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Ready To Wear: If Kate can wear the same thing twice, then so can I

Susannah Frankel
Sunday 03 June 2012 12:49 BST
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"What do you think I should wear for the Jubilee?" I asked my other half last week.

I'm thinking, dewy-eyed, of the coral pink Fiorucci jeans, T-shirt and Provençale flowery espadrilles I wore to a boat party for the Silver Jubilee. I'm remembering the fine white cotton lawn 1930s teddy I wafted around in when Charles married Diana in 1981. I was in Paris watching it on telly with a friend at that point and having an Anaïs Nin moment, clearly, not to mention somewhat embarrassingly.

Any nostalgia is swiftly dispersed.

"Wear a duvet. Pull it over your head. And wait for it to go away," said he, proof, as if I hadn't realised it already, that there's not going to be much in the way of popping champagne corks and flag waving going on at Frankel Towers over the bank holiday. What festivities? Oh well.

Perhaps I'll just settle on what I wore for last year's Royal Wedding then: a pair of black American Apparel leggings (cropped, with buttons I sometimes wish weren't there), a black James Perse vest and my mum's black cashmere cardigan. I was at my computer working, OK, so there was no need to stand on ceremony, and if Kate Middleton can wear the old same thing here, there and everywhere then so can I.

Of course, the Queen does that too. But she, presumably just like her granddaughter-in-law, has an army of staff to remind her that, "without wishing to offend ma'am, it's fine for you to wear the Hardy Amies circa 1962 primrose yellow day coat today but it's important that you wear it with a different hat, bag and shoes". Yes, whole teams of people are employed by the Palace to ensure such grievous fashion faux pas don't occur.

It's not like that at my house, sadly, where, truth to tell and despite my incessant whingeing, neither husband, son nor small, irresistibly cute dog care one iota which hat, bag and shoes I decide upon. Not ever. I am, though, like the Queen in some ways. Just like Her Majesty, for example, I know what I like, I like what I wear and, apart from the odd seasonal adjustment (me not her, it goes with the job), I'm unlikely to have an overly radical wardrobe re-think for the time being at least.

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