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• Fashion news 2012: The Queen sparkles in her party dress

  
  06 June 2012
  

  Fashion news 2012: What does a senior citizen wear to a slightly chilly open-air pop concert? But enough about Sir Tom's, Sir Cliff's, Dame Shirley's and Sir Paul's wardrobe dilemmas, even though the former Beatle's auburn hair period was, for a dark time, a cause of national consternation. Because it wasn't about them.

  

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  Not since the last round of catwalk shows have the performers on stage been less the object of our scrutiny than the audience. Or rather the audience's clothes. Or rather one specific member's clothes. It would be too embarrassing if Her Majesty felt she had to get down with the kids and go all Glasto-genarian on us.

  And of course she didn't. How gorgeously spot-on was that gold lamé cocktail dress with its sweep of antique gold and olive lace and twinkling Swarovski crystals? Once again it was designed, like Sunday's outfit, by Angela Kelly. It was inimitably Her Majesty: glamorous enough to out-twinkle Dame Shirley, timeless yet rooted in the present. And, most importantly, it came with a matching shoulder scarf and black cape.

  Like all her official outfits, this one will have been planned months in advance - just as well, since she will have had her mind on the Duke of Edinburgh. Diplomacy means we shall never know if she also wore ear-plugs.

  In a way the Duchess of Cambridge had the knottiest sartorial challenge. Just what is a good look for a 30 year-old at a pop concert? Jeans usually. A glittery jacket possibly. Maybe a pithily worded T-shirt and some rock chick hair. That was more or less the line taken by Alex Jones, The One Show presenter who led BBC coverage into the concert. But the last time the Duchess tried denim for a public engagement the children at the school she was visiting appeared shell-shocked by the lack of sparkle.

  Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice, could afford to be quirky. Not too quirky, obviously, but Princess Eugenie, in a Kate-Red dress and Gina shoes decorated with a Union flag, hit the right note. The Countess of Wessex, in a cream suit and chignon highlighted the challenge: she looked elegant but a touch too formal. The Princess Royal - to borrow Louis Walsh's words - nailed it with a pair of rocking shades, while the Duchess of Cornwall wore a flattering pale blue coat.

  As Kylie rehearsed in a poncho and Prince Harry and her husband plumped for jackets and open-neck shirts, the Duchess of Cambridge must have had second and third thoughts about her selection, given Sunday's spectacularly grim skies.

  Lesson absorbed, she opted for a blue and purple patterned dress from Whistles and the McQueen blazer she probably wished she'd worn on the Gloriana. Her outfit was a tad more glossy than an actual girl-of-the-people would wear, but her high-low mix is a winner with the country, and it had the marked virtue of being cosy.

  Buckingham Palace was nattily dressed too, accessorised with the scarlet-clad Scots Guards, flags and Suggs. And yes, Sir Paul's hair came good. Thanks possibly to the counsel of the new Lady McCartney, Macca's locks are now a far more credible mousey shade. Our other national treasure had regained his rex factor. At ease Britain.

  (telegraph fashion news)