Laura Craik: Royal retouching, barred bras and cocktail curiosities

Our arbiter of style wishes the Royals were a little less picture perfect, finds the ultimate bra for summer and puzzles over a curious cocktail
Family business: Prince William and Kate Middleton
Reuters/Mario Testino/Art Partner
Laura Craik16 July 2015

FAMILY BUSINESS

‘Hair is the first thing. And teeth the second. Hair and teeth. A man got those two things, he’s got it all.’ So quoth that great modern philosopher James Brown. While the deftest digital trickery in the world would struggle to bring back Prince William’s hair, someone has certainly done wonders with his teeth — his, and the rest of the Royal Family’s, which shine out from Mario Testino’s christening pictures with Kardashian-like luminescence. It is a wonder Princess Charlotte herself wasn’t bestowed a scaled-down set for the occasion.

The Kardashian analogy is all too easy to make. Which is kind of worrying. When Kanye hired David LaChapelle to shoot the Kardashian Khristmas kard, it felt cannily on-brand. LaChapelle specialises in the surreal, trading in kitsch tableaux ablaze with hyper-saturated colours. He made all his subjects look Kardashian, even when the Kardashians were but a twinkle in some E! channel executive’s eye. In the same way, Mario Testino stamps his own identity over every subject he shoots, be it actress, supermodel or heir to the throne.

The thing is, I’m not sure I require our heir to the throne to look quite so… toothy. And creamy. And smooth. The outdoor shot is just a touch too Instagram, like someone cranked up the Mayfair filter in a bid to erase every line and shadow. But lines and shadows are what make us who we are. Kate and Wills have been Marioed: the 2015 equivalent of ‘You’ve been Tangoed’, only instead of orange, the subjects are all pearly white. Actually, scrub that. In the group shot, only the front row — the Queen, Prince William, Catherine, Prince George and baby Charlotte — look pale. The back row appears to have been dumped on by some giant bronzing compact that fell out of Joan Rivers’ handbag as she looked down approvingly from above. We are used to Pippa appearing sun-kissed, but Prince Charles looks like he’s had a bad spray tan, administered by an overzealous trainee for whom the zenith of all beauty is Joey Essex.

When even Beyoncé has railed against the shiny plastic paradigm of ‘perfect’, it seems curiouser still that our Royal Family is offering itself up as one more example of the flawless genre. They woke up like this? No, they woke up Hanoverian, then spent hours in hair and make-up being transformed. Finally, they were sent off for digital retouching, their cronky English character erased. And then — ta-dah! — the end result. A set of Gucci ads, minus the handbags. The product isn’t a £1,500 tote, it’s the Windsors.

Still, look on the bright side. At least they didn’t ask Terry Richardson.

BRA-VO

It’s funny to see how women deal with their breasts during summer and never more so than now, it being the summer of the slipdress. Much has been written about its ‘ease’, ‘simplicity’ and ‘effortlessness’ and those things may hold true, provided you have the body shape to slip it on and trot off bra-less. Unfortunately, as anyone bigger than a C cup will attest, there is nothing effortless about trying to magic away your tits so you can look like Kate Moss on a date with Johnny Depp circa 1995. Which brings us to that scourge of modern life, the strapless bra. If I ever went on Mastermind, this would be my specialist subject. Forget that weird Wonderbra with the invisible hands: you want the Jamie (or Jamie Minimising Bandeau Bra, to give it its full name), which comes in two colours and costs £18 from Next. It’s the closest you’ll ever come to looking flat-chested — a strange aspiration, perhaps, but one which plenty of women will understand.

Stir crazy

I don’t know if people are getting drunker than usual, or whether they’re merely getting more inventive, but I’ve been offered some crazy-assed cocktails recently. Actually, ‘cocktail’ is too grand a word for some of these concoctions. At a barbecue last weekend, someone swore blind that the most delicious drink on the planet was not Krug or ice-cold ‘Stoli’, but red wine and Coke. Big in Mexico, apparently. I tried it. It needs to book the next flight back.

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