Emma puts her foot in it at the Palace ... twice!
Luvvie queen wears trainers AND tries to plant a smacker on prince
SHE’S never been one for sticking to the rules of etiquette.
So it was hardly a surprise when Emma Thompson flouted convention not once but twice on a visit to Buckingham Palace yesterday.
First, she wore white vegan trainers rather than formal footwear with her teal trouser suit as she received her damehood from Prince William. Then, after shaking hands with the prince, the actress, 59, cheekily asked for a kiss. He politely declined.
After the ceremony, Dame Emma explained: ‘ I love Prince William, I’ve known him since he was little, and we just sniggered at each other.
‘I said, “I can’t kiss you, can I?”. And he said, “No, don’t”. If you’re first up you have to be more formal on such an occasion, but he’s looking wonderful and doing so well.
‘He said, “This day isn’t about me, it’s about you”. It’s really lovely because I’ve always loved the boys [William and Harry] and I’ve always been a long-term correspondent with their dad, it’s a very lovely feeling.’
Dame Emma was accompainied to the Palace by her husband Greg Wise, 52, and their children Gaia, 18, and Tindyebwa Agaba, 31, a Rwandan orphan they adopted in 2003.
There are no rules for what to wear at the Palace, although it is suggested that women wear dresses.
Even so, Dame Emma’s smart suit by Stella McCartney would have raised few eyebrows. Her choice of footwear, however, quickly became a talking point.
The trainers are also by Stella McCartney and cost around £235.
Crafted from a vegan leather substitute, the trendy Stella McCartney x Adidas Stan Smith sneakers matched the pair worn by the Duchess of Sussex in New Zealand’s Abel Tasman National Park last week during her Commonwealth tour with Prince Harry, guaranteeing the brand benefits from the ‘Meghan Markle effect’.
Dame Emma, who won a Best Actress Oscar for Howard’s End and an Adapted Screenplay Oscar for Sense And Sensibility, is known for her disdain for formal footwear and has even kicked off her high heels on the red carpet.
But her choice of vegan trainers was not her only politically correct fashion statement of the day.
In a third brush with convention, alongside her Remembrance Day poppy she wore a Fawcett Society lapel badge demanding equal pay for women. The society campaigns for women’s rights and Dame Emma said the establishment needs more ‘outspoken’ representatives. ‘I’m very outspoken, politically, I’m a card-carrying feminist, human rights advocate, so good for them, because the establishment need more people who can speak up for those things,’ she said.
Dame Emma said she was keen to use her damehood – an award which she has described as ‘a really nice badge’ – to draw attention to issues including holiday hunger, a term used for children who go hungry during the school holidays.
‘This is a very rich country with hundreds of thousands of children who don’t get enough to eat,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry, but that’s just rubbish. I’m going, “Why isn’t this top of the list?”. We have kids begging in schools for leftover food, that’s just awful.’