Can you wear shades to meet the Queen?
Anna Wintour kept her sunglasses firmly in place during her recent brush with royalty. Matthew Bell examines the etiquette
Had the music not been blaring at Richard Quinn’s catwalk show, the gasps would have been heard in space. Anna Wintour, queen of fashion, met Her Majesty the Queen on Tuesday – but did not take off her sunglasses. A punchy act of defiance, or an appalling breach of etiquette?
The official protocol is that there is no protocol. Guidance offered by the royal household states: “There are no obligatory codes of behaviour when meeting the Queen or a member of the Royal family, but many people wish to observe the traditional forms. For men this is a neck bow (from the head only), while women do a small curtsy. Other people prefer simply to shake hands in the usual way.”
This was the option Wintour plumped for. But what about those shades? “I personally think you should take your sunglasses off, whoever you’re talking to,” says author and royal historian Hugo Vickers. As for not curtsying, the Queen couldn’t care less, he says. “She has many more important things to worry about than whether people curtsy or not.”
Historically, it is wrong to touch the monarch, a tradition that dates back to the plague and the days when kings were killed by bare bodkins. That protocol seems to have been relaxed in recent years, as the royal website no longer states (as it used to) that members of the Royal family “should not be touched in a manner that goes beyond a formal handshake”. Michelle Obama breached that rule in 2009 when she touched the Queen’s back, as have various over-excited statesmen from across the Commonwealth, such as David Johnston, the Canadian governorgeneral, last year, and Australian prime ministers Paul Keating in 1992 and John Howard in 2000.
When it comes to conversation, the rule is that you don’t make the opening gambit, but wait for the Queen to lead. The palace does sometimes send missives out with suggestions on how to behave ahead of a meeting, but no absolute conditions are ever imposed.
The Queen may not mind about curtsies, but her sister did. Princess Margaret expected to be treated with deference wherever she went, even at the beach. “If you were staying with her on Mustique, the tradition was that you would curtsy first thing in the morning and last thing at night,” says Vickers. “Some people were forever curtsying to her, even when they bumped into her in the sea.”
Theoretically, members of the public are expected to bow or curtsy to anyone who carries an HRH or HM title. This also extends to lesser members of the Royal family, such as Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie, although the younger generation expects less. “Lots of them like to be addressed by their Christian names,” Vickers notes. The younger royals, such as Princes William and Harry, even have nicknames like “Wales”, though you have to be entrenched firmly within the inner circle to enjoy the privilege of using them.
According to Mary Killen, etiquette columnist for The Spectator and author of How the Queen Can Make You Happy, protocols exist to make life easier, not to trip us up. “Unlike the Chinese aristocracy, the British have never allowed themselves to be bedevilled by customs, rituals and ceremonies,” she says. “Etiquette plays no part in the civility of which the Queen is the embodiment.”
The sunglasses remain a sticking point, though. “Lord Lambton had an eye condition that required him to wear sunglasses even indoors. Maybe Anna Wintour has something similar?” ventures Killen. However, in an interview with the US television show 60 minutes, Wintour revealed that she wears them as a mask. “They are seriously useful,” she said. “I can sit in a show and, if I am bored out of my mind, nobody will notice… At this point, they have become, really, armour.”
Some of the most grievous breaches of royal etiquette were executed by Cherie Blair during her 10 years in Downing Street. When, on one occasion, she refused to curtsy to the Queen at Balmoral, the Queen Mother was overheard saying: “Stiff knees, she must have stiff knees.” And who can forget the pictures of Millennium Eve, when
When it comes to conversation, the rule is, don’t make the opening gambit
the Queen was forced to hold hands with Tony Blair and sing Auld Lang Syne? She did not cross her arms, and did not look amused.
Which brings us to the nub of the issue. Anyone who admires and respects the Queen would want to make her comfortable. Even within her own family, other royals curtsy or bow to her as a mark of respect, as do fellow European monarchs.
As for Wintour, she did manage to remove her sunglasses when she was made a dame by the Queen at Buckingham Palace last year. The editor-in-chief of US Vogue is known as “Nuclear Wintour” in some circles, because of her haughty froideur, but it seems unlikely that she deliberately snubbed Her Majesty this week. She did, after all, manage a smile.