Apple of our eyes in vivid green
SO OFTEN older women make the mistake of reaching for beige, taupe and any other nondescript hue that will help them blend into the background.
Not so for the Queen, who chose a bold neon green outfit by Stewart Parvin for yesterday’s milestone Trooping the Colour – celebrating both her 90th birthday and the fact she is now Britain’s longest-serving sovereign.
Within minutes of Her Majesty’s appearance, the bold choice of colour was being commented on. Hashtags #neonat90 and #highvishighness swept social media, as others worked out the exact Pantone she was wearing – #75e41b, for the record. Or, put another way, the exact green used by Apple for the text message iPhone icon.
But such a millennial reaction perhaps misses the poignancy of the Queen’s outfit choice.
“I have to be seen to be believed,” she once famously said. And a colourful wardrobe – one that means she can be seen even from the cheap seats – plays a key role in fulfilling this mantra.
In 2012 British magazine published a graphic tracking the bold spectrum of colour the Queen wore across the course of a year. The results were illuminating: 29 per cent blue, 13 per cent pink and 11 per cent green.
According to her personal dresser Angela Kelly, the Queen will never wear green if she’s set to be photographed against a lawn or woodland; but it’s the colour she turned to when touching down in Dublin on her landmark visit to Ireland in 2011.
That highly logical, very formulaic attitude towards clothes – and the sophisticated understanding of their power – is no doubt what was behind the Queen’s bold block colour yesterday, too.
There aren’t many people – let alone 90-year-olds – who can pull off neon green with such aplomb.
As for the rose-pink lipstick – at 90 that’s really rather daring and suggests that Her Majesty, often thought to be uninterested in fashion, derives considerable pleasure from shaping her look, and from the pleasure it gives others.