This past weekend, The Sunday Times broke a story, as they so often do: Kensington Palace would no longer share details on what Kate Middleton wears to official appearances.
The reported reasoning? The Princess of Wales wants the press—and therefore the public—to focus on her work, rather than her clothing. “She wants the focus to be on the really important issues, the people and the causes she is spotlighting,” a palace source told the paper. “There will always be an appreciation of what the princess is wearing from some of the public and she gets that. But do we need to be officially always saying what she is wearing? No.”
Middleton shares a common frustration with other high-profile women who find that discussion of their fashion often overshadows discussion of their work. For years, Hillary Clinton complained about the hyper-focus on her pantsuits as first lady and then secretary of state: In the 2017 book What Happened, Clinton explained her reasoning behind the clothing choice, writing she “thought it would be good to do what male politicians do and wear more or less the same thing every day.” Jill Biden, too, has acknowledged a hyper-focus on her fashion among the media and the public. “I knew the only thing that would be reported about me was what I was wearing,” she once said about dressing for the State of the Union.
It’s inarguable that the sartorial decisions of women are more closely scrutinized. Sometimes it is in good faith—people simply like talking about clothes, especially women, who statistics show spend close to $2,000 per year, on average, on their wardrobes. Other times, however, the conversation takes on sexist undertones. A man in power may wear an ill-fitting suit with little comment, while a woman who does so can face irrational—and often tawdry—criticism. “Ladies, enough with the pantsuit. Okay? It’s not working! Stop trying to have respect for yourselves. You don’t win the office on policy; you gotta whore it up a little!” comedian Bill Burr said in his recent monologue for Saturday Night Live after Kamala Harris lost the election. “I know a lot of ugly women—I mean feminists—don’t want to hear this message.”
It’s also inarguable that the lion’s share of press coverage about Middleton focuses on her clothing. For a long time, it had to be. The young royal rarely gave interviews to newspapers or public speeches. Yet, she commanded a tremendous amount of interest—according to YouGov, 99% of people in the United Kingdom have heard of Kate Middleton. With an enormous appetite for information about her and limited access, all reporters could do was report on the Princess of Wales’s clothing.
