Note to King Charles: DITCH THE COAT!

 

King Charles' Anderson and Sheppard tweed coat, bought 35 years ago, is still going strong in Monarch's winter wardrobe - and would cost nearly £7,000 if he wanted to replace it

King Charles has been wearing his cherished tweed coat for over 35 years

By Monique Rubins For Mailonline

When it comes to his outerwear attire, King Charles has long channelled two of the titles he has earned during almost 60 years of public service: best-dressed man and climate campaigner. 

While the King, who topped men's magazine Esquire's best-dressed list in 2009 -  beating the likes of Roger Federer and Barack Obama  to the number one spot - cuts a dashing figure in his bespoke tweed overcoat, its longevity points to something more profound than Charles's style credentials.

For the King has owned the coat in question -  a tweed, double-breasted number with deep pockets and a turn-back cuff - not for a few years but for a few decades, betraying a rejection of fast fashion and its negative impact on the planet. 

Charles has long been a keen advocate of make do and mend, although that's perhaps a little easier to do if your clothes are made on Savile Row.   

One of the first times the then-Prince of Wales wore his tweed coat was for a photocall at Sandringham on 3 January 1988 with Princess Diana and a three-year-old Prince Harry. Harry and Diana are also dressed for the winter weather with the young prince wearing a powder blue peacoat by Catherine Walker and his mother dressed in a cashmere and wool coat with synthetic beaver fur by Arabella Pollen

Cut by the Mayfair-based tailor Anderson & Sheppard and clearly made to last, Charles's coat was a mainstay of his wardrobe when he was married to Princess Diana. 

And, photographed in it on 26 November of this year while attending the Sunday service at St. Mary Magdalene church in Sandringham, the King has been wearing his tweed coat on a regular basis for over 35 years. 

While it's unclear what the then Prince Charles would have paid for the coat originally, if the King wanted to replace it now, a spokesperson told MailOnline a similar coat would cost £6,894. 

On 20 March 1988, Charles arrived at Zurich airport looking dapper in the Anderson & Sheppard number paired with polished brogues 

One of the first times Charles was seen in the tweed coat was on 3 January 1988 at a photocall at Sandringham with Princess Diana and a three-year-old Prince Harry.

The young Prince Harry is dressed in a powder blue peacoat by Catherine Walker while his mother is wearing a cashmere and wool coat with synthetic beaver fur by designer Arabella Pollen. 

Charles was again seen in his tweed coat on Christmas Day in 1998 when he was accompanied by both Prince William and Prince Harry at the annual service at Sandringham Church. 

Charles continued to wear the coat to public engagements throughout the 2000s and beyond, once pairing it with a hi-vis vest while viewing renovation work at Llwynywormwood in Wales, a property bought by the Duchy of Cornwall for Charles and Camilla, in February 2008.

Later, in 2015, Charles was pictured in it again, while visiting the victims of flooding caused by Storm Desmond in Carlisle.

But, while it's undoubtedly one of the King's most distinctive items of clothing, the tweed coat isn't the only item that Charles has managed to keep hold of for decades. 

In 2018, Charles revealed that he was still walking around in a pair of shoes that he bought 47 years previously in 1971. 

Although it is unclear which pair of shoes had stood the test of time, Charles has worn a pair of mahogany brogues consistently from 1971. 

He made the admission in a rare question and answer session with the Australian Financial Review Magazine, which was published online.  

Charles said: 'I have always believed in trying to keep as many of my clothes and shoes going for as long as possible (some go back to 1971 and one jacket to 1969!) - through patches and repairs - and in this way I tend to be in fashion once every 25 years.

'It is extraordinary how fashions change and, speaking as someone who, on the whole, hates throwing away things without finding another use for them or mending them, I couldn't be more delighted if, at last, there is a growing awareness of the urgent need to get away from the 'throwaway society' and to move towards a more 'circular economy'.'

And, true to form, in May 2021 Charles appeared on the cover of Country Life magazine wearing a jacket that was not only faded but had undergone a number of repairs. 

Writing for FEMAIL, Liz Jones noted: 'The collar, originally dark brown velvet or cord, is now fawn. And while the pockets still have their stud fastenings, they have clearly been patched up (and even the patches now have holes).'

Indeed, if  most people who profess to be climate-conscious manage to recycle an item of clothing for a few years, Charles has shown himself to be much more committed to the cause.  

Endgame for the Royal Pretenders

 

Harry and Meghan can’t stand their growing irrelevance

                                                   by Allison Pearson

The King should move swiftly to remove the titles of his younger son and his wife, before they can do any more damage

Piers Morgan, the broadcaster, may have finally blown apart the long-running Royal “racism row” when he named on his Talk TV show two members of the Royal family a new book claims were the individuals so disgracefully implicated by the Duchess of Sussex. You may recall that Morgan was sacked by ITV when he said, after the Sussexes’ interview with Oprah, that he didn’t believe a word Meghan had said. Like millions of us, he has had enough of this manipulative, malevolent nonsense, apparently calculated to undermine the monarchy, and believes that now is the time to have an “open debate” about what actually happened. 

It follows the publication of Omid Scobie’s Endgame: Inside the Royal Family and the Monarchy’s Fight for Survival. By some mysterious “accident”, the Dutch version of the book revealed the names of the two senior Royals. Interviewed on Wednesday on ITV’s This Morning, Scobie did not appear entirely heartbroken that two people, who are not at liberty to defend themselves, had been named and shamed. Furrowing his eyebrows – a pair of hairy caterpillars from the Ugly Bug Ball – Mr Butter Wouldn’t Melt suggested that his true purpose was not spreading toxic rumours to help hasten the end of the monarchy. Heavens, no. It was to direct Britons to “conversations about the purpose, relevancy and future of the Royal family”. What a gent! 

The Palace is said to be “dismayed” that Morgan has given away the names contained in Scobie’s book and is considering legal action. But Morgan may have done them a service, I reckon. The guessing game over which members of the Royal family supposedly wondered how dark Prince Archie’s skin colour might be has been a sword of Damocles dangling over the Royals since that notorious allegation was made in 2021. 

“WHAT?” gasped Oprah. As if no mixed-race family in human history had ever speculated on the appearance of a beautiful forthcoming baby (good luck finding one that doesn’t). 

With more kohl around her eyes than the love child of Cleopatra and a giant panda, and milking the moment for maximum soap-opera suds, the Duchess of Sussex played the part of the wronged relative to perfection. Nodding sorrowfully at Oprah’s horrified reaction, and with a fetching glisten of tears, she confided that, when she was pregnant, there were “concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he’s born”. Her tone was soft, but her meaning could not have been harsher: “What a bunch of bigoted bastards I married into, right?” 

When Oprah asked for the names of the accused Royals, Duchess Disingenuous declined. “I think that would be very damaging to them,” said she solemnly. Well, we wouldn’t want that, would we, Meghan? Let’s just leave your unsubstantiated allegations, aka “speaking my truth”, to do their wicked work and cast a pall over the entire Windsor clan. 

If you were being cynical – forgive me, I find it hard to have any other reaction – you would have noticed that, in the bombshell interview (watched by 12.4 million people in the UK alone), Meghan weaponised two of the fashionable concerns of the age: race and mental health. It made it hard for the Palace to counter the Sussexes’ wounding charges. Prince William came closest when he snapped at a reporter: “We are very much not a racist family.” But the mud from Montecito stuck. 

That ticking timebomb exploded with the publication of the Dutch version of Omid Scobie’s book which, he was amazed to discover, revealed the identity of two senior Royals. Drat, those stupid, careless translators in the Netherlands generating several million pounds worth of free publicity! Funnily enough, my books have been translated into 32 languages and never once has anything I didn’t write personally been interpolated into the text. Translators as a breed are fastidious to a fault. I am prepared to bet the inflammatory addition to the Dutch version had nothing to do with them. 

What part, some of us are bound to wonder, did Meghan and Harry play in this latest tome which exempts the Sussexes from any blame in the family feud started by Meghan and Harry? Scobie appears to revel in the alleged animosity between King Charles and his heir while taking several swipes at “Katie Keen”. Our widely adored and admired Princess of Wales is painted as a “Stepford Wife” who was “cold” to Meghan. Sounds like Catherine is an excellent judge of character who saw a C-list American actress getting her talons into William’s nice but dim little brother. Kate’s instinctive mistrust of Meghan proved prophetic. She was Trouble with a capital t. 

Resenting the allegations that he acts as Meghan and Harry’s mouthpiece, Scobie claims the couple had no direct input into this volume, nor into his earlier portrait of them, Finding Freedom. That story came badly unstuck, however, when the Duchess of Sussex had to apologise in court for “failing to remember” authorising a senior aide to brief Scobie and his Finding Freedom co-author. In a devastating witness statement, Jason Knauf, the couple’s former press secretary, said the book was “discussed directly with the duchess multiple times in person and over email”. He also claimed Meghan provided him with several briefing points to share with Scobie at a meeting. Knauf says he emailed Prince Harry about the meeting, to which the Duke replied: “I totally agree that we have to be able to say we didn’t have anything to do with it. Equally, you giving the right context and background to them would help get some truths out there.” 

My, what a tangled web those saintly Sussexes weave, eh? Their bitterness, a simmering desire to avenge the wrongs they believe were done to them, is in inverse proportion to the success of Megxit. When they quit the UK, the couple were convinced they could retain the privileges and commanding heft of Royalty while behaving like the Kardashians in coronets. Our late Queen wisely put a stop to that. Since then, there has been a seemingly unstoppable slide into failure and irrelevance. Meghan’s earnest identity politics and global humanitarianism have turned cheeky chappie Harry, once the public’s favourite Royal, into a bore with his smouldering, resentful stares and stupid “jobs”. 

With their power waning, little wonder the Sussexes have made it known that an invitation to spend Christmas with the relatives at Sandringham would be favourably looked upon. You can just imagine how much Queen Camilla, the Waleses and the magnificent Princess Royal would relish lectures around the fire on their “unconscious bias”. (I was delighted, although not surprised, to hear that it was apparently Anne who urged her brother, the King, following the publication of Spare, to frogmarch Meghan and Harry out of Frogmore Cottage). 

Well, they can forget that now. By publishing those two Royal names, Omid Scobie must have crushed any prospect of a reunion. This is war. Instead of legal action, the King should move swiftly to remove the titles of his younger son and his wife. Scobie called his book Endgame – the Monarchy’s Fight for Survival. We all know who – and what – the monarchy is fighting. There can be only one winner.