Unkindly in a Red Catherine Walker jacket and matching Gina Foster Hat, the Princess of Wales dominated the media of the annual Commonwealth Day Service of Celebration this week.
It was the first time that Catherine and her father -in -law King Charles had attended the service at Westminster Abbey in two years because of their respective cancer treatments. And it was the princess, not the prince, who was depicted on newspaper pages the next day.
Just like the deceased Queen Elizabeth, who stood out of the crowd with the bright colors she wore, Catherine seems to wear more and more striking and elegant outfits of a single color that emphasizes her importance for the royal family.
Camilla is a queen, but Catherine makes it clear that she is ready to play that role when her time comes.
Her impressive appearance this week reminded me of the first time I met Catherine – or Kate Middleton, as she was known to everyone at the time.
It was at the launch party for the biography of Simon Sebag Montefiore Young Stalin in 2007, when Catherine was briefly broken down from Prince William.
Catherine, then 25 years old, joined the event with her sister, Pippa Middleton, and talked to me in a group with the sister-in-law of Sebag Montefiore, the TV presenter Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, who unfortunately died ten years later at the age of 45.
Tara, the daughter of two of the best friends of King Charles, Charles and Patti Palmer-Tomkinson, has known Prince William since he was a little boy and was not shy to talk about him about Catherine at the party on Asprey Jewelers in Mayfair.
Incurchable in a Red Catherine Walker jacket and matching Gina Foster Hat, the Princess of Wales dominated the media of the annual Commonwealth Day Service of Celebration this week
I first met Catherine during a book launch in 2007, when Catherine briefly broken down from Prince William. She is depicted at the event with her sister Pippa
While I made Catherine Kleine Talk about the book by Montefiore and how she knew the author, Tara usually immediately came up with what everyone really wanted to know: Catherine's break-up with William. The split had been a big story since it had been announced a few months earlier.
“How are you?” Tara asked her.
Catherine replied, 'fine' and started to blush.
“It must be so difficult …” Tara persisted.
“Really, it's fine,” Catherine replied firmly, if uncomfortable.
She made it clear with her body language that she did not want to discuss the subject, and the conversation went quickly to happier and less loaded things.
At that time, Catherine was seen as a feast-loving girlfriend of William, but my first meeting with her taught me that she was a tough cookie who would not be forbidden to say anything that she did not want to say no good friend of the royals.
Indeed, she reminded me of members of the royal family, much older than herself, who have the creepy ability to make someone (even tiring social diary writers) small without giving anything.
They usually manage to reverse the conversation and force the questioner to speak.
Fortunately for the future of the royal family, Catherine was reunited with William a few months later. Although she has changed in many ways since our fleeting first meeting – for example, became a self -assured public speaker – there was a hint of that inner steel that she was so good in the following years.
Due to the trauma of cancer treatment in the past year, she has emerged as an even more impressive figure who pays attention to major royal events such as the Commonwealth Day Service.
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