It's OK for intellectual feminists to like fashion

The duchess of Cambridge’s difficult first trimester has provided a welcome change to the usual celebrity pregnancy discourse and has highlighted hyperemesis gravidarum, a little-known debilitating illness.

We have gotten used to magazines focusing on pregnancy glow, to actresses explaining how being pregnant was the best time of their lives and to models dispensing tips on bouncing back to their pre-pregnancy body, putting unnecessary pressure on expectant mothers who don’t have household staff, don’t have personal trainers and can wonder why their pregnancy is different from what is presented as the norm.

Rushed to the hospital on Monday for hyperemesis gravidarum, an illness most people had never heard of until then, the duchess of Cambridge reminded everyone pregnancy isn’t always picture perfect and can be dangerous. Medicine has taken the livelihood risk out of expecting in most of the Western hemisphere but it hasn’t always been the case, and still isn’t in too many countries.

According to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, 350 000 women died from pregnancy-related conditions in 2008. In 2010, the UK had a maternal mortality ratio, defined by CIA - The World Factbook as “the annual number of female deaths per 100,000 live births from any cause related to or aggravated by pregnancy or its management”, of 12, nearly 100 times less than Chad or Somalia.

Hyperemesis gravidarum is one pregnancy-related illness which can result in death. Contemporary stats on the topic are hard to find but in the 1930s, hyperemesis gravidarum is thought to have caused 159 deaths per million births, a number which dropped to 3 deaths per million births in the 1950s (1) in the United Kingdom.

Nowadays, the cost of hyperemesis gravidarum has become economic rather than demographic. The illness can decrease job efficiency and force women to take sick days which, considering many country and company policies towards pregnancy isn’t ideal. It also impacts relationships and heightens the risk of prenatal depression, according to the HER Foundation, an American “grassroots network of hyperemesis gravidarum (HG) survivors”.

In other words, it sucks. Those difficulties are likely not improved by the many people thinking women suffering from hyperemesis gravidarum should just get a grip, a feeling echoed in too many op-eds, tweets and other benevolent online comments on the duchess this week.

The royals are at their strongest highlighting causes society doesn’t care about yet: prince Charles and organic food, princess Diana and HIV/AIDS patients in the 1980s… This is just what the duchess of Cambridge unwillingly did this week, giving in the process a voice to an unglamourous cause and force-educating the public on the topic. Nearly every media outlet has published heartfelt and at times horrific accounts of hyperemesis gravidarum by women and their partners alongside explanation of the illness. I wouldn’t be surprised if the duchess was asked to become patron of a UK association highlighting the risks inherent to pregnancy.

Since arriving on the public scene nearly ten years ago, Catherine has been nothing but dutiful. Her pregnancy isn’t just producing a new heir for the monarchy, it is highlighting a condition thousands of women suffer from the world round, which is exactly what she is meant to do as wife of the future king.

All photos from Defence Images, the Ministry of Defence brilliant Flickr account

(1) numbers from Misc.medscape.com, retrieved 06 December 2012.

Posted at 5:26pm and tagged with: Royal Family, health, pregnancy, magazine writing,.

September 2nd 2012

First Person: How I Moved to London

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Friday 31 August marked the ninth anniversary of my move to London. I was 17 and realising my dream by spending my last year of high school in a foreign land, living amongst people whose language and customs represented a struggle. Some people say it was brave, I think it was foolhardy. I had no idea what to expect, let alone that nine years on, I’d still be living in London.

I moved to England on 31 August, which in my personal mythology is quite significant. Even though I had started learning English a couple years before, I only realised in earnest England existed when princess Diana died. A British couple was staying at our house, and I couldn’t understand why the event made them laugh whereas the telly broadcast interview after interview of their crying compatriots, analysis of why the country was losing its legendary phlegm and questions over the survival of the monarchy. Great-Britain was a monarchy! As a 12 year-old French pupil, my idea of the monarchy was Loire Castles and François I, Henri IV’s chicken for all and Louis XIV building Versailles. Not a constitutionally-defined institution, and certainly not one which would have survived in the 20th century.

So to understand, I started reading books on the Royal Family, then and now, in a voracious, non-discerning manner. Trust me, that’s a lot of crap writing. Around the same time, I discovered Harry Potter. The common point between books on the Windsors and JK Rowling’s is that they were published in English before being translated, giving me no choice but to learn the language quickly. It was a matter of understanding, which for me has always been synonymous with survival.

Fast forward to 2002. I was still obsessed with England, had taken a few short trips to the country and Jersey and more importantly was bored in my local high-school. Which is when I read an interview with Jodie Foster (likely in ELLE) about how she’d gone to a French Lycée in New York. Some random Internet search taught me there was one in London, that it was one of the best French schools across the world (France included) and that it ran a program of scholarships for teenagers living in France but wanting to study in a different country. Oh and the deadline to apply was a week from that day.

I got in, and that’s how I moved to London.

Posted at 1:25pm and tagged with: first person, london, Royal Family, Harry Potter,.

March 11th 2012

Exhibition review: Queen Elizabeth II by Cecil Beaton

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With Queen Elizabeth II by Cecil Beaton, the Victoria & Albert museum put together a one dimensional exhibition which, though charming and enticing, lacks depth. Five sections chronicle the collaboration between British photographer Beaton and three generations of Royals and introduce the visitor to his character and career.

In real life, these beautiful, well-known photographs have a real pull and depth of detail but the chronological angle is rather flat. Curator Susanna Brown could have added analysis by showing how Beaton evolved the tradition of royal portraiture or how he’s influenced the current generation of royal photographers. Or she could have explored how his talent for, in Queen Mum’s own words, “producing” the royals as “really quite nice and real people”, choosing to go from romantic, formal poses displaying the traditional attributes of power to casual family portraits has changed the way we perceive the Windsors. Did Beaton open the communication can of worms or was he merely following and feeding the growing public appetite for seeing the Royals as one of us?

In a testament to Beaton’s talent for allowing a glimpse at the behind-the-scenes of royal life, it’s impossible not to want to know more about his creative process and the strategy behind his pictures. Besides a letter from the Queen Mum, there’s barely a royal correspondence in sight, leaving much of the relationship between the photographer and his subjects to imagination. The exhibition is told from the single, biased viewpoint of the gushing, sometimes anxious quotes from Beaton’s diaries on how well each and every shoot went. For a museum which has accustomed regulars to interactive exhibitions pulling from a range of media, the mere three short documentaries on display are disappointing. Seeing in real life some of dresses, jewels and backdrops pictured would also have added relief to the portraits.

After its stint at the V&A, the exhibition will be touring the country and the Commonwealth to celebrate the Queen’s Jubilee, in keeping with the original aim of the photographs, described by Brown as “PR, not family portraits”. This is an exhibition to the monarch’s glory, with no nuance. Fitting in a Jubilee year but it nonetheless leaves the visitor wanting more. Beaton depicts a vanilla, pre-Diana-Camilla royal family, a carefully orchestrated comm exercise difficult to swallow after years of tabloid headlines.

Pictures from the V&A website: Queen Elizabeth II with her Maids of Honour by Cecil Beaton (Gelatin silver print, 2 June 1953, Museum no. PH.1530-1987); Queen Elizabeth II & Prince Andrew by Cecil Beaton (Gelatin silver print, Buckingham Palace, March 1960, Museum no. PH.1806-1987)

Queen Elizabeth II and Cecil Beaton at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, until 22 April 2012

Posted at 9:52am and tagged with: exhibition review, victoria and albert museum, Royal Family,.

December 29th 2011

Twelve reasons to look forward to 2012

1 - McQ and Stella McCartney coming back to London Fashion Week

Since Burberry made the move back and under Harold Tilman stewardship, London Fashion Week (LFW) has been gathering momentum. All major fashion editors now attend LFW, rather than hoping from New York to Milan, even though recent scheduling problems might have something to say to that. Showing in London will be a comeback to their roots for both the Alexander McQueen diffusion brand McQ and Olympic team tailor Stella McCartney. Both brands have a strong British identity and Britishness has become a marketing USP. With even Kanye West rumoured to join the capital, cool Britannia is regaining its pedigree. Will Alexander McQueen be next to join?

2 - A new designer at Dior and John Galliano’s future

The 2011 fashion year started with a bang with Galliano’s dismissal and ensuing conspiracy theories. Rumours after rumours have given everyone from Marc Jacobs to Raf Simons at Dior, to the extent not being named as a potential designer was a bad sign of your credential in the business. Is the job cursed? Is the house enjoying seeing its name pop up on social platforms too much to make a decision? Can Dior release another collection without proper artistic direction? Could Franca Sozzani get her wish of seeing Galliano reinstated? Is Sidney Toledano making a conscious decision to mark the end of the designer superstar?

As for Galliano, the moment backers decide he is once again a sound investment, I have little doubt he’ll find a new designer position. The industry is already being nice to him, his Internet ranking is on the rise and memory fades at the prospect of money.

3 - The Arab spring going into its second year

I spent some of the best days of my life in Cairo three summers ago. The city was nothing I’d experienced before. I’d been warned about the smell and the noise and that I would hate it but I ended up loving it because of its smell and noise and because it had an identity of its own, so different from all the European cities I was used to. Back at the LSE, I took a course on Nasser and Arab Nationalism which turned out to be the best of my third year. Watching a country fight for its future is very different if you’ve been there and if you know its history than if TV is your only link with it.

On a fashion-related note - the textile industry represents a significant part of the Egyptian GDP, not just as Egyptian cotton but also as clothing factories. The ongoing unrest, the lack of democratic resolution despite the elections and the role of the military and Muslim Brotherhood could mean rising prices on the long term, especially in the UK, the main European Union market for Egyptian apparel and home textiles.

4 - Presidential elections in France and the USA

April and November will be key electoral months in France and the United-States with Presidents Sarkozy and Obama running for reelection. Will France go against the European trend and elect François Hollande, the left candidate everyone dismissed as a joke two years ago? Will Obama’s West Wing-reminiscent administration loose the White House to the Tea Party? Even though the Carla/Michelle effect doesn’t translate in sales as well as the Kate effect, I hope any first lady taking over would have as much fashion taste. As for the fashion repercussions of new elections, they are more likely to be found on price tags following tax choices than in terms of policies. Despite fashion’s importance in the economy, the current economic situation puts us years away from making the craft a priority.

5 - The Artist released in UK cinemas

If you grew up in France in the 1990s, you might take the buzz surrounding The Artist and Jean Dujardin’s mute performance with a pinch of disbelief. Jean Dujardin will forever be Loulou, of 1 gars 1 fille, a long-lived, short-format sitcom about the triviality of a couple’s daily life. Seeing a full page dedicated to Dujardin in US Vogue is somewhat surprising, the possibility of his Oscar nomination difficult to fathom. Not that his acting doesn’t deserve it but because no one would have predicted him this kind of career. Jean Dujardin is the French George Clooney, from ER to The Ides of March.

6 - Another royal year

An exhibition dedicated to the Queen’s portraits at the Victoria & Albert Museum! New Diana, Princess of Wales dresses on display at Kensington Palace! The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations! Many new Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge outfits! The Royals on display for a month of Olympic joy! Another four day bank holiday weekend!

Queen Elizabeth II by Cecil Beaton, A Diamond Jubilee Celebration; at the Victoria & Albert Museum 8 February - 22 April

7 - Aaron Sorkin back on TV with The Newsroom

I loved him in The West Wing, loved him in The Social Network, loved him in A Few Good Men. A year after his Oscar win, Aaron Sorkin is back on TV with The Newsroom, scheduled for broadcast on HBO. Although the topic might be closer to Studio 60 than The West Wing for comfort, I expect dialogues between Jeff Daniels and Emily Mortimer delivered “while walking rapidly through a work place”* and Dev Patel as the “lone, down-to-Earth black man who brings calming wisdom to neurotic white people”*. Alison Pill could make a great “cute conservative blond woman who exists in a mostly liberal world but everyone ends up loving anyway”* while Daniels will likely keep the role of the “emotionally stunted male lead who is bad with relationships”* for himself.

*All quotes from “4 Things Aaron Sorkin Puts In Every Show”. And yes, I do know Dev Patel isn’t black.

8 - Sherlock and Mad Men back on TV

Contract negotiations meant we were deprived of Mad Men in 2011, while Sherlock’s broadcast was pushed back to 1 January 2012. Will AMC and the BBC see a drop or a surge in ratings as a result? Can Don and Betty marriages last? Will Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat go the pop culture way and turn Irene Adler into Sherlock’s only love? Should we expect Holmesian influences and 1960s revival in the autumn/winter menswear and womenswear shows this winter?

9 - Marc Jacobs - Louis Vuitton and Van Cleef & Arpels at Les Arts Décoratifs

Marc Jacobs will open the fashion season at Les Arts Déco in March, followed in September by jeweler Van Cleef & Arpels. Described as “an analysis rather than a retrospective”, the Jacobs/Vuitton exhibition will show how both men influenced fashion and accessories at the end of the 19th and in the early 21st century. Drawing a parallel between the two designers is a new curation angle which should add to the fashion house’s myth and to the ongoing heritage trend. The Van Cleef exhibition should be more traditional with over 400 of the jeweller’s best work on display.

Marcs Jacobs - Louis Vuitton, 9 March - 16 September; Van Cleef & Arpels, 20 September - 10 February 2013, Les Arts Décoratifs, Paris

10 - Carine Roitfeld

Having christened her 2011 liberty by styling the Chanel campaign, posing on the cover of i-D magazine, featuring with her children in the Barneys window displays and releasing instant best-seller Irreverent, Roitfeld should know an exciting second year post Vogue Paris editorship. We know little of her projects for the year, except she will become a grandmother and launch a magazine, and it’s just as well since part of her 2011 appeal was her capacity to rebound and surprise us.

11 - Google’s iPad killer

Fashion brands and magazines have just started embracing Apple’s iPad tablet with platform-specific sites, dedicated apps and targeted subscriptions. Will they be able to carry their strategy and technology over to the Google iPad killer, announced by the company’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt? Google + was slow to release brand-specific pages but fashion brands were amongst the first to publish pages. Will the company follow a similar process, brand-wise, for the new tablet? Will the public be quick at buying the new gadget or shy away from yet another Google item in their life?

12 - Another year of Ryan Gosling

With Crazy, Stupid Love, Drive and The Ides of March, Ryan Gosling managed to be in three of the best films of 2011, in three very different categories. Will 2012 be the year of his first Oscar win? If his two Golden Globes nominations for best actor, drama and best actor, comedy are anything to go by, a nomination should at least be locked. This should be enough to keep everyone waiting for 2013 and his three new film Lawless, The Gangster Squad and The Place Beyond the Pines. Yes, I’m a fan and yes, I struggled to find a 12th reason to look forward to 2012. Not sure I’ll do Thirteen reasons to look forward to 2013 next year.

Pictures: London Fashion Week Begins At Somerset House, Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images Europe; Dior petites mains, Jamesbort.com; The pyramids in Giza, © Fashion Abecedaire; French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Senator Barack Obama, Jae C. Hong/Associated Press on the New York Times website; The Artist, publicity shot; The Newsroom, HBO Watch trailer screenshot; Princess Elizabeth, Cecil Beaton, Gelatin silver print, Buckingham Palace, March 1945, Museum no. E.1361-2010; Sherlock Series 2, BBC publicity shot; Spring/Summer 2008 womenswear show bags from the Toile Monogram Jokes line created by Richard Prince, © Louis Vuitton / Chris Moore; The 9 Lives of Carine Roitfeld, New York Times website; Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone on the set of Gangster Squad

Posted at 5:56pm and tagged with: Classy film, TV series, The West Wing, Vogue Paris, carine roitfeld, politics, technology, Sherlock, Mad Men, dior, john galliano, Alexander McQueen, London Fashion Week, Royal Family, cambridge, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, 2012 Olympics, Egypt, france,.

October 18th 2011

Brand communication: the unfortunate Wolford email

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The Middleton sisters have gathered their fair share of unwarranted press releases. Buy our hair products to get Kate’s mane! Go to my gym to get Pippa’s derrière! Buy our knock-off of Kate’s dress!

Last week, Austrian hosiery and womenswear brand Wolford sent an email encouraging its customers to “Get the Look of the Duchess of Cambridge”, explaining that all you need to get “the Royal look” is a “fitted dress just above the knee, high heels and indispensable nude hosery [sic]”, which you can of course buy off Wolford. Not only was it bad taste, it had two spelling mistakes too many.

The Royal Family isn’t keen on brands actively pushing their connection for sales, unless they have a royal warrant. Wolford’s email, advertising hosiery the Duchess might or might not be wearing (she could be buying Falke for all we know) is unworthy of the quality of the brand’s tights.

Exploiting the “Kate effect” did work though: I can complain all I want, but this is the first Wolford email I’ve opened since signing up to the newletter. Opening rates likely shot up thanks to the Duchess-themed subject but I’d like to see how it translated in terms of conversion rate.

Posted at 8:44am and tagged with: Brand communication, Royal Family, hosiery, cambridge, email marketing,.

August 30th 2011

Westwood, Chambord and the Global Cruciger

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My initial reaction, when I saw a bottle of Chambord liqueur for the first time, was to compare it to Vivienne Westwood’s logo. Of course the Chambord bottle wasn’t inspired by Westwood’s design but rather by the Global Cruciger, this sovereign’s orb often visible in portrays of monarchs past and present, “representing Christ’s dominion over the world”.

For Chambord, the shape is all about reminding customers of the liqueur’s royal heritage, of how, according to legend and marketing, Louis XIV fell in love with a raspberry liqueur produced in the château de Chambord in the XVIIth century. Westwood’s take on the orb, on the other hand, would be more irreverent, highlighting how fashion can take the ultimate symbol of power, establishment and religion, to the streets.

PS: Unfortunately, Chambord has recently revised its design, turning it into a sleeker and simpler version of the orb.

Charles II of Hungary

Frederik V

Catherine II

Elizabeth II

Posted at 10:00am and tagged with: Royal Family, Champagne!, Vivienne Westwood,.

August 29th 2011

Exhibition review: THAT dress, Buckingham Palace

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As a Palace, Buckingham is probably up there with Chambord and Chenonceau, with that little difference of being the residence of a working Queen. If nothing else, the British monarchy has one advantage: it keeps the place in perfect condition. Although not yet 200 years old in its current form, Buckingham Palace displays collections of Sèvre china and paintings to compete with many a Loire castle I’ve visited (and I’ve visited them all). The Van Dyck were as elegant as I hoped, and I didn’t feel as underwhelmed by Winterhalter’s The Royal Family in 1846 as I had when seeing David’s Le Sacre de Napoléon in Le Louvre.

The two temporary exhibitions on Royal Fabergé and the wedding dress were however quite disappointing. The dress could have done with context in addition to Sarah Burton explaining its inspiration, design and craftsmanship. It would have been nice to see it alongside Catherine’s evening dress, the bridesmaids attire, Pippa and children included. Instead, we’re left with the dress under a grey mosquito net, the shoes, bouquet reproduction and earrings in a case so small its hard to see what’s inside, and the cake. I don’t know whether the exhibition had been planned ahead of the wedding or whether it was a quick, cash-in decision but it felt like a lot more time could have been spent on its curation and on gathering related items. Unless the Cambridges’ popularity wanes all of a sudden (which at this point seems unlikely), waiting one more year wouldn’t have hurt.

As for the dress itself, it’s even more beautiful and tiny in real life than it was on TV. Sarah Burton explains how it is appliquéd with floral motives from six different laces representing the United Kingdom and how the train was reinforced with a canvas-like fabric to make sure it always kept its shape. Seeing the work it required up close partially makes up for the limited number of pieces on display.

Summer opening of the State Romms, Buckingham Palace, until 3 October. Tickets from £17.50 for adults

Posted at 10:00am and tagged with: Royal Family, Cambridge, exhibition review,.

July 30th 2011

Book review: July reading list, English edition

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Virginia Woolf, by Anthony Curtis

Well-researched, beautifully written and illustrated, Anthony Curtis’ biography of Virginia Woolf sheds light on her life, the Bloombsury set and how both influenced her writing. Without shying away from the usual controversies (was she a not-so-closeted antisemitic lesbian?), Curtis focuses on her writing rather than her already much-discussed mental illness. Drawing from contemporary accounts and extracts from her books, he doesn’t hesitate to switch to the first person to give his own views on her character and writings, be they articles, novels, disguised autobiographies or short stories. Probably a lot more enjoyable if you are highly familiar with Woolf’s writings.

The Uncommon Reader, by Alan Bennett

If you often feel that life gets in the way of reading a book, imagine what it would be like if you were the Queen, forced to hide your newly found love of literature from staff and subjects. By choosing the most unlikely character for a book on the power of reading and writing and what it might lead us to do (watch out for the ending), Bennett signs an extraordinary, hilarious and thought-provoking book. A book anyone who loves words needs to read and re-read. How far are you willing to go for literature?

Bringing Home the Birkin, by Michael Tonello

Oh the Birkin and its legendary waiting list. According to Tonello, this list is exactly that: a legend. Apparently, all you need to score a Birkin is spend enough in store on various accessories and ready-to-wear before asking for one. As a careered eBay Birkin reseller, he would know. From his initial realisation that Hermès sells better than anything else on eBay (and with bigger profit margins) to fine-tuning a sure-buy method for Birkins, Michael Tonello runs us through the stereotypes of Hermès sales assistants and a gallery of people orbiting around the luxury industry with good humour. The perfect summer autobiography de gare.

How to be a Woman, by Caitlin Moran

If I was a misogynistic bigot, I would be very afraid of Caitlin Moran. Her feminist and hilarious penwomanship hits in all the right spot with the strongest arm of them all: laughter. Weight, fashion, career, waxing, marriage, bras, motherhood, strip clubs: all the usual themes, treated with false lightness and real cheekiness. Forget the umpteenth wave of feminism, all you need is to rally around Moran.

Déjà Dead; Spider Bones, by Kathy Reichs

As a big fan of the Bones TV series, I had high expectations for the original Temperance Brennan character. The books preceded the TV show by about a decade. Their heroines couldn’t be more different, and I was lost for most of Spider Bones, trying to reconcile TV Dr Brennan with novel Dr Brennan. I shouldn’t have. The two women have little more than their job and intelligence in common and the novels are best enjoyed focusing solely on who Brennan is in the books.

Images: Virginia Woolf painting from Wikipedia; The Queen’s speech 2010 from the Daily Telegraph; Hermès from File Under Fashion; Cartoon from The Boar, February 2010

Posted at 8:33pm and tagged with: book review, TV series, Hermès, literature, Royal Family, feminism,.

July 15th 2011

All hail the Queen

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For a monarch constitutionally obliged to be apolitical, Queen Elizabeth II made a very strong political statement yesterday, in a most inconspicuous manner: fashion. Her Majesty welcomed Najib Tun Razak, Prime Minister of Malaysia, wearing a yellow ensemble. The colour is one of the sovereign’s favourite and was her hue of choice for her grand-son’s wedding. Her decision however was surprising since the Prime Minister had banned his citizens from wearing yellow because of recent protests rallying around the colour.

Putrajaya, 27 June. The Department of Information and Colour Knowledge Malaysia (DICK Malaysia) today announced that the colour yellow will be officially banned for three months, starting from 1 July this year. At a hastily arranged press conference in Putrajaya today, the Director General of DICK, Datuk Shaharuddin Bintek, told over 70 journalists that the decision was made in the interest of national security.
“You know, we are having trouble with the BERSIH fellows running around in yellow t-shirts. We are also having trouble with the PERKASA fellows. On top of this, the Khairy bugger is also giving us headache. Everybody is wearing colored t-shirts and pants to demonstrate – this is too much lah. We cannot tolerate this. It is causing too much confusion – the rakyat is confused with all the colours” Shaharuddin explained.
Shaharuddin added “we organized a lab last week, with the helped of Datuk Idris Jala, and came up with a brilliant plan to clear this confusion. Instead of going around trying to figure out who is from BERSIH and who is not, we have decided to simply ban the color yellow for three months. In this way, the sneaky BERSIH fellows cannot try any other stunts. And the rakyat would not be confused lah. Clever isn’t it ?”
Planet of the MonyetsYour most reliable source of unreliable news

Considering how often the Queen has worn yellow throughout her reign, there is no guarantee that her wardrobe choice was a political statement. It might have been a decision taken well in advance. It is however difficult to believe that neither the Foreign Office, nor her closest advisers, would have been misinformed enough not to flag up the issue.

Posted at 3:49pm and tagged with: Royal Family, politics,.

April 29th 2011

1 note

Of course I loved Catherine and Philippa McQueen dresses but my absolute favourite moment of today’s royal wedding was when the newlyweds came out on the balcony. The bride’s surprise as she discovered the crowds (about 0:08 in the embedded video) was priceless and incredibly sweet. It was the one time where she seemed in awe of her surroundings, in addition to being incredibly happy.

From the initial invitation to posting the day highlights within hours of the ceremony being over, The Royal Channel on You Tube played the event flawlessly. Whoever is in charge of this side of the royal communication strategy could teach a thing or two to many fashion brands…

Posted at 7:25pm and tagged with: Royal Family,.