Is Kate Middleton the New Princess Diana?
On November 16, 2010, Prince William publicly announced his engagement to Kate Middleton. That same day, Nicola Boden of the Daily Mail instantly drew a comparison between Diana and Kate, stating, “Their royal wedding will be the biggest event since Prince Charles and Diana got married in 1981” (Boden, 2010). He was right. 2 billion viewers worldwide watched the wedding, with millions streaming it live on YouTube, while hundreds of thousands flocked to the streets of England just to catch a glimpse of the royal couple.
Both Kate and Diana share two major similarity conducive popularized by the media: seemingly “effortless” beauty combined with a beautiful sense of fashion. Just as Diana attracted international attention with her beauty and sense of style, so too has Kate captured headlines and even garnered awards. Not only was she voted “Headwear Person of the Year” in January 2012 (White, 2012) and awarded “Best Celebrity Smile” in May 2012 (Rayment, 2012), she was also number one on Vanity Fair’s annual Best Dressed lists in 2010, 2011, and in 2012 (the issue in which she was the cover star) (Rayment, 2012).
Fans and photojournalists have frequently set images of Diana and Kate next to each other, often in dresses of similar color or standing in similar poses, as proof of their striking similarities (which, I find, really are quite shocking when pictured next to each other):
In addition to these pictures, on July 4, 2011, on what would have been Diana’s 50th birthday, the cover of Newsweek pictured a picture of Kate walking next to a photoshopped Diana, who had been aged slightly in a potential rendering of what she may have looked like. Inside the issue, an article titled “Diana at 50” speculates how the Princess of Wales would have acted in 2011. The author, Tina Brown, examines most aspect of Diana’s life, including her sense of fashion, love life, politics, charities, relationship with her ex-husband, and thoughts on her son’s marriage to Kate. This article and magazine cover are evidence of the lasting fascination with the life of a princess whose life came to an untimely end (Brown, 2011).