Meghan Markle, or, as she’s now officially titled, the Duchess of Sussex, made her first royal appearance on Tuesday, May 22, as she attended the Prince of Wales’ birthday party at Buckingham Palace.
After being the centre of attention for a good few days now, Meghan was probably looking forward to just being a relatively regular guest at her new father-in-law’s special day.
However, the lovely folk at Good Morning Britain got the ‘let’s subtly judge and criticise’ ball rolling with questioning Meghan’s decision to wear tights.
Exhibit A:
Makes your blood boil, doesn’t it. Does it?
Speaking on the show, reporter Louisa James suggested Meghan was falling in line with the other royals.
She said:
I think it’s all down to the fact that they all wear tights, don’t they.
We always see the Duchess of Cambridge wearing tights, the Queen does apparently not like bare legs, she doesn’t like bright coloured nail varnish and she doesn’t like short skirts, and Meghan was just ticking all those boxes.
Frustrated viewers and defenders of the Duchess were quick to respond.
Taking to Twitter, one wrote:
Why do you immediately presume she is ‘conforming’… maybe she just thought it looked good with her outfit… maybe she just wanted to wear tights?!!!
While another wrote:
Meghan has to wear a uniform for work, she was also told what to wear as an actress! She’s still a feminist.
Someone else added:
Oh dear here we go, let’s start interrogating the poor girl – I think she wore the Ivory Tights to match the Ivory see though sleeves on her dress… she was at a garden party and dressed the part – as simple as that – please – let’s not do this.
The actor Nick Frost tweeted:
It’s an interesting topic, so let’s dig in, shall we?
First up, Meghan was born and raised in Los Angeles. So, while we’re sweating our arses off in this streak of nice weather Britain is enjoying at the moment, it’d be pretty mild for a Californian and therefore very possible she just didn’t want to run the risk of feeling a bit chilly.
Secondly, the tights went with her outfit. The Duchess wore a pale pink dress that had sheer sleeves and the tights just matched. Co-ords.
Thirdly, as Good Morning Britain helpfully pointed out, Meghan usually foregoes tights. And while lots of people like to stick to styles they know, maybe she just wanted to change things up a bit. On the other hand, maybe she knew daytime TV presenters would be analysing her every move and she just wanted to give them something to talk about.
The event in question was Prince Charles’ 70th birthday party. Hold you horses though, I know what you’re gonna say, Prince Charles’ birthday is in November, the 14th to be exact, so why are they celebrating six months early?
Well, not ones to do things by halves, the royals like to celebrate such milestones as 70th birthdays with more than one bash. This early party was simply because May is a good time to have a garden party. There’ll be another party nearer his actual birthday for sure, which is good as I’m going to need a lot of time to plan my outfit, and garden parties play havoc with my hay fever.
I wonder what outrageous fashion choice Meghan will make next…
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Charlie Cocksedge is a journalist and sub-editor at UNILAD. He graduated from the University of Manchester with an MA in Creative Writing, where he learnt how to write in the third person, before getting his NCTJ. His work has also appeared in such places as The Guardian, PN Review and the bin.