Meet Kate, Meghan’s online style superfans
What do an IT specialist from Nebraska, an eyelash technician from Alberta and a sales rep from Brooklyn, N.Y., have in common? They ’re the royal fashion superfans you never knew you were riveted by. If you’ve ever taken pause to wonder what Kate’s wearing, then you’re but one click away from a very comprehensive answer. Their social media accounts are obsessively updated for their thousands of followers every time a duchess leaves a palace.
Take recently, when grainy tabloid pictures were published of Meghan watching Harry compete in the Audi Polo Challenge. Within minutes, the editors of UFO (that’s Unidentified Fashion Object) No More, had tracked down the gingham Shoshanna dress — a discontinued style from last year — which Meghan was wearing.
“It’s like a social club from school,” says Laura Faurot, 25, the Omaha, Neb., IT specialist and coeditor of UFO No More, who puts her techy skills to use finding archived versions of web pages with which to identify the duchesses’ clothes.
While Faurot’s gateway to royal style obsession was fashion — she built up an encyclopedic knowledge from studying in her teens — her fellow bloggers tend to be what could only be described as purist royal fanatics.
“I started following and chronicling Kate Middleton back in 2010, and was just mesmerized by her glamorous life while dating Prince William,” says Janelle Nash, a 40-year-old from Scottsdale, Ariz., who runs her royal Instagram accounts full-time, styling herself head-to-toe in “repliKates” and “repliMeghans” (the art of copying a duchess look head to toe).
For others, the genesis of their hobby goes further back: “I became obsessed with Princess Diana when I was 10 years old,” offers New Yorker Sarah Miello of the Instagram account, @theroyalwatcher.
“I think my mother (Sharron) breastfed it to me,” muses Jami Molcak, the Edmonton eyelash technician with the Instagram account @royalteawithjam.
In an age where the Kardashians reign supreme as style influencers, what unites these royal superfans is their idealization of our duchesses as antidotes to the transient drama and shallow veneer of celebrity — even if Meghan was one, too, not so long ago.
“Kate and Meghan are worlds away from being mere celebrities,” says Nash.
For Nash, four to eight hours each day are spent scouring the internet for old items and looking at new pictures of the royals. It’s still a hobby at the moment (although some accounts have made a business from earning revenue from the links to items they post), but one which she takes very seriously. Known on Instagram as “The lady Nash,” she has more than 31,000 followers on her repliKate page and surpassed 17,000 followers on her repliMeghan page.
“My favourite find was when I tracked down Kate’s Temperley London ‘Odele’ coat while shopping at Bicester Village. They ’d just received the coat that morning and I was thrilled,” she says.
What toll does royal superfandom take? “My husband says it takes up too much time with no financial return,” says Molcak. “My children think it takes me away from them. But there is always another post that needs to be made. Somewhere we have found a happy medium — or they have just accepted my craziness.”