Clothing conveys class and status. At Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral in September, Prince Andrew, embroiled in a scandal in which he was stripped of his military titles, was barred from wearing traditional ceremonial military uniforms. As Duchess of Sussex Meghan revealed in her Netflix documentary Harry and Meghan, during the reign of Elizabeth II, members of the royal family weren’t allowed to wear the same colors as the Queen at public events. The clothes even visibly defied them when they were in motion.
So it’s also important when the estranged prince declares that he’s never cared much about clothes.
Prince Harry’s new book, Spare, made headlines this week with a revealing account of his life as an unfit royal. says. (Subsidiary of American TJ Maxx, renamed slightly to avoid confusion with existing UK retailer TJ Hughes).Harry too When he was a student at Eton College, he was often frantically late for class, thanks to his elaborate school uniform, and grew up asking him to change his shoes if he continued to wear them. “As a general rule, I didn’t think about clothes. I basically didn’t believe in fashion, and I didn’t understand why anyone would do that,” he said. “Writers flagged pictures of me and wondered why my pants were so long and my shirt rumpled. … not very princely, they would say.
Arguably, men in the British royal family face no more pressure than their female counterparts to look perpetually chic. I have spezart suit. Charles III has a reliable double breast. Even Prince William, whose personal style is relatively conservative, made his linen shirt signature for the summer.
By contrast, who among us can recall the details of Any One of the costumes Prince Harry chose to wear in public, besides his Nazi military Halloween costume Famous for getting him into trouble in 2005? Compared to his royal kin, Harry’s clothing choices seem almost unremarkable—a visual signal that he sees himself as different from his family? And lately, it seems to be another sign that he won’t join the tradition of letting clothes do the talking.
On the Spare press tour, and for that matter over the last few years, Prince Harry’s wardrobe has been remarkably subdued, lacking many eye-catching touches for both good and bad varieties. The blog, What Meghan Wore, which tracked Harry’s wife’s wardrobe choices and informed consumers about where they could purchase identical or similar items, now operates primarily on her Instagram. increase. But that website still has a page called “What Harry Worn”. Contrasting Meghan’s Manolo with his Blahnik and his bespoke Louis Vuitton, this near-comical page features the affordable, bland Everlane shirt Prince Harry wore in the late 2010s, from Adidas. Gazelle his sneakers, Seven his Forall his Mankind chinos are listed.
In the years since Harry and Meghan “retired” from royal duties and moved to the United States, Harry’s rebellious and normcore tendencies have become more pronounced. Later that week on “Good Morning America” and “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” Harry wore a neat gray suit and a black crew-neck sweater over a white Oxford shirt. (Unlike his father and brothers, who tend to wear ties in their television appearances, Harry never wore a tie.)
In “Harry & Meghan,” released last month, Harry sits down for an interview, wearing a cotton crewneck and long-sleeve polo without logos (both black). In smartphone footage captured at the Sussex couple’s home in coastal Montecito, Harry dressed in a completely nondescript outfit while walking his dog, working on his laptop, and kicking a football. wearing. Rolling a ball (sorry, football) with his son on his shoulder.
“If you’re looking for a fashion statement, look elsewhere in my family,” Harry’s outfits always seemed to say. Recently, they added, “Really. I’m a regular California dad now.” It looks like many other men.
Of course, Harry is no ordinary California dad.But by dressing that way, he almost number Harry creates the ideal conditions for a book like “Spare” to achieve its goals. It’s finally, as he told Colbert on Tuesday night, “delivering the other side of the story, 38 years later.”
In an interview, Harry emphasized that in his family, whose motto is “never complain, never explain,” the traditional way of getting the message across is indirect. Rather than telling the truth directly to the press, members of the royal family may plant stories with unnamed sources or leak them through the press. The book itself shows Harry’s rejection of that tradition. “I am the source of the book,” he told Colbert. “Rather than hiding behind unnamed sources, these are my words from my mouth.”
In other words, Harry’s wardrobe choices succeed in ensuring that his clothing isn’t a story. Instead, his story remains a story.
