Its the gold dress all over again, look at me me me . So much for the humble, shy, dutiful persona. Next!
She actually looked good in the gold dress and quite glamorous. This is trying to be glamorous, yet down to earth yet regal and traditional yet modern. She had no idea where she wanted these pictures to go and it shows.
IMO she looked ridiculous in it. As usual, the dress wore her not the other way around. She lacks the charisma to carry off the style.
She looked like she was wearing Cher’s leftovers in that gold dress imo.
How much were those gowns? I’m betting an excessive amount for some vanity shots.
I doubt Kate or anyone else paid for any of those dresses. I would bet the dresses were on loan for the fashion shoot.
Why on earth choose a Botanical Garden as a location and use a plain grey dropcloth as background?????
Such a good point!!
I didn’t realize the photos were taken at the botanical gardens. I wonder if they made the background plain after they realized that so much photoshopping had to be done that any plants in the background would have looked too distorted.
Excellent point…
Oh Nic919 that’s definitely what happened. She’s meant to have a background of flowers in each portrait, but in photoshopping Kate, they took it out.
These pics would be so much better if she was amongst flowers.
The color photo looks like it was originally b&w and then colorized.
I didn’t realize the mall was doing glamor shots again.
WHY is she always slouching??? Also big blue is very distracting in that photo, it’s the only thing I see.
I had to triple take these when they popped up last night because I had no idea who this was. They just don’t look like her. Paolo does beautiful work and he’s collaborated with McQueen several times before, but these photos are look like an intern shot them.
It is very odd. The red dress one almost looks like they have photoshopped-literally just cut and pasted a head from another photo at a totally different angle? It makes no sense and doesn’t look like her at all
I wish the background included the botanical gardens. I get that they are “portraits” but they would have had so much more life if taken in the gardens.
I actually like the photos and their retro feel.
But who is the woman and why do they release photos of her for Kates birthday?
Best comment in my books 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂. Comrade! I holler across continents 😂 ( Perth, W Australia).
This is gold, I bow to you and your comment. Lolol
Photos are going to Wales, Scotland and England. Got to keep the Kingdom together you know. Poor Northern Ireland.
I’m not British so if an American politician released these photos it would not be good ( red dress- wealthy glamour, white dress- weird ghost, face- glamour again) but the whole concept of royalty escapes me, do the Brits want this wealthy glamour coupled with minimal philanthropy? Especially paying for royalty to be better then them?
All three of these photos are just unpleasant
Anyone else think she’s channeling the portrait that Rebecca and then the second wife copied? Is Daphne Du Maurier rolling in her grave?
“As God is my witness I shall never be hungry again “ that’s all I’ve got. Where is her sense of Joy and celebration? What legacy is she leaving for Charlotte? I can just see the meeting they had to brain storm for her birthday, and someone piped up saying you know in all the magazines there is a coupon to do glamour shots, and she thought”yeah brilliant idea”.
I do kind of see the Daughters Of The Confederacy vibe in two of the portraits, but she’s no Scarlet O’Hara. Scarlet was a belle and a diva but she was (a) a badass and (b) truly beautiful. Kate is neither, IMO. She could be beautiful if she had more life to her, which Scarlet had in spades.
I like the spooky vibe but I don’t think that was the idea behind these portraits. They don’t give me birthday at all. In the coloured one she looks like an actress…I do like the red dress!
On the other hand, my mother thinks that in the third one looks like a dead bride and now I can’t unsee that.
My thoughts exactly. Looking at this pic I somehow start thinking about dead virgin who died right before her wedding. You know, I’ve read some frightening fairy tales like these when I was teen or younger. Ukranian and German folklore, if I recall correctly.
If I die young
Bury me in satin
Lay me down on a bed of roses
Sink me in the river at dawn
Send me away with the words of a love song
Oh-oh oh-oh
Lord make me a rainbow
I’ll shine down on my mother….
Lyrics by The Band Perry running through my mind with this image.
Sisi of Austria aside, I’m also getting Ophelia vibes. She just needs a circlet of flowers, maybe 🌹in her hair.
Agree, when l saw these earlier l said to myself that she looks like an extra from Gone with de Wind , Great minds !!
Seriously how ,how did Pipoa not tell her that in 2022 that these pictures look ridiculously stupid, she doesn’t even look like herself, l can only image Carol is behind these , not this simple minded 40 year old, , her fans will lap it up while Willie’s friends , de Yorks , Zara, will be laughing their arses off , how embarrassing for him !
She should of done an interview and showcased New British Fashion and spoke about her position, family and charities, wasted opportunity yet again !!
The first two photos….who IS that?!? They don’t even look like her. The last one is nice but overall, they could’ve done better.
I think the first and the third are lovely, I dislike the middle one, I’m not sure what they were doing there. I wonder why they didn’t do at least one formal one, I think that would have been nice and appropriate.
Oh look, it’s Sissi by Winterhalter.
If you ever wondered what geriatric cotillion photos would look like, this is it. They are edited so much they changed the shape of her face. So what charity or cause are the photos benefiting or is this pure vanity?
Geriatric cotillion is perfect!
I saw these on twitter this morning and I literally did not recognize it as Kate in the red dress photo. I can’t tell if it’s due to extensive injectables or photoshopping (or both) but like…that’s just not what her face looks like?
I will say I do sort of like the one with the Victorian sanitarium vibe but it’s such an odd choice for her to basically be cosplaying at a wealthy Victorian invalid – it feels very “I have consumption but I’m still pretty” which maybe is what she’s going for? It would certainly be a good way to deflect from talk of how little she works! The poor dear has a Victorian wasting disease, it explains everything!
2022 Skeletal Kate (1) is the new 90’s Heroin Chic (2) is the new 1890’s Consumptive Victorian (3). I get the theme now!
It feels very “I have consumption but I’m still pretty.”
Okay, that’s funny.
Consumptive Victorian chic.
Well done, @carrotface.
“Victorian sanitarium vibe” simply the best @carrotface.
“I have consumption but I’m still pretty”!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can’t stop laughing.
Consumption gave you the type of complexion that was actually considered ideal at the time: translucent/pale with flushed cheekbones. So you’d be a tragic doomed beauty, basically.
For a fashion photographer I’m impressed these lack any kind of fashion at all.
I also never noticed she had a big nose? If she doesn’t then the photographer really did give her one. It’s like he focused on her nose and teeth. Really unflattering!
My first thought was a question. Then there was another.
First Question – Was there any deliberate thought considered, in terms of this idea mimicking celebrity culture, since she is future QC?
Second Question – a combination – Why???Is it a cry for help and/for attention?
Was this done as the spouse of a emblematic future head of state or the poster child of neoliberal capitalism???
Are there any hired staff at KP that is allowed to think critically and/or allowed to use their voice?
Why does this all seem like a terrible idea?
The tearing down of Meghan and other royal women this past week, in order to prop Kate up, has diluted any enjoyment that I might have gotten from these photos.
This here. Every article about Kate’s 40th disparages Meghan and all this pointless speculation that she must be so jealous. Why do they always want her to be jealous of Kate? I never got that impression. Middleton can take a million cosplay portraits, wear all the jewels she wants, but she is quite content to use every milestone to tear down other women. She likes to see Meghan constantly insulted and it’s disgusting. She can keep her dry ends, insipid expressions and puffy dresses. This is how she celebrates herself, by being spiteful and walking over others. Bet she only allows herself one small bite of dry cake.
Dresses wearing her. That’s all I got. Oh being dragged in the DM, will wonders ever cease?.
I’ve been a fan of Paolo’s work for years, but he’s a high fashion photographer. His photos have a unique vision that are not cut out for official portraiture. The best person for this would’ve been Mario Testino, but with his allegations she can’t go there, so the the next best person is his apprentice…Alexi Lubomurski. But of course, she wouldn’t got there for obvious reasons.
Considering her position, this should’ve been an A-list, all British production. Her people should’ve brought on Edward Enniful to consult and put together a team for her since these photos will be in the National Portrait Gallery. Pat McGrath should’ve been on makeup, maybe even bring in Nick Night to do the photos or Glen Luchford, Craig McDean. All of those would’ve been better.
@Talie: Edward Enniful and Pat Grath would have been fantastic choices but KP and Kate wouldn’t have wanted to work with them because they’re black.
Edward also let Meghan edit that Vogue mag
WORD.
Edward E is a sellout.
Pat would never. I’d have been disappointed.
Love pat mcgrath. It’d be really interesting to see her do Kate’s make-up. I mean I wouldn’t do the all sparkle lips on Kate lol but pat could do something really cool.
Personally, I find the atmosphere of her photoshooting is too juvenile for a woman who celebrating her 40th birthday. It’s aesthetic that royal women normaly (the Queen, Princess Margaret, Diana and the Queen Mother) used for their photography when they were in their early 20s aged. It needed a more mature vibe, then it’s way too photoshopped. She is literally unrecognizable in the photos, especially in the shot with the red dress. Then the pre-victoria atmosphere is noFor a woman born on the sign of Capricorn, she does not have the style, sophistication, glamour , elegance or the mysterious energy that have the orthers capricorn’s lady like Sade, Kate Moss, Debbie Allen or Aaliyah.t modern or even glamorous and will not help it at all to conquer a young audience.
Ok, all I see is Rose Hundbury in those shoot ! A cospaly keen queen 😉
Not a fan of the Keens but I have to admit to linking the soft focus glamour shots one. Only because I grew up in that era when those photos were all the rage and it reminds me of an uncomplicated time in my life. The others are pretty bad. She would look so much prettier with 20 extra lbs on her. I can’t believe she is only 40!!!
@Talie
Edward and Pat would never have been a option and we all know why.
I kind of like the third one, in a general sense. Like if it was a random woman on IG.
They’re just SO dated. I actually really like it when her hair is wavy/curly, but in this case it just emphasizes how 1980’s these pictures are.
The nose in the first photo – what happened? That isn’t her nose.
All the heavy filtering—it’s like a bad Tinder profile. She’s trying to catfish us 😂😂
Don’t come at me. But I think that in the red dress portrait, she looks like Rose 🌹,as in marchioness of chumley 😳. When I first saw that I had to look twice 😳. Tell me I’m not alone 🙈
As for the other ones,total fail in front of queen Meghan’s portraits. Which were,a shoutout from one iconic lady to another 🔥
Same here! It’s the hair. I wonder if her hair is really thin without the wiglets. I could drive a truck on that forehead.
I think it’s the hair and the teeth that are giving Kate a certain look that many aristo women have – including Rose.
@Mooney, you’re not alone, except I think it’s the 2nd/closeup picture that a Rose lens filter was used. At first I thought Kaiser was punking us sneaking a picutre of Rose at some aristo debut ball in. Then I read and thought William must have picked that one out as his favorite because it doesn’t look like Kate except for the wonky eyebrows. The first two are Kate, who? moments. The 3rd one at least resembles her.
The best I can come up is that Kate wanted it to be the opposite of her portrait from 9 years ago, which only underlines the fact that she is not coming into her or own or growing confidence in herself. The photographer seems to be attempting Back to the Future moments with a different subject. The same criticisms from her previous portrait apply only in a different way.
https://www.vulture.com/2013/01/jerry-saltz-on-kate-middletons-portrait.html
Middleton ‘looks nothing like this in real life’ is what I’m thinking for the current ones though.
There is nothing natural about these photoshopped to sh*t portraits.imo
The more i look at these photos the more I think she was behind the art direction on them, just like the Vogue cover photoshoot (where the editor made it known Kate was very involved in the whole process). It seems to me that she had a mood board of photo’s she liked and when to the photographer with them and said ‘shoot me like this’.
Interesting that you said this – I wrote above the first thing that last picture above (side view) made me think of was one of Annie Liebovovitz’s themed fashion shoots she’d done for Vogue, where the models and clothes are similarly styled in bygone eras (other people have mentioned Cecil Beaton, but’s that’s not what first came to mind for me). We know Kate met her when she came to do the portraits around TQ’s 90th birthday. So, wonder if you’re right, that Kate the photographer/art historian was doing her own direction.
Meanwhile, the photos Liebovitz did for TQ were interesting, particularly the one of her with the grands/great grands – people look like themselves, but the whole effect was like an oil painting. Guess that wouldn’t have had the requisite “modern” feel for Kate, though it might have made her look more regal.
I have a vague recollection of some tea with that TQ shoot with the great grandkids, i have a recollection that Copy Kate was there and was taking or going to take photo’s of Annie’s setup and was told no or something.
Yes, that’s my recollection as well, that Liebovitz was NOT happy with her.
The story was she ran around taking pics of the setup, posing her kids in the setup, and stealing Annie’s artistry for herself.
I’m getting the copy Kate vibe when I see this shot from Houghton Hall https://www.instagram.com/p/CVVhR7gMlpY/ from Oct 21.
Sorry for the long post and the mistakes…. I sense that there’s a subtle change in Kate’s PR since last summer and those photos confirm it for me… gone the great projects (aka early years -we haven’t heard anything since June), gone the visits, however random, to different charities as well as the “illusion” of working, gone the efforts to present Kate as an intelligent person with compassion and interests like Meghan or any other modern woman..instead, we have a growing emphasis to the glamorous and regal Kate with expensive gowns and jewelry ( p.e the bond premiere with a golden dress, the earthshot prize etc.). They’re trying to create the image of a queen, now that the real queen is absent and there’s nobody else to incarnate the glam of the old British empire … the new PR machine seems to understand that they have nothing of substance with Kate, therefore they selected to embrace what they have: an empty superficial woman and they’re doing their best by presenting her as the glamorous image of the future future queen and monarchy with expensives dresses and jewelry. It’s the one domain where she thrives. This is what she wanted so, I guess she’s satisfied for having accomplished her dreams. Finally, the choice of the different eras photos and gowns by her PR is very well done… Kate (however, photoshopped to the moon) is presented as the link from the past of the British empire (Victorian era), to diana’s era and to the present…the only real “English rose”…. I’m pretty sure that people fall for this kind of narrative and logic, especially during difficult times like nowadays…..unfortunately 😔😔😔
Fully agree. I wonder if the Turnip tiffs are rolling over with laughter at this aristo cosplay wannabe shenanigans? I’m sure, this morning there are many titters over the Sunday news. “Oh my God, sweetie dahrling! Look at this poor thing. She needs to stop trying to be us because she never will.” ( I watch too much Ab Fab)
Question: Will the touring “Look at Me” portraits count in the Court Circular as to her event total? Or is she just ‘calling it in’ at this point?
I haven’t laughed so hard at the comments for any article in a while! I can just imagine her trying to count her touring photos in the court circular. I mean….photographs of her are as impactful as the woman in person, so maybe?
Best comment. At least no jazz hands or hyena laughing.
@ First Comment, you are right! That’s the strategy from KP! It’s not about the work. That’s secondary to creating and pushing this new glamorous, but throw back to the good old days of the British Empire that they are going for. It’s this weird dynamic of the times we’re living in. Politics and society. People need to realize Kate is what the Monarchy wants and Media, British and International media are all working together to push the narrative. Kate is the star of that family and honestly more powerful than even William. They are positioning her as the face and future of the monarchy as the dutiful royal, loyal to the Queen and future king William. I used to think that the monarchy would not survive after the passing of the Queen but after this last 2 years, they will survive. It’s already been setup with the narrative and honestly KP has played the game with getting in bed the British tabloids. They are protected. That’s all they need to survive. Also I’m noticing Kate is getting extremely popular among younger people. The media narrative is working unfortunately. I have a question for those living in the UK. How is this media push being received over there?
Where are you noticing that she’s getting extremely popular with young people? Am actually curious where you get that vibe? I haven’t noticed but maybe I’m not in the know.
She isn’t popular with young people. She is tolerated by the racist elderly Little Englanders.
The youth don’t give a shit about monarchy in general and we have seen how kids in a classroom with her physically present were bored to tears.
Not you trying to concern troll on behalf of Kate. LOL, she’s getting dragged all over social media by blue checks and non-squaddies for all of this ridiculous birthday propaganda. No one’s buying it. And she most certainly is not gaining favor with young people. Nice try tho, mugxit.
The last time we saw her with children’s they asked about Megan and Harry and she snapped at them. Oh yes, she is really popular.
Kate is not getting popular with young people. That’s a false narrative.
Cool photos. But you got it wrong Celebitchy, that’s not Kate. I know, I know, who am I to call you out, but a mistake this huge edges toward being cancelled, and I care so much.
Kate always loses weight for her big events, wedding, tours, and these photos. If the camera adds 10 pounds, she is beyond worryingly thin.
The pictures are objectively awful.
What I am concerned about is what appears to be the large bruise on her left clavicle (a hint of it can also be seen in the staring off into the distance black and white).
As someone who has done work with domestic violence shelters, a bruise on the clavicle rarely happens naturally …
I don’t think it’s a bruise at all. It’s the shadow caused from the sunken in parts of her clavicle area. That’s how thin she is. Also there is no way a photographer would leave a bruise in a photo like this. It would have been hidden with makeup for sure.
And while William is an absolute cheating jerk, there is zero evidence of him having ever been physically abusive to Kate.
It is not a bruise. Only Kate stans think William is abusing her.
William is emotionally withdrawing from her. And he has not hidden how he feels in some of the public appearances. And she knows that she cannot confront Rose or anybody and she wants to be Queen, probably likes the attention and won’t leave the scene and will be avoiding confronting William.
not sure why she’s going for the “i died in the 1800’s” aesthetic but they’re her photos so okay i guess.
Perhaps the idea was to make her look whiter than white…
Lol! The photographer did her dirty and secretly hates her 😆pics are terrible and the photoshop is crazy!
Google “Empress Sissi Winterhalter” if you want to see the inspiration of the third portrait
Wow. Definitely a ripoff of Empress Sissi. Thanks for the link.
Yes! I got the mug like the majority of the tourists.
Very much in that Winterhalter style and trying to capture a Victorian feel. I don’t get what message it’s supposed to convey except for nostalgia for empire and fainting couch femininity. While M’s clothes costs will be constantly tallied up and enumerated, Kate can wear whatever she wants, bare the shoulders, slouch with hands in pockets and receive nothing but praise. She will be forever insulated and indulged.
Are these silly photos another Middleton shot against William? Trying to place Kate in a pantheon of royal women, having her cosplay them. Trying to establish a place for Kate in history in the face of William’s continued wandering.
I think it’s more about positioning her as the next Queen, ‘Camilla Who’. This has been part of the Kate PR narrative for the past few years and it will p!ss Chuck off as he wants Cams to be Queen Consort and Kate is trying to shove her out of the picture.
I agree this is coming from the Mids trying to set Kate up as a ‘Queen’ in the eyes of the public but its not working – yet they keep pushing it. Kate is about Queenly as dirty dishwater and no amount of fancy clothes and photoshopping will ever change it.
Charles is going to push back soon. There is no way he will let Camilla be treated as second rate when she is the future queen consort before kate.
Camilla’s 75th is coming up and I think Charles will start the “run up” to the birthday sooner rather than later.
Nota- definitely a shot at Willyboy. They are trying to force a “Kate is too regal for Will to cheat on” message and saying “Kate’s got too many portraits in the museums for Will to leave” in order to pressure him into staying.
I’ve been saying forever now that he’s planning to ditch her and she is desperate to counter. This is part of that. I would not be surprised if we start hearing messages such as “Kate is as naturally regal as blood Prince William.” and then, “Kate is even more naturally regal than William,” followed by “The Monarchy needs Kate more than William.”
Yes to what you’re saying, Rapunzel. This smells of desperation. It even reminds me of the romantic gestures Diana tried to get attention from Charles, as highlighted in The Crown.
Definitely grooming her for Queen!
A Queen consort should work. If she wants to be “groomed” she should stop playing dress up and get her work numbers up.
Maybe grooming the public to think she’s a queen.
The black and white photos look like she just told the overseer to take Patsy, that evil gal who’s bewitched her husband, to the auction in Charleston and exchange her for an old auntie who can work in the house. Disgusting.
Nailed it! That last photo gave me all sorts of antebellum South vibes. I declare, Miss Scarlett, she is every inch the perfect chatelaine of the plantation! Jesus, don’t these people ever THINK?? They don’t read, they don’t know their history, even if it’s about a former colony, they don’t look beyond short-term to wonder if this could even be remotely offensive to people. It’s all shallow and superficial, and their stans eat it ip with a spoon.
This isn’t some stupid tone deaf mistake. They did it on purpose. She wants to be the Aryan Queen, not just for Little Britain, but for racists all over the world. That’s also why she sent her media cronies to attack Letizia and Charlene this week.
@Nyro, I agree…it’s not a stretch to think these were done deliberately, in this manner.
Kate’s advisors all have links to the current Tory government which has been race baiting for a while, especially with Brexit. So this messaging is not by accident.
The fawning over these photographs is embarrassing. They are not good and the only reason we are seeing them is because of her pathological self-inflicted competition with Meghan, who didn’t make her 40th about herself but about helping others.
If they just wanted to celebrate her 40th birthday, sure pull out the stops, pop the champagne . Take your portraits in the ball gowns. It’s a big milestone and she has every right to enjoy it. The fact that for whatever reason, the press and palace minions are using it to once again insult Meghan is just desperate. Why does Kate want that mean girl energy? They can fawn over her without mentioning anyone else. This is a deliberate choice to insult other women ( Meghan, Letizia, Charlene) and it is tacky.
Kate has always been insecure of other women and it ramps up when William’s attention wanders off. This is why the attacks go beyond Meghan but now every woman who is in a royal family and has media attention. Let’s not forget how awful she was to Letizia, who outranks her as queen.
What happened with Letizia? I know Kate pretty much blanked King Felipe who was stood right next to her at an event.
She tried to outshine Queen Letizia by wearing a deep deep deep neckline nude Marie Antoinette gown and the Nizam necklace. She was seated behind a potted plant and no one notice her. Letizia showed up in a magnificent, off the shoulder red beaded gown, every inch a queen.
I was thinking of the time she snubbed Letizia to greet someone else, so I guess we have a few incidents where kate has been mean to Letizia.
I looked up the pics from that 2017 state dinner with the Spanish royals and she really looked A LOT! A Marchesa dress with a ton of lace and a big flounce thing on the sleeve, plus the huge necklace and the tiara. The tiara always looks good on her but that diamond/ruby monstrosity was not a good look with all that other stuff going on, , it was just a bad look and try-hard. And that every pic of her at the dinner was her behind a floral decoration which covered her tiara, making her look like she was wearing all this greenery was hilarious! I noticed Rose was there with a plain off white silk dress and a tiara and she looked fabulous. I didn’t see her close up but she really has ease and so much style.
What Amyb, Kate is a natural photoshopped beauty and that natural photoshopped beauty is sure to be beneficial to hundreds of wannabe influencers everywhere?! Meghan, Duchess of Sussex only wanted to help and encourage women getting/going back to the workforce and feel confident about themselves. How silly is that?
Looking at these portraits/photos of Kate, I felt second hand embarrassment at how much photoshopping was done. Akin to certain scenes with Kristen Wiig’s character in Bridesmaids I felt. Cringey.
The attacks against Meghan, Letizia and Charlene were so unnecessary and unwarranted. Unless that is (and it is) the only way to prop Kate up. (read Petronella’s thing-which is a regurgitation of sorts from an article she wrote after the O interview) Her father was good friends with the Queen Mother & Rupert Murdoch. A crazy read, I won’t link it because it gives me the heebie jeebies as a parent, by Petronella, titled “Outrageous Confessions of a Upper Class Lolita”, something like that. from 9/10 years ago is quite something.
Sidenote-Reading things like that increases my already great appreciation for my parents even though when I was a teenager I viewed them as being over protective with who and where I/we went.
I dislike the second the least. It looks like a midcentury Hollywood head shot. The ghostly old timey picture is creepy with Big Blue so prominent. And if it’s not buttons, it’s furbelows, Jay-sus, the bows on the shoulders, shudder!
I actually really love the Victorian ghost photo lol. Very regal, but knowing Kate and her mean girl BS and apathy toward work, it does something interesting, too — so many Royal photos look like this one and it makes them look so powerful and important. This photo demystifies that because we know Kate’s work isn’t powerful or important. It puts another crack in the Royal facade.
All I see is a Ye Wiglet Ghost of Olde Colonialism. Is she hoping to be on the face of a coin soon?
It’s like she is now cosplaying Queen Victoria.
“Ummmm Duchess? You’re literally the same color as the cement wall behind you. I think we should do the rest in black and white, mkay?”
Since Kate apparently enjoys comparisons to other women, especially when taking them down, I took the liberty to look up the official 40th birthday portraits of other royal women.
CP Victoria of Sweden – white shirt and white pants and her signature bun.
CP Mary of Denmark – wine colored turtleneck looking over the back of a sofa.
Queen Mathilde of Belgium (when she a princess) – white boat neck top and dark slacks. Another portrait on the ground with her four children.
CP Mette Marit of Norway – red full length dress posing with CP Haakon who was in a blazer.
Queen Letizia of Spain (as princess) – casual clothes, posed with Felipe and their daughters. The girls were barefoot in the photo, one was laying her head on Letizia’s shoulder as if asleep.
Queen Maxima of the Netherlands – causal (yeah I know it’s Maxima).
And of course Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex – no official photo, just a while tank top, white pants and sweater and announcing her 40×40 initiative.
This is to point out these royal women have enough self confidence to be photographed in an informal setting to show who they are at 40. Kate’s theme dress photos really show she has no true identity at all. She’s a blank canvas that the Firm can mold into an image it can project with the help of a brown nosing British media. The BRF and the BM know Kate is a nothing burger but they still try to sell her as the Second Coming; the problem is people online and on SM are saying it loud they are not fooled. No amount of stopping trends, scrubbing negative comments, or bashing the main source of Kate’s insecurity (Meghan) is going to change that. These actions show that Great Britain’s future queen consort has no real accomplishments of her own and nothing to build own to give guidance how she could help lead the UK in times of prosperity and strife. A sad marker for a milestone birthday.
In the cases of the married in royals, they all married in around the same age as Kate. Most worked and had careers prior to marrying in (as Daniel did too). Kate is the only one who 1) did nothing and 2) continues with the infantilising. Kate also insists she cannot work more because she has children, when all of those others both raised children and worked. Several learned new languages as well.
Unrecognizable
The pictures – meh. I wouldn’t have expected anything different. What jumped out to me were the one-shouldered dresses. Wasn’t a certain other Duchess raked over the coals unmercifully for wearing a screamingly elegant black velvet one-shouldered gown? Wearing said gown at a fashion event, where one could reasonably expect to see a gown like that? And yet, within a year, our birthday girl wore a one-shouldered white gown to the BAFTAs, and you would have thought she had found the cure for every disease and solved climate change, she was lauded so highly. Whatever. Today is her birthday, she released some “artful” pictures, and the British “media” will dine out on them for days. Or they’ll disappear from the public’s consciousness in a day or so. Moving on…
The photo where she’s sat in the white dress reminds me of the episode in the crown where Princess Margaret is getting her birthday portrait taken by Cecil. Margaret hates it, whilst the queen n queen mum absolutely love cecils work. Then Margaret gets her almost naked pic taken by Tony Armstrong Jones, which is used instead.
Margaret using the almost naked looking pic as her birthday portrait was not only symbolic of her rebellious nature, but also reflective of her modern and forward thinking personality. It was artistic and sexy. In comparison, the queen and queen mum seem like a couple of frumps compared to Margaret.
Kate going straight for the Cecil/Margaret look reflects her backwards, outdated and unoriginal personality. It’s not even inspired by the past or an homage, it’s just straight up outdated.
Exactly this. I’m late to The Crown and just recently saw that episode for the first time. That ghostly pic of Kate is everything Margaret rejected. How sad to be 40 in 2022 and embracing the misogynistic traditions rejected by at least one royal woman more than 50 years ago?? How is she not ashamed?
Also, who would travel to see an exhibition of portrait photographs they can see online? Am I missing something?
40 year old dresses as Shirley Temple for birthday portraits. Is unrecognizable.
British Media is thrilled. Nothing they love more than a child bride as tfq.
The last photo reminded me of royal family pictures from Czarist Russia. We know how that ended.
Love the red dress. These are very pretty vanity photos that any 40 year old mom likes to have around to remind her children and future grandchildren that she was once very pretty with a tiny waist. Don’t all of us have a ” I was young once and pretty hot” picture tucked away?
Well, you got the vain part right.
Hopefully lots of them…looking happy…and natural.
Why would you want your kids and grandkids to think of you as “hot”? I would rather have respect for the work I have done.
Also from a pure beauty aspect, where is the beauty? Where’s the forceful liquid eye good photography shows?
The damn bows at 40 and a face filtered into vague non existence is horrifying.
There is no one home. Just a 40 year old woman trying to project a childish vulnerability to avoid accountability.
There can only be beauty where there is life. These photos are poignant.
She was still trying for ingenue when at 40 it doesn’t work anymore, especially when you have lost your youthful looks, as she has for a while. That’s why the photos are all over the place. They are forcing an attempt at youth and freshness when they only have pale and stale to work with.
Gave me a horrible feeling. Like the cover of an airport romance. Danielle Steele? Barbara Taylor Bradford? Awful and nothing like her
Well Bradford is a stan and is simply amazed she never gains weight.
I’m sorry, these are pictures of who? She’s practically unrecognizable except in the final three quarters view shot
Little girl in a party dress showing off her pretty ring that she won
Isn’t it the joke in photography that some subjects need an extra schmear of Vaseline in the lens to make them look good?
Yeah.
The fuzzy focus just screams “any and all tricks to pull this off”…
But her hair looks nice styled long and loose, the way Rose wears hers…
Well, I for one am missing the jazz hands. Seriously she does nothing but photo ops so this is very on trend for her. Agree with everyone else who said these pics don’t look like Keen at all due to too much photoshop.
I legit didn’t know who I was looking at in the red dress until I saw Kaiser’s Twitter handle. Then I was shocked by the amount of photoshopping done to her face. Holy hell. Then my mouth dropped open at the Victorian/Titanic/ghost filter pose. What the hell?! And they paid money for this? Ridiculous. And now we know these are representing different eras. But why? Simply because this woman has no presence or personality of her own. Co-opting others’ is her motto.
I look at these pictures with an inner psychological eye. I’m trying to make sense of what impression they want to make. This is my personal view.
Looking at Kate’s pictures especially the ones where she smiles I see sadness and tiredness in her eyes. In particular when I zoom in on her face. It’s the same sensation I had looking at recent photos of Charlene who is clearly struggling mentally. It’s as if Kate is letting her guard down just a little bit on her 40th birthday to show us her “me you can’t see” behind her usual “mean girl” image. Her lack of makeup is revealing.
In particular her photo in the red dress gives me vibes of singer Karen Carpenter who struggled with anorexia until her death. Trapped in a system of her own choice. She’s voluntarily playing the ruthless Game of Thrones as a royal teamplayer at the cost of her own soul and integrity. It’s a price she seems willing to pay to stay in the game, expressed by that Victorian sidephoto, signalling her determination to step in the footsteps of the queens before her. Her Tatler “Catherine the Great” cosplay re-visited.
Her eyes tell that she will keep on playing her game, but she’s not sure if she’ll lose her mind and survive……
We all have to play our role in life! Wishing her wisdom on her path on her birthday!
I like the shot with the red dress. Yes, she looks emaciated and not really recognizable, but of the three, it’s the most lively (like she MIGHT have a personality). The other photos are very haunted and ghostly and that’s a bit weird for a 40 year old future Queen photoshoot. I’m not sure what Kate and the photographer are trying to convey here? Meh, It would have been nice to see a more formal shot with the Lover’s Knot (or other) tiara.
Yikes. These photos are not flattering or create envy for me(a fellow 40 year old). She looks alarming thin in the clavicle and she is quite obviously photoshopped to death, which is quite embarassing because we know how she looks without all this photoshopping. She is also giving me Fabio romance cover/Heathcliff vibes.
I love how you Kate fans love to pull that “but both of them” nonsense anytime anything about Kate is scrutinized. Kate looks 50, easy. Meghan doesn’t look anywhere near 40. Nice try tho.
EXACTLY. I said the same farther up. Meghan looks great for 40 and like she takes care of herself (or as much as those jackals have let her over the past several years). Kate looks worn down and has gotten the face she deserves at this juncture in her life.
ETA – this is in response to @Nyro’s comment above
Nyro and Swirlmamad, I am struck at Kate’s double jowls on that skinny face. It is interesting that in seeking to harm another soul, one is harmed onesself. (sp?)
Yeah, I’ll go further. I don’t give a flying shit how unalike the two duchesses are, as some British media have proferred in defending an undefendable Kate, if I thought my sister-in-law was under fire, much less suicidal, I’d ride in both guns blazing to see how I could help her and show her love and support. Fuck anything else. A lot of people are quiet and shy, and go about doing good to other people anyway. No, Kate is not too shy to have herself photographed at the memorial of a murdered girl. Just can’t go pick her sister-in-law up to go shopping.
You can’t talk your way out of what you acted your way into.
Nyro, I agree with you racist gone racist. I swear I’m laughing at the Karens in this thread trying to pretend these pictures are beautiful. Sure, Jan. First, the photoshop job is bad, really bad. Second, they did all of this leading up to her big day, and they couldn’t get this poor soul to trend for 5 minutes in her own country. How dreadful. She got roasted to hell on Twitter.
These are bad photos in every respect and simply magnify KM’s utter lack of charisma and gravitas.
They’re deliberately creating a persona and image of her as a princess and queen-in-waiting for those who long for a Great Britain of the past, back when POC knew their place, when women knew their place, and when there was reverence for the royal family. These pics are ugly because of what they represent.
Kate is getting clobbered on social media. Her lack of work, mean girling and William’s wandering sceptre is being thrown back at her. If KP’s goal is to bring back the good old days of royal reverence it was a fail.
Is Kate trending or Meghan today?
Why didnt she get chris jackson to take the official photos? I am sure he would have done a better job than this italian photographer
I am a black woman and I love the pictures. Maybe its just a personal preference?????
IMHO The only person she is cosplaying is Rose.
I like only the sideline one because it looks more like Kate and is a bit romantic.
Kate had better pictures from events.
She looks weird. Who did her hair? Who did photoshop her so badly?
I feel like she’s one of those people who love the pics of themselves that they don’t look like themselves.
PR wise – is this a reminder Kate is a person not just a mum? Because such dresses and poses were my dream in the teenage years. Now? Idk but in my position (non royalty etc) I’d be a clown.
I want to appreciate the fact that in spite of whatever other cosmetic tweaks she’s had (and I don’t judge!) she left her lips more or less alone. I feel like I haven’t seen a thinner pair of lips on a celebrity in a long time, and hers suit her face more than inflated ones would.
I think of the first “Official Portrait” of her, an oil painting. It is 9 years old now.https://www.hellomagazine.com/royalty/2013012210838/paul-emsley-responds-kate-portrait/
Thank you. This 9 year old portrait shows how much work she’s had done. No wonder she turned dow a portrait in favor of a photo. I’d like to see a side by side of this and one of the close ups.
Take a look at the weird way Will’s hair is pasted down. Kate looks like a mean girl in that portrait. Especially her eyes. Pretty accurate.
Portraits fit for a Victorian.
Next time…on Paranormal Activity.
Hahaha!!!!
The middle picture is like if an episode in an early season of Law and Order featured a potential serial killer and Jerry Orbach dug up the file of an unsolved case that fits the pattern, and then he stuck the photo of the victim up on the precinct’s bulletin board.
Spot on!
When the photoshop renders the subject unrecognizable that’s a problem. Beautiful photos but they don’t look like her at all.
Those kind of portraits are supposed to capture a person living in a particular time. 50 years from now someone looking at it will have hard time believing that this woman lived in XXI century.
This is again showing that Kate at 40 still thinks she is a fairy princess, not a modern duchess who has a unbelieveble platform to utilize and do some good.
She 100% needs to be held accountable for the cruelty she inflicted upon and continued to attempt to inflict upon, Meghan. No doubt about that. Also, I believe Kate is a psychologically abused woman. Regardless of how old someone is or how privileged someone is, leaving an abusive relationship is indescribably frightening. By no means does the abuse she experienced mean she should not be held accountable for the abuse she also inflicted upon Meghan, but I think we all need to dig a little deeper. I wonder if this infantalizing PR is on purpose. I wonder if there is more to this simple Kate Vs Meghan narrative. The BRF are a colonizing 1200 year old abusive regime responsible for countless genocides. Is Kate a perpetrator of this abuse and does she need to be held accountable? Yes. Is she currently also surviving in an abusive relationship? I think also, yes. This doesn’t mean that she shouldn’t be held accountable for the pain she inflicted onto Meghah, but it does mean taking an uncomfortable and deeper look at why her PR the way it is; why her own mental health is clearly suffering and why we all seem to hate one woman or the other, instead of exploring the larger machine that is to harmful, abusive, and brainwashing.
I completely agree. Kate is meangirl and abuser but her life is far from calm and healthy. She probably constantly wonders when Will screams at her again but can’t go to Carole to complain because she’ll just remind her she can’t quit. I will not psychoanalize her but it’s quite obvious that she lives a different life then Meghan. She is accountable but I understand where this is all coming from. No luxury is worth this.
Kate never learned to have women friends, she saw them as “threats”. And still does. IMO. No matter the photos, her dressing up does not change her behavior or personality.
The dress and hair looks great in the color photo, her face looks kind of over exposed. In the black and white ones, she looks great, but the weird Victorian ghost filter really distracts from that
I don’t understand. The way she wears her hair normally is (to me) pretty. Even with wiglets or whatever. It looks nice. None of these look like her. This is not how she wears her hair. It looks weird and flat on top and like the wind is blowing it, but not in a flattering way. These just look nothing like her.
I like the photos she’s had for magazines where she’s got a button down, sweater on top, leggings, duck boots, hair down. That looks very nice. And she’s done her hair nicely for formal events. This is just so weird and dated looking.
I might not be as glamorous a photographer as the one who took these but in my humble opinion, these aren’t what they could’ve been to say the least. I don’t mind the framing, composition, and technical execution, I could even get on board with the style and post-processing, but my gripe is with the actual takes the photographer chose as the final ones. Why on Earth these? She definitely has more flattering angles and more natural expressions.
Edit: Especially that last one – it had so much potential, and it was so close. And for god’s sake, she’s Kate Middleton, if you don’t get what you needed in a two-hour shoot, extend it until you get it!
These pics are scary. I don’t know if it’s bc they don’t look like her or bc they really are scary.
Sarah Ferguson could have used that third picture (the side view) for the cover of her book “My heart for a compass”.
The Boniness of her collar bones was what first stood out to me in that picture and the here am I wearing Diana’s jewelry was the second. And there’s something not quite right about the hair.
The best of the three is the headshot. The smile was genuine and reached her eyes. It’s what Kate would really have looked like at 40 if she wasn’t a miserable mean girl.
Like others heave said here, she didn’t look like herself at all in the picture with the red dress. Again what stood out to me was how hollow the space was between her collar bone.
Compare these to the pictures release by Anne for her birthday (one where you see her messy barn) where you get a since of the personality of the person in the picture. Kate’s pictures are at the end of the day, bland. You don’t get a sense of the person at all.
I am…underwhelmed.
Whistlers mother realness
She doesn’t look bad, necessarily, it just doesn’t look like her. I think she’s an attractive woman, not gorgeous but certainly pretty but these make her look so odd. Is it the forehead? The eyes? I can’t place it but something is off. The profile view is the best but that doesn’t even really look like her.
I think she looks pretty and I like the styling and the clothes, but the pictures themselves? It’s been years since I’ve watched Young and the Restless, but the airbrushing and the windblown hair remind me of the intro to a soap opera I watched as a teenager in the 90s lol, or the cover of a cheap romance novel. She’s an attractive woman, she didn’t really need all of this photoshop. She might want to pick another photographer next time – that’s assuming she gets to pick the photographer.
That’s it! It’s very Ashley Abbott or Nikki Newman from the 80s!
OMG YES!!! I can just hear the theme song as I look at these pics LOLOL
Even with the soft focus and photoshopping, you can’t hide the fact that her neck and shoulders are worryingly bony and scrawny. This is nothing more than a birthday present to herself and a ridiculous “look at MEEEE!” posturing because she’s as vapid and empty a person in real life as she comes across in these portraits. It’s like she’s cosplaying some Alphonse Mucha painting.
I know this has nothing to due with Kate and her portraits of the begone eras the BaRF miss, but it gave me a chuckle and had to share.
https://twitter.com/MarcKeel1/status/1479817887569297413/photo/1
I hate when my photo editor makes one of my eyebrows longer and bigger than the other.
Yes! I can’t see anything but that.
I really thought someone had superimposed the head on the body in the red dress pic. I am 51 and I’ve beed dealing with puffy eyelids which tend to go over my eye, It is genetic, my mom had them all over her eyes. I started having them when I got around 46-47, after years of hard work, plus I live in a very sunny place, and my generation did not care too much for sunscreen when I was younger.
I guess Kate has not only genetics, but smoking and suntanning against her, on the plus, she has the best dermatologists and plastic surgeons at her beck and call. Weirdly, I think she or her skin doesn’t look very well taken care off. I think it has to be with her thinness. As Catherine Deneuve said, when a woman gets older, she has to choose between butt or the face (having a slim body or having a nice face), I guess Kate chose butt.
Is it just me or does it look like Kate’s nose has been broken somehow?
I think in the close up she is wearing Love’s Baby Soft. 😂
There are bad photos and then they are these and all I want to know is why this photographer hates Kate so much?
anyone thinks her skin has never been that tone- she is way darker, its weird to me
The sepia profile picture I immediately was struck by the likeness (I mean the style, not Kate’s resemblance) to some very famous portraits done of Empress Sisi/Elisabeth of Austria (as others have noted above). I visited the Sisi Museum in Vienna about a decade ago and there are two famous “intimate” portraits of her that her husband Emperor Franz Joseph kept in his study that were not released to the public while she was still alive. I won’t link them but one you can see on the Wikipedia page of Sisi, she has super long brown hair (going past her waist) and it’s kind of tangled up in front of her. The other is a profile portrait of Sisi in an off the shoulder white gown and her thick beautiful hair is SUPER long, very wavy and undone looking and very similar to the hairstyle Kate has in all three pictures (you can find the portrait if you google Empress Sisi portrait in Google images). The Sisi portraits have stayed in my mind for so long because they were unlike any royal portrait paintings I had seen before filled with this ethereal quality, very much the opposite of her tragic life as a reluctant empress. I have to think Kate, who is supposedly well versed in portraiture, must have used those paintings as references for that shot. I’m not sure I like the effect in Kate’s profile portrait, as some have already mentioned it gives off “Victorian ghosts” vibe.
My favorite one is the one of Kate in the red McQueen because she looks the most animated and alive in that picture. But her waist is so thin looking (again I can’t help but think of Empress Sisi who was famous for being obsessive about her super slender waist) and as some have noted she isn’t immediately recognizable (also she has super heavy eyebrow makeup which she isn’t usually known for). The close up is very reminiscent of prom glam shots and it’s so heavily photoshopped it’s kind of ridiculous. I went on What Kate Wore because they usually fawn over her so much on that blog but I was surprised that the opinion of these three portraits are very mixed and a lot of them agree they don’t recognize her in some of the shots because they find them too heavily photoshopped.
I love the profile portrait. Very beautiful, regal and appropriate for her role. I’m lukewarm on the red dress and dislike the over exposed third shot.
What does threadjacking mean, please. Just so I don’t do it. If by not theadjacking I can show support for Meghan and disapproval for Kate and the Firm, then I shall not do it. Just have to figure out first what not to do. 🙂 Ha ha.
I definitely threadjacked a few times when I first started commenting here without realizing. It means you reference another article that is related but hasn’t been covered yet, like so and so said this…which starts a convo. But more than likely Kaiser will cover that article in a future post so save that convo for the future post. That’s my understanding?
There are really bad photographs. At first glance, I almost thought they were hand drawn caricatures, like what you can get when you go walking on a beach for your summer holiday or something. They look really freaking weird. Kate doesn’t look like herself at all. Why would anyone take these photos and release them?
The last ghostly photo reminds me of the Czar’s daughters before the Russian Revolution. If you look at those photos, pre-1914, I think you’ll see the affinity. Such odd photos of Kate. As another poster said, a photo that showed her true self, even if it were a mean girl, would be better. The Prince Phillip photos of Kate all in black, with Diana’s jewels and a very small black mask, stalking the camera for glamour shots all show the true Kate. Even those I liked much better because the woman she is can clearly be seen: cruel, predatory, merciless, self-aggrandizing, selfish. That is the true point of photography, after all: to show the soul. In these tepid photos, she is clearly masking the true woman she is. That’s why there is no life in them–her wicked soul is missing.
Chris Jackson does have some talent and he did capture the arrogant and predatory look in that funeral photo. And since she had a mask on he didn’t have to photoshop quite as much as has been done here.
I am astounded at how bad her hair looks. It works for the first/really old vibes shot (which is the best of the 3 IMO) but not in the other two. Generally, her hair is the most striking thing about her (not necessarily the way she styles is because that is usually outdated and bad but the actual “hair”- the shine, the color whatever). This just looks dull and lifeless- fitting I suppose.
Damn. Some of these comments…anyway. I like the pictures. *shrugs*
So odd to me. One hundred years from now when we look back on these pictures, they should give an indication of time and space of 2022. The fashion that women wore at that time, the clothes and hairstyle and the style of picture. Instead we have Khate cosplaying Victorian times while wearing a nightie. She is lost.
Is anyone else getting Kate Bush Wuthering Heights vibes? (Although I love Kate Bush.)
So coooold. Let me in your window.
Aghh! That’s exactly what I thought/commented! She would be lucky to have as much expressiveness as Kate Bush honestly
These photos are totally blown out to reduce any signs of aging. Way too lightened. I didn’t recognize her and thought it was Jennifer Connelly. I do like the b&w in the off shoulder gown, but it doesn’t look like her either.
Aside from the general erasing any lines/wrinkles, structural changes I noticed they made to her face (I may be totally wrong):
1. Made the ridge of her upper brow less prominent, smoothed out her lower lid
2. Made her eyes more symmetrical and less round by straightening her lower lid
3. Straightened and elongated her nose
4. Smoothed out her cheekbones/reduced the size of her cheeks
5. Got rid of her more square jawline and turned it almost completely straight
6. Reduced the size of her chin
7. Made her eyes smaller in the first and third pics, made them larger (or kept at normal size) for the second
8. Flattened the ridge between her brows/made her forehead less round
9. Moved her eyes further apart
Compare the first pic to the one at the bottom of this CB post: https://www.celebitchy.com/735003/duchess_kate_william_confirm_that_they_have_lots_of_chickens_at_anmer/
Compare second pic with the one at the bottom of CB post: https://www.celebitchy.com/734917/duchess_kate_william_make_a_surprise_visit_to_derry_in_northern_ireland/
Okay comparison with third pic: https://www.celebitchy.com/733967/duchess_kate_wore_self_portrait_for_a_reception_to_celebrate_hold_still/
The third pic- they elongated and made her neck thinner, got rid of the fat under her chin. But the neck elongation is really creepy.
well spotted!
but at the end of the day, all her sycophants love her no matter what, nor how much photoshop, and all are about how jealous meghan is. they don’t even care about actual facts. I looked at the Fail, the pics only had 1k comments and of course the top ones were about meghan, and then how beautiful kate is. they are totally nut jobs and stupid.
Read all the comments and agreed with most, this is truly bad. If this is supposed to be landmark personal portraiture, it’s bad. If it’s supposed to be official portraiture, it’s worse. If, like I read above, it’s supposed to be both, it is a FAILURE. 1800s x 1980s is a personal, institutional, and brand fail. A triptych of failure, a soon to be travelling triptych of failure. Portraiture in the present is brand image (personal and professional): This is who I am; this is what I represent; this is what I DO; this is part of what WE DO for you; this is what you pay for. Elevation of this by the established media is propaganda. I find it interesting as a theoretical and actual exercise of propaganda and nonsense.
Wow… lots of harshness regarding these photos! As always, she’s stunning.
No, not “as always”. Lol.
the photos dont show who kate is – she is always cosplaying someone else. imagine being 40 years old and still not having a clue of who one is
But through it all, she never set a foot wrong. Riiiight.
That sideways picture of her is yet another example of copykeening the past. Look up portraits of Empress Elisabeth of Austria. It looks almost entirely the same, with the clothes and jewelry being more modern.
And it was a known fact Elisabeth kept her waist as thin and tiny as possible, yet another possible connection.
I saw it right away. How much more pathetic can she get?
I think she looks best in the red dress pic. She lacks the charisma and “it” factor you need to stand out in a b&w photo; and the one where she’s not looking into the camera is downright creepy.
The glamour shot gives me Kate Bush – Wuthering Heights vibes! Hoping they asked her to do the “It’s me, it’s Cathy” dance during the shoot…
I just saw an unhinged comment from a Brit paper saying Kate’s new photography “brings hope to the world.” I’m speechless.
She looks 50 in the color photo.
Can’t stand her-but I actually like these pictures because they’re so unexpected. She’s usually so dull-the one in the red dress actually makes her look like she’s got some personality. Her hair is naturally wavy and I think she looks pretty. (And I still think she’s a Mean Girl, and terrible at her job of being a Royal Duchess.)
I feel like her hair should be up in the black and white photos, but if it was, she’d look like she’s wearing victorian cosplay. As it is, it just looks like an odd mix of breezy casual mall photoshoot, but she’s wearing designer gowns. Color photo is fine. I don’t agree with the glamor shot comment. Glamor shots were notoriously make-up heavy, almost drag-y whereas Kate looks like she’s wearing minimal make-up here. Why use make-up when you have photoshop?
It’s her eyebrows for me that ruin it. They go way too deep past the corner of her eyes. It’s drives me bonkers.
Wow, those are ALL terrible pics. Like, terrible on PURPOSE. She’s actually MUCH better looking than one would think from these pics!! If I was her I’d be PISSED at the photographer!! Didn’t she have to approve which photos were released?? What is going on??? I’m so confused!??
PS- it looks like a lot of people think that there was some serious photoshopping that was done, and while I think they’re right because there is something VERY off about how she looks…..isn’t Photoshop supposed to make you look BETTER??? it looks like the photographer used it to make her look WORSE!! And to be clear, I am NOT criticizing Kate’s looks, I think that irl, she is a very attractive woman, certainly WAY more attractive than these pics would have you think! I am solely criticizing the photographers finished product.
If you think she’s getting dragged on social media – you better believe the aristos are HAVING AN ABSOLUTE FIELD DAY WITH THIS ARISTO WANNABE DIVA. I’ll bet Bill without a shadow of a doubt is grinding his teeth and losing more of his hair to how his Mrs. is perceived by his peers. Rose must be giddy with glee.
The Kate stans are all over the place. One even talked of Kate being a “great singer” based on the story she played Eliza Doolittle in the School Play. Such embiggening. These pictures will be up on DM for a few days.
I noticed a few have wandered in here, too…..
I wonder if she asked Mario Testino and was turned down.
LMAO
Harpo who dis woman??
The second photo looks like those in the printouts you get when you go a memorial service. Exactly that type of black/white soft focus of which the family has fond memories, and picks unanimously.
Amazing that to me it looks like both photos are so soft focus, it’s like it’s not her. I don’t get any sense of who she is at 40.
Why dont she copied the real alive queen potrait if she wanted to look regal.
I dont think the photographer hate khate, he probably took so many pictures and choose 3 artistic photos and khate goes
“Nope we need more photoshop, let me do it myself.”
They don’t look like her! That’s my first and strongest take. The third one does, and it’s a nice enough photo if a bit macabre, but the other two? What? I have seen many pictures of this woman over the past twenty years and I know what she looks like. That’s not it. Why? It’s not like they make her look like herself only better, they make her look like a different person! It’s so bizarre.
Wow. Don’t come for me but I think these pictures are beautiful.
All I can think is: ” Damn that woman needs to eat. She is so skinny, its scary.
She looks so insecure. That is no way to live, but momma wants a crown and Carol wants a title, so…
They used the Gal Gadot (most beautiful woman in the world, they say) photo filter
I actually appreciate the effort in giving us something new. At least a new silhouette. Im so over her sleek dresses that make her look like an elongated rectangle. The hair is a bit “my prom date picked me up in a convertible so all my curls have gone to heck “. She does look more fun and relaxed which is a big step up from the cavalcade of prim coatdresses.
I think with a more polished hairstyle the overall effect would have been less jarring. The sitting down picture reminds me a bit of the Cecil Beaton birthday portraits of Princess Margaret. A bit stiff but also pretty and ethereal.
Meghan chose to highlight philanthropy, community and mentorship for her 40th birthday. Kate gave us 3 weak official portraits. None are home runs. The styling is basic, the hair is below basic. The makeup/photoshopping is mediocre. She is once again overpaying for mediocrity like the British citizens are in paying for their royal family. It’s a great commentary on UK society.
Please please please can she try straight hair perhaps in a lob? Her hair is too fine to pull off frumpy curls effectively. Past a certain age, very few women with fine hair can pull off long cuts.
I normally dont like to talk about weight but she looks really emaciated in all these pictures.
I’m not really sure whom these photos are supposed to appeal to. I showed them to my daughter who said, “Oh, my God! That’s Kate? She looks ridiculous!” Now, I understand this is one person’s opinion (although many people share it based on what’s all over the web) but Kate is going to bring the monarchy forward into a more modern era? How on earth do these weird photos show a relatable person?
Jesus Christ Kate, put on a god damn tiara and turn off the wind machine FFS
A bit off topic – do you agree that royal women all do fillers botox but no lip fillers or very natural? It’s a huge no?
I was wondering the same thing. Her lips look very thin in these pictures. If you’re going to do work, a little bit of lip fillers make you look more youthful and it’s just pretty in general to have fuller lips, so long as you don’t go too far, IMO. My lips used to be kind of full but have thinned as I’ve aged and while I don’t do fillers or anything, I’ll apply lip plumper. She doesn’t even look like she did that?
Late to the party, but I absolutley looove this pics. Wish I could try on this red dress
Late to the party & couldn’t read all coments, but just wanted to say I totally looove this pics. The red dres is to die for
I think she looks pretty. I’d be happy if I looked this good in pictures. Geez!
am I the only one who likes these?! 😂. Not a Kate Stan at all but I think they’re beautiful portraits.
I hate it because it doesn’t scream 40 year old woman coming into her power/future queen/saviour of the British monarchy and all that crap we’ve been fed for the past 10 years. Instead of pushing us into the future, she regresses to an 1850 mail-order bride. Give her a parasol and stick her in front of a white house to complete her plantation cosplay. Booo all around.
She’s a 40 year old debutante.
“Look at me, Meghan! I can wear red, too! And no one’s gonna call me vulgar for having my hands in the pockets of my one-shouldered gown! Aren’t you just jealous?!”
Her hair usually looks pretty fabulous. These waves do nothing for her and somehow reduce the volume of her hair. Why would she switch up her signature style for a portrait? She never looks like this IRL. And she doesn’t exactly wear yoga pants IRL, so why not stay consistent?
The first photo is really bad. The photoshop and filter is out of control. It’s not flattering. I like the red dress, though.
The last one, side-profile: I hate it.
The middle photo: She looks nice in it, fuzzy filter and all. I don’t know how royal it is, but at least it’s a decent photo.