Royal Watch: William and Kate’s Tour of North America
As an avid Anglophile, I’ve kept a keen eye on the tour of North America by royal newlyweds William and Kate. On their first official international tour June 30 through July 10, HRH the Duke of Cambridge and HRH the Duchess of Cambridge (aka William and Kate) stylishly traversed North America at a whirlwind pace. Touching down in Ottawa, they toured Montreal, Prince Edward Island, Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories and Calgary before heading south to California. To view their Canadian itinerary go to the 2011 Royal Tour of Canada by the Duke and Duchess Cambridge.
On July 9 William was victorious in a charity polo match in Santa Barbara, before the couple turned heads that evening at their first red carpet Hollywood event, a gala at the Belasco Theater celebrating rising UK film actors in support of the British Academy for Film and Television Arts. With Kate again wearing a gown by the house of Alexander McQueen, the royal couple mixed with Hollywood stars including Tom Hanks, Barbra Streisand and Nicole Kidman.
In addition to tracking the charities, organizations and sites visited by William and Kate, part of the fun for royal-watchers was answering the proverbial question, What is Kate wearing? From favorite designers like Erdem and McQueen to DVF, Smythe and Ted Baker, with Nike and J Brand thrown in, Kate has taken on the role of a new royal with her own sense of style, often mixing and matching from her existing wardrobe (a three-year-old trenchcoat was brought back out of the closet.) You can follow Kate’s sartorial splendor at two engaging blogs: What Kate Wore, and Kate Middleton Style.
Following the exuberance of William and Kate’s royal wedding April 29, the latest royal tour got us thinking, what about souvenirs and commemorative memorabilia to mark the occasions? British monarchy collectibles are nothing new. Potters and artisans have produced wares for the public to hail royal events such as coronations and weddings since the restoration of Charles II in 1660. Three years later, when the king married Catherine of Braganza, collectibles in glass, majolica and pewter were produced to celebrate the match. By the age of Queen Victoria and the manufacture of affordable, transportable china, Brits began collecting decorative plates, mugs, pillboxes and figurines on a widespread scale.
The Victoria & Albert Museum has collected royal wares from over the centuries, displaying everything from a silver-gilt cup honoring the coronation of James II in 1685 to a Fenton plate marking Queen Victoria’s Jubilee in 1887 and even a Staffordshire mug marking the marriage of Prince Charles and Princess Diana.
To mark William and Kate’s tour after the pomp and circumstance of their spring wedding, which an estimated 22.7 million Americans rose early to watch live on television or web-streaming, UK retailer of prestige collectibles Compton and Woodhouse decided to bring its collection of royal commemorative wares to this continent for the first time. Launched in June, www.comptonandwoodhouse-us.com has issued commemorative china plates marking both the wedding and the Canadian tour, with photo images of the royal couple surrounded by gold filigree. (Curiously, the Canadian tour plate apparently features a depiction of the couple the morning after their wedding; production deadlines prevented waiting for a portrait from the actual tour, we assume.)
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4 Comments
Debbie Brown
Ooh so lovely! Thanks for inviting me to read this article, Vyna. One can’t get enough, lol. Can I go to England now?
Anonymous
Everyone should see this! She looks divine in that dress and I love the plate with the gold filigree. Gorgeous. – E. Period.
Vyna St Phard
Debbie: I for one would LOVE to be in England right now enjoying the glorious sunshine, instead of this unbearable heat in NYC.
wedding tour
The forthcoming Royal Wedding is the event of the year when Kate Middleton married her Prince on 29 April 2011. There has never been a more important moment in the history of the English monarchy since the last great royal wedding of 1981 when Lady Diana Spencer married Prince Charles.