Call it the battle over blue: apparently, as Marie Claire has reported on in the past, every (well, at least many) female senior royal likes wearing the color blue, and, according to Tatler, Queen Camilla’s dresser Jacqui Meakin has “slowly released her grip on who can wear the color blue” at the same time as the Queen, the outlet reports.
Meakin has “relaxed” the rules on who can wear a similar hue to the Queen during royal engagements “after encountering problems with other stylists over the color blue,” the publication reports.
Both the Princess of Wales and the Duchess of Edinburgh are also said to love wearing the shade.
As the most senior woman in the royal family, Camilla is able to choose her outfits before others, The Daily Express reports, and Meakin initially “ruffled a few feathers” at Buckingham Palace being too strict about who else could wear Camilla’s favored blue alongside her.
Now, though, Meakin is “allowing women to wear the color blue at the same time as the Queen—as long as it is a different shade,” Tatler writes.
Meghan Markle gave some insight into royal dressing protocol in her (and Prince Harry’s) 2022 Netflix docuseries, Harry & Meghan, when she said that she made the decision to “tone down” the colors in her wardrobe: “Most of the time I was in the U.K., I rarely wore color,” she said. “To my understanding, you can’t ever wear the same color as Her Majesty [Queen Elizabeth] if there’s a group event, but then you also shouldn’t be wearing the same color as one of the other more senior members of the family.”
She added “I wore a lot of muted tones, but it was also so I could just blend in. I’m not trying to stand out there. There was no version of me [that was] joining this family and trying not to do everything I could to fit in. I don’t want to embarrass the family.”
Her late Majesty used to “always wear one color, because she feels that if people are queuing for many hours just to see her, the courtesy she should show them makes it so they can see her,” royal author Sali Hughes told Good Morning America (per OK). “Those in the audience will be able to pick her out and say they saw the Queen.”
She added “Whatever the Queen is going to wear, everyone works around that—not because she rules with an iron fist, but because the monarch has final say,” Hughes said. “She wouldn’t approve their outfits, but they would know what the Queen will wear.”
These days, as protocol continues to adapt after the death of the late Queen in September 2022, Camilla’s “favorite color is blue, and so is Kate’s,” a source said. “Sophie is also quite fond of it.”
After some shakeup, there seems to be a compromise reached that works with all parties as far as the color choice: “In the end, it all became a bit comical, with all the ladies seeing the funny side,” they said.
