The Duchess of Kent has much to teach us about ageless chic
The quiet royal, who turns 89 this week, is living proof that understated style is timeless.
There’s appropriate. There’s smart. There are lessons learnt from studying the many pictures of oneself that are an inevitable part of a royal’s existence. And then there is that certain je ne sais quoi, or magic, that makes someone innately stylish. Without it, the first three can look staid and predictable.
Katharine Kent, as she prefers to be known, has style in spades, which is all the more fascinating because she is such a retiring person. Like the Duchess of Cambridge, she always manages to look as though she’s delighted to be wherever she is. Lesson one: a smile is a much underestimated style asset. It looks charming when you’re young. But when you’re old, it keeps your face from collapsing.
Sweet but poised, even in early photographs where there are echoes of the youthful Grace Kelly in her dainty, blonde beauty and gracefulness, the Duchess favours simple, uncluttered necklines. For her wedding in 1961 – a starry occasion attended by Noël Coward and Douglas Fairbanks Jr – she wore 273 metres of silk gauze designed by John Cavanagh – a regal, highnecked, slender bodiced dress that has withstood the test of time. Lesson two: every era has its gems and its duds. The former always feature a strong silhouette and zero fussiness; home in on those.
The Duchess is a walking academy of style lessons, blending a minimalist appreciation of clean lines with flamboyant touches such as feathers or contrasting piping. Lesson three: classic should never be dull and can even be playful. Like her mother-in-law, Princess Marina of Kent, who featured on every best-dressed list in the 1930s and 1940s, Katharine, Duchess of Kent has clearly always enjoyed wearing elegant, tailored, fashionable clothes. Her daughter, Lady Helen Taylor, also cultivates a simple, minimalist style, less structured than her mother’s, and more flowing, reflecting fashion. Lady Helen was, for years, an Armani ambassador, while her mother bought from established British designers such as John Cavanagh and Hardy Amies.
Yet despite dressing with a similar flair to Jackie Kennedy, and as impeccably as The Queen, the Duchess of Kent never sought the spotlight. Perhaps that’s why she is still held in deep affection despite rarely appearing in public. Brits tend not to like a show-off. But they do like a royal to look as though they’ve made an effort, although one must never give the impression one is vain. Lesson four: invest in quality designs that can be tweaked over the years.
Although seemingly reserved, the Duchess is not short on empathy. In a rare interview in 2016, she reflected on the moment after the women’s singles final at Wimbledon in 1993 when Jana Novotná broke down in tears after losing the match to Steffi Graff. The Duchess jettisoned royal tradition to place a comforting arm around the Czech player. “That’s what you do when people are crying,” she
explained. “We are quite normal people. We do hug people who cry. It is a natural reaction.”
Somehow her warmth comes across in her clothes: they tend to be demure and tailored, but always in soft, approachable colours with a surprising amount of white, which emphasises her almost ethereal blondeness. Lesson five: while professional stylists and image consultants can be extremely helpful, work out what you like before seeing one. It’s their job to refine your preferences, not invent a whole new identity that may not feel authentic.
The Duchess, who is married to the Queen’s first cousin, Edward, Duke of Kent, began withdrawing from public life in the 1990s. She converted to Catholicism in 1994, the first member of the Royal family to do so since the Act of Settlement in 1701. By the late 1990s she had taken up a role as a music teacher at a primary school where she was simply known as Mrs Kent and no one ever bothered her. There was presumably enough drama going on elsewhere in The Firm.
Even now, when she has been ill and is clearly frail, every time the Duchess appears in public, it’s always in a lovely dress, and with a flourish. If anything, the older she gets, the more sartorially daring she has become. Her hats are borderline Beaton-esque at times. And she clearly keeps an eye on contemporary designers. In 2018 the Duchess wore a long floral Erdem dress to Harry and Meghan’s wedding – the Duchess of Cambridge later wore the same style when she attended an evening reception at the Chelsea Flower Show. Lesson six : whatever your age, don’t let it dent your enjoyment of fashion.
The Duchess’s love of music runs as deep as her love of her family. She has three living children, Lady Helen, George, Earl of St Andrews – whose wife, Sylvana, lectures, sans title, at Cambridge University (their daughter Lady Amelia Windsor is an ambassador to several brands) – and Lord Edward Windsor.
But fashion remains, as it always has been, a creative outlet for her, as well as a way of expressing her respect for the people she meets in public and the events that she has always enhanced with her presence.