The Princess of Wales has these moments where she looks like a Disney villainess. Remembrance Sunday was one of those moments. The Princess of Wales made her second appearance of the weekend at the Cenotaph on Sunday, where she and Sophie, the Duchess of Edinburgh, watched the Remembrance wreath-laying from a balcony overlooking the Cenotaph. While I actually think high-neck, Victorian, “prim” looks generally suit Kate, I find this coat just a tad too fussy. I think it’s the combination of velvet trim AND the neck bow? She does love a military-style coat though, even if this is less “Sgt. Pepper” than she usually wears.
Kate once again chose “meaningful” jewelry as the highlight of her look. At the Festival of Remembrance on Saturday, Kate wore a pair of pearl earrings which belonged to Princess Diana. For Sunday’s Remembrance service, Kate wore a pair of earrings which were among Queen Elizabeth II’s favorite pieces. They’re the Bahrain pearl-and-diamond drop earrings, which apparently cost £30,000. They’re lovely. I assume that Kate got to wear something major from the Royal Collection because Queen Camilla skipped the service. Camilla, it seems, is still sick.
In yesterday’s post, there was a lot of conversation about whether Kate’s photos are airbrushed by photographers and photo agencies. It definitely happens at some of the most stage-managed events, but I also want to make another suggestion – the extreme discrepancies in how Kate looks in her few public appearances are an issue of lighting more than anything else. In softer, interior lighting, you can see the “adjustments” she’s had done but it looks more polished. In harsher, bleak daylight, you can see the work but you can also see that she looks exhausted.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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- Catherine, Princess of Wales watches from the Royal balcony as veterans and dignitaries gather at the Cenotaph for the national service of commemoration for those lost to war, November 10 2024.,Image: 932640711, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Editorial use, commercial use may require additional licenses. We don’t use AI to make images which could be mistaken for news photos. AI use will be clearly indicated. Supplied on condition you ensure personal data is processed in compliance with DPA2018, *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: Tony Kershaw / SWNS / Avalon
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- Catherine, Princess of Wales watches from the Royal balcony as veterans and dignitaries gather at the Cenotaph for the national service of commemoration for those lost to war, November 10 2024.,Image: 932641279, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Editorial use, commercial use may require additional licenses. We don’t use AI to make images which could be mistaken for news photos. AI use will be clearly indicated. Supplied on condition you ensure personal data is processed in compliance with DPA2018, *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: Tony Kershaw / SWNS / Avalon
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- Catherine, Princess of Wales watches from the Royal balcony as veterans and dignitaries gather at the Cenotaph for the national service of commemoration for those lost to war, November 10 2024.,Image: 932641286, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Editorial use, commercial use may require additional licenses. We don’t use AI to make images which could be mistaken for news photos. AI use will be clearly indicated. Supplied on condition you ensure personal data is processed in compliance with DPA2018, *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: Tony Kershaw / SWNS / Avalon
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- William, Prince of Wales joins veterans and dignitaries at the Cenotaph for the national service of commemoration for those lost to war, November 10 2024.,Image: 932641812, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Editorial use, commercial use may require additional licenses. We don’t use AI to make images which could be mistaken for news photos. AI use will be clearly indicated. Supplied on condition you ensure personal data is processed in compliance with DPA2018, *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: Tony Kershaw / SWNS / Avalon
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- Catherine, Princess of Wales watches from the Royal balcony as veterans and dignitaries gather at the Cenotaph for the national service of commemoration for those lost to war, November 10 2024.,Image: 932642107, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Editorial use, commercial use may require additional licenses. We don’t use AI to make images which could be mistaken for news photos. AI use will be clearly indicated. Supplied on condition you ensure personal data is processed in compliance with DPA2018, *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: Tony Kershaw / SWNS / Avalon
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- Catherine, Princess of Wales watches from the Royal balcony as veterans and dignitaries gather at the Cenotaph for the national service of commemoration for those lost to war, November 10 2024.,Image: 932644565, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Editorial use, commercial use may require additional licenses. We don’t use AI to make images which could be mistaken for news photos. AI use will be clearly indicated. Supplied on condition you ensure personal data is processed in compliance with DPA2018, *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: Tony Kershaw / SWNS / Avalon
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- Catherine, Princess of Wales watches from the Royal balcony as veterans and dignitaries gather at the Cenotaph for the national service of commemoration for those lost to war, November 10 2024.,Image: 932644571, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Editorial use, commercial use may require additional licenses. We don’t use AI to make images which could be mistaken for news photos. AI use will be clearly indicated. Supplied on condition you ensure personal data is processed in compliance with DPA2018, *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: Tony Kershaw / SWNS / Avalon
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- Catherine, Princess of Wales watches from the Royal balcony as veterans and dignitaries gather at the Cenotaph for the national service of commemoration for those lost to war, November 10 2024.,Image: 932644575, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Editorial use, commercial use may require additional licenses. We don’t use AI to make images which could be mistaken for news photos. AI use will be clearly indicated. Supplied on condition you ensure personal data is processed in compliance with DPA2018, *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: Tony Kershaw / SWNS / Avalon
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- Prince William, The Prince of Wales walks through in his military uniform. Politicians, including former Prime Ministers, are seen walking through Downing Street on the way to attending the Remembrance Sunday ceremony on Whitehall in Westminster.,Image: 932688517, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no, Credit line: IMAGEPLOTTER / Avalon
Can you imagine getting kudos for . . . picking out jewelry? The royals have really been reduced to toddlers and reality-tv freakshows.
And she’s not even the one doing it. The jeweler send them (at Camilla’s direction) and the dresser puts them in her ears.
Maybe she is mourning the death of her crappy marriage. Maybe she is mourning all that work and her youth for a crown her mother and her so dearly wanted. Those big bags under her eyes tell a very sad story. She has served her purpose. She provided and heir and a spare and her brood mare days are over.
I don’t think she’s a morning person.
Good one 😉😉😉
She looks like she has been crying, her name was also excluded from this years wreath which does the end of marriage rumours no favours.
Oohhh, interesting.
I don’t know if I’d read too much into that omission. She’s been such a hit-or-miss as far as appearances are concerned all year, so that may be the explanation for that.
Her name was there the last two years prior to this. And if Camilla can have a wreath place in her absence, they could have Kate sign a card. William placed his signature in the centre this year as opppsed to last year and the year before. This is intentional. They always try to show who is out of favour with the wreaths, as we recall they did it to Harry.
@Debbie – Even if Kate was unable to attend the wreath-laying ceremony at the Cenotaph, that card should have had Kate’s name on it as well as William’s. It’s a matter of etiquette and she is supposed to be his wife.
There is no etiquette in divorce negotiations. She got what she could out of them and Peg is moving forward without her.
@Susan Collins … Yes, those don’t look like ‘tired’ bags beneath her eyes to me either. Those look like “I’ve been sobbing for hours!” bags.
@Yvette. 🎯🎯
But Sophie looks even more vilain on these shots.
That hat is doing Sophie no favours
I think it’s a toss-up. They both look evil.
I disagree because it’s the heavily made up eyes for Kate that have her look like the evil queen in Snow White. Sophie is better with her makeup.
She looks very smug for a remembrance day service. Must be seeing her future as the senior royal female.
What has she had done? Botox? Fillers? Her cheeks look different but I’m not good at identifying why.
She does look exhausted – I have long covid and I’m very familiar with those puffy baggy dark ringed eyes. No amount of make up gets rid of them completely.
If you look at the unedited photos of her in Denmark she has the same puffy eyes. That was a few years ago. It’s more like some of the photographers just aren’t filtering out her flaws as much now.
Ah, that makes sense. Less photoshop. Maybe all the agencies have taken fright after the Mother’s Day debacle and aren’t retouching her photos any more.
To me, her face looks like that of an ordinary middle aged woman who hasn’t done much or anything in the way of plastic surgery. I thought I was just missing the signs.
I’m sure she gets lots of non-surgical treatments that most of us can’t afford to keep her skin looking good. But illness ages you, sometimes quite dramatically.
I can’t find evidence of plastic surgery (on anyone, not just Kate) to save my life. And although I’m sure Kate’s had some work done, I think her biggest issue is she doesn’t photograph well when she isn’t able to smile.
IMO she looks pretty much the same here as she did on Saturday night, except she wore slightly less makeup (and ditched the “glam” hair), but the fact that she needs to keep a straight face accentuates the lines around her mouth. I checked and you can still see the bags under her eyes in the photos from the concert, and I think if she’d been able to flash her enormous smiles at the cameras yesterday, we wouldn’t be noticing such a huge difference. Her smiles lift up those lines, and she must be so mad when she needs to pretend to be “somber.”
Yes, I think you’re right.
That slightly droopy mouth is one of the lovely things that happen to middle aged faces. Mine is going the same way. And smiling manically is the best way to hide it in photos.
Why is she giggling like a child at a remembrance service? How appalling. But she’s never had an ounce of class so unsurprising. Absolute trash.
To the extent that her pictures are photoshopped, as we’ve said before, it does her no favors. Here she looks exhausted and older, but would it be so shocking if she wasn’t obsessed with retouching and plastic surgery etc?
KP posted one of these pictures (or a similar one) on their social media yesterday and I was really surprised they did that considering how she looks here.
People were wondering why she looks great when her PR says she can’t work because of her illness. Probably that’s why they are spreading non-edited pics of her now.
I agree with @sevenblue. That’s the main reason why the do not edit all her pictures.. especially after the pro -cancer comment…they just need to justify her absence and William’s lack of work. Kate is vain enough about her appearance and probably wants the photoshop but KP pr team doesn’t want pictures of Kate glowing like the ones taken on Saturday because people might start to wonder why isn’t she working…
@becks1, agree that the discrepancy does her no favors in the long run. The difference in pictures was really bothering me yesterday. Today, I’m just Monday morning grumpy and more whatever about it😂. But I’m trying to question why it bothers me so much. And I think it’s just the propaganda and insistence that Kate never puts a step wrong or takes a bad photo wrong. She’s still the youthful pretty princess. It’s like she can’t be seen to mature in pictures even when it’s the reality. And she’s still a nice-looking woman who is just older.
@sevenblue and first comment, I’m not sure I agree that Kate wants these pictures of her looking more tired out there. That’s just how she looks and the photographers aren’t glossing it over. But idk maybe I’m wrong.
I didn’t make myself clear because English is not my first language: I agree with you that Kate doesn’t want pictures of her looking tired and exhausted..she’s always been vain about the way she looked (remember the refusal of botox and wiglets several years back?) It’s the only thing she cares about..But KP doesn’t want anyone doubting about Kate’s cancer because it’s the only excuse for Kate’s and William’s lack of work..that’s why they posted a non edit photo of Kate.
I think it bothers me because of the messages it sends to us peasants: she’s naturally beautiful so we must be hags then. Instead of keeping things honest it’s gaslighting us into thinking there’s something inferior about us. Women age, get ill, loose sleep and there’s nothing wrong with that! The extreme photoshopping and denial of any cosmetic procedures tells us that those “mortal” realities don’t apply to her.
Kate isn’t youthful anymore. Without photoshop she looks like a middle aged woman. And her vanity has prevented the real images (like the ones in Denmark) from being seen and so when they do show something closer to reality, they now assume it was the cancer. It’s not. In fact if you look at her Remembrance Day photos from last year, she actually looked worse. She’s has some fillers for this year, but that can only do so much.
Aging is going to happen and trying to keep up an image of not aging is a fruitless and failing endeavour. It’s also a horrible message to send to women, suggested they aren’t allowed to grow old. I know people rag on Camilla, and rightly so for many reasons, but she never went the route of extreme vanity and looks like someone in their late 70s. The Queen actually looked very good for her age, but she didn’t jack her face as she got older. She let her hair go gray and the wrinkles appear.
Yeah, aging in the public sucks. I think due to past photoshopping over the years, there wasn’t a gradual change if that makes sense. Honestly I feel for actresses or tv personalities that want to keep getting jobs and paid as they age. It’s gotten a little better I think? Since royalty is a case of not needing go out and find a new job to live and get paid, it feels different. But egos and vanity and aging are a tough thing when so much has been made about the superficial.
Kate is the epitome for “money can’t buy taste”
While I don’t agree with Coco Chanel’s politics, she was right when it comes to too many accessories. Apparently she said, “Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and take one thing off.”
Here it’s the bow. No idea who thought this might look good. The fake epaulettes could have stayed home too.
Plus the fascinator with flowers and netting, pick one or the other. This look from the waist up is so fussy and prissy but that does seem to be Kate’s style.
Omg @Nanea @Harla I was thinking the same:
She knew she’d be wearing a Remembrance pin, so why also the bow collar?
And dangly earrings…
And fussy netting fascinator.
Too much going on within a small area.
I am no Sophie fan but her interesting neckline is subtle enough to let the Remembrance day pin stand out.
Because at the end of the day, it’s not a fashion showcase, it is Remembrance day.
Kate doing the weird soldier cosplay is just a sign of her shallow and childish mentality. She has never served and she shouldn’t be playing pretend Barbie soldier. The bow at the structure collar is more little girl decoration for someone who doesn’t understand the purpose of a uniform. And since she was going to wear the poppies as it was, that collar should have stayed clean.
Kate looked almost exactly the same last year..remember her photo in Daily Fail? She looked like this two years ago during her visit in Denmark… I believe she looked like this for a long time and tried to hide it with procedures or having her pictures photoshopped… Something is definitely wrong with her health (possibly her mental health) that deteriorates her physical appearance…
She did look the same I agree, but honestly I think it is just the effects of aging. The puffy eyes are something people are born with.
My mother used to call those “botox eyes”. When the eyes are so dark, puffy and sunken you can’t make out what color they are in photos.
I don’t see the cosmetic plastic surgery, and I don’t understand why she would have left the bags and jowls if she had had something done for asthetic purposes. She appears to have a bruise/ bump on her left cheek.
The link to yesterday’s post shows her wearing Big Blue again (her hands don’t look healthy: circulation issues?), and now she’s been given access to the queen’s jewelry. This is for the first time in almost a year. Are they just looking to change the narrative, or has something changed behind the scenes?
Yeah, I feel like all our speculation based on behaviour is off the mark because we’re looking for logic or consistency, but maybe that’s it. Maybe it’s why she’s looked so miserable and unwell for years. Maybe she literally doesn’t know if she’s coming or going day to day, minute to minute. Maybe William and his father are so hot and cold and it changes on their whims of trying to make themselves look good.
I imagine that would take its toll. Kate is no shrinking violet but she also doesn’t have that much control. The only leverage she has is leaving/telling her story, but she and her family have also left themselves open to being destroyed in the media, so the leverage is iffy, honestly.
Everyone says “oh the royal family couldn’t handle more divorce” but it absolutely could, nobody cares that much.
“Maybe she literally doesn’t know if she’s coming or going day to day, minute to minute. ”
But she still had/has the energy, with her mother, husband & employees, to brief against Duchess Meghan. The hate train toward Meghan doesn’t stop and has never stopped even during the period when she claimed to have the Big “C”.
K doesn’t get enough credit for her acting skills. One minute she’s giggling and the next she’s stiff with sombre solemnity (so fitting for a future queen) or weak with exhaustion (obviously the reason she’s not back to full-time work). Fields of barley K really showed us the acting lengths she will go to in order to get her message across to the public.
The difference between Saturday night’s pictures at the Remembrance Service and Sunday morning’s events is absolutely staggering; she looks as if she was out on a bender the night before and hanging out her a**e the following morning.
She’s wearing big blue but her signature is omitted from the card attached to William’s wreath??
There’s something very wrong behind the scenes
I think it’s safe to say that Kate has the Bahrain jewelry on permanent loan since about 2017. So it’s nothing special that she wore them yesterday.
She can sure dull the shine of any jewelry piece, I don’t know why that is but I have noticed that.
@Hypocrisy – I’ve never thought Big Blue suited her, not like it did Diana.
A lot of her photos definitely are classic Snow White’s evil Queen flashbacks moments for me.. the “Mirror, Mirror 🪞” scenes come to mind. It fits so perfectly with her personality and what she did to Meghan I feel it’s deserved.
I think she looks lovely aside from looking exhausted. The dark eye makeup isn’t helping.
She always overdoes the makeup! You’d think someone would tell her that less is more. Can someone (other than Carole) show her how to apply eyeliner the proper way? Sophie looks much younger than Kate in these pics.
Her eyelids are literally wasting away
She has to use the dark eye makeup because her eyelids are terribly wrinkled
She even is smirking in one of the pictures
The problem for Kate is, she made friends with the enemy: she’s welcomed photo filtering for years and it’s come back to bite her. She is her real self -complete with unhelpful Middleton facial genes – when photos are rushed out at major events, such as this; taken in daylight; absent of huge amounts of flash or illuminating surfaces such as car windows (look at the difference between the balcony photos and the one of her in the car, getting to the event). People who say, “but she looked good the night before, it’s just she’s tired today or she’s been crying” etc really need to get to grips with unedited images. And there is no way she hasn’t had every intervention and tweakment going; her skin simply can’t work the treatment because it is poor quality. Does anyone ever recall her being touted as a great beauty before her engagement? No. It’s become myth and legend, and speaks to the need of the public for beautiful princesses. She’s a pleasant looking woman who’s looking old quite quickly. It must be a huge burden. I liked her outfit.
This was going to be inevitable because aging is a process you can’t win. Denying baby botox was always ridiculous because it’s clear she gets something done. It is just at this point that it is not enough. But when your image is Barbie princess, that makes aging rough.
She never had good skin to begin with. All those vacations in the sun, the severe dieting and the smoking seem to have come back to bite her. And you just know she compares her looks to her older but younger-looking sister-in-law every day.
There’s one thing contributing to her appearance not so far mentioned: alcohol.
When Mrs. Wails’s official portrait for the National Portrait Gallery was done a couple of years after her wedding, the artist got dragged for making her look “old” by including wrinkles and sagging. I recall thinking that he just painted her as he saw her. The tanning/smoking/dieting lifestyle was already starting to catch up back then. It’s just that the general public had no clue because of all the regular photoshopping. The CB post on it might be in the archives.
The addition of the velvet bow is infantile. And will new commenters stop with the whole she had cancer? 1. Her husband said precancerous. 2. Cancer does not make you a better person nor should it act as a shield for bad behavior/intentions.
Thank you for your valid points. Especially #2.
Kate was horrible to Meghan and had “concerns” about how dark unborn Archie would be. So KKKhate gets zero grace from me.
Besides most of the comments say she looked the same last year before the preventative chemo.
Yes, so many new “but but but Kate had cancer!” posters in here, which is extra silly given that they just said she only actually had pre-cancerous cells. You can tell the RR/RF is scrambling and fighting for their lives when they wind up trying out different lines of reasoning and response on CB.
Personally, I think Kate looked bad yesterday because she always looks terrible in black. I don’t know why they think we’d buy that she’d been crying or whatever…what are they trying to say, that she’d been up all night weeping over the Battle of the Somme or something? That’s ridiculous.
At this point it’s frustrating to watch because the queen and her team used to be so much better at PR. They never should have used the cancer lie as an explanation for her not working this year. And now everybody is noticing that she didn’t sign the wreath. And that’s ridiculous–are you telling me that it didn’t occur to them to even have somebody forge her signature on that thing just to keep the ball rolling and keep the visuals aligned? What kind of insane messaging is happening with these people? It’s funny, but not haha funny.
Please stop defending or finding excuses for this WHITE woman who can do no wrong according to BM. She & her family purposely choose this life. She us well off than 99% of Britains even in illness. She has several houses to live seperate daily life from her husband if she wants. She has huge domestic & work staff do all things for her & she doesn’thave to work to pay their salary. She has the best & swift medical care than ordinary NHS patients. She can get out of her marriage if it makes her so miserable, as long as she keeps her mouth zipped she will be fine because she’s the mother of future Monarch.
I don’t think there’s any deep meaning in KP posting un-super-retouched photos. They tend to do that on the Cenotaph Sunday services. They did that last year. And most photographers did not bother to retouch pictures from this events probably because: 1. It’s an outdoor event, the quality of pictures greatly depends on weather. 2. The balcony is very far up, it’s hard to get high pixels photos. 3. It’s a live broadcasting event, they need to get the pictures out ASAP. 4. Doing heavy photoshopping or retouching at this sobered event seems disrespectful?
P.S. My empathy & sympathy died for “bad” people after the 2924 election. Illness does not make you get a pass, especially when you’re still doing despicable things to black people while you’re sick.
Correction:
she *was” well off
*2024* election
It sure *feels* like it should be 2924. It seems like this nightmare has been going on forever.
They look miserable.
Serious question to those in the UK: is there any significance to William wearing a blue suit under his coat? The others appear to be dressed as if in deep mourning, so it seems a bold choice in a sea of black suits and dresses. Is this a military thing?