The Duchess of Cambridge made her magazine debut this weekend, appearing on the cover of British Vogue to mark its centenary year.
Kate looked effortlessly elegant and stylish in a wide-brimmed hat and suede jacket, modelling other casual looks inside.
But while many people praised the stunning shots, several media outlets were quick to label the images “boring”.
“While Kate looks beautiful, and happy, there is nothing ‘fashion’ or even aspirational about the shot: she is wearing a far-too-wintry suede Burberry trench we’ve seen everywhere, a white shirt, also by Burberry, that will never cause retail sites to crash, and a hat, of the sort Camilla might wear to muck out,” Liz Jones wrote on The Daily Mail.
“It is all a far cry from Diana’s seminal Vogue images shot by Patrick Demarchelier in 1991. They transformed her from a Sloane with too much puppy fat and a fondness for heavy jewellery (as in her first posed Vogue cover in 1981) into a goddess: elfin, crop-haired, mischievous, confident.
This is what a Vogue cover should look like.
“The opposite has happened here: Kate is transformed from statuesque beauty into a parody of Meryl Streep in Out Of Africa.”
The Sun also evoked Diana, claiming the late princess’ Vogue was “so much better” than Kate’s.
Even more hurtful is the suggestion that Kate has sacrificed her children’s hard-won privacy by posing for the glossy images.
“Like Diana, who wanted to be a mother, a Princess, a charity worker, an everywoman, a pin-up, Kate has sold her soul to the devil that is vanity and elitism, and those fashionistas who judge others only by their BMI,” Liz Jones wrote.
“Kate, who up to now has protected her privacy and that of her children ferociously, has opened the floodgates to the sort of forensic scrutiny her late mother-in-law endured. There is no going back. Pandora’s dressing-up box has burst open.”