Get the Regal look and embrace British brands and natural textiles in the process

The women of the Royal Family leading the charge for style with substance, natural fibres and a best of British wardrobe.

The French have long been admired for their sartorial edge, simplicity of style, and brands whose owners are the richest men in the land. Bonjour Messrs Pinault et Arnault. Their last Queen, Marie Antoinette, was feted as the epitome of French style. Her poofed up hair containing ships, birds, feathers and concoctions created by her hairdresser Léonard Autié, dresses that grew exponentially sideways changing the shape of chairs to rest upon, and silk shoes which nod to the V&A’s Manolo Blahnik x Marie Antoinette Style capsule collection exclusively for their exhibition open until March 20th, grab your tickets here.

Marie Antoinette in full French Court regalia

The Manolo Blahnik x Marie Antoinette capsule shoe collection.

I attended the V&A show opening and had a moment with designer Jeremy Scott, whose collections for Moschino heavily referenced Marie Antoinette.

With designer Jeremy Scott with his Moschino dress inspired by Marie Antoinette at the opening of Marie Antoinette Style at the V&A show opening.

Let’s not forget however both that Marie-Antoinette was not French, she was of course Austrian, and her stint as a milkmaid in muslin at Le Petit Trianon was her cosplaying a bucolic country life, with an English garden replete with a Belvedere folly and a Marlborough Tower. English life lensed as more natural, more wholesome, away from the suffocating rules of the French Court.

British style is based around two things: school uniforms - and how to break the rules. Think white socks when the school diktats state grey. And being what Plum Sykes termed ‘horse-adjacent’ in her recent Substack op-ed “How to be Old Money, Whoever You Are.” Translation: dressed for equestrian pursuits and all weathers dog walking. Involving mud, rain, wind, and zero sunscreen.

Grange Hill, BBC 1970’s.

The women of the British Royal Family have frequented international fashion house mood boards for years. And here lies the opportunity for the international fashion industry to move away from the luxury masquerading as fast fashion, merch market of logos on baseball caps (plain lazy), and the chaotic carousel of creative directors moving like football managers from job to job, with no re-evaluation of what substance with style means.