Princess Charlotte turns 11 this week, and she’s already making her mark on royal fashion.
Prince William and Kate Middleton released a surprise family portrait on April 29 to mark their 15th wedding anniversary, and while the whole family features in the relaxed snap — taken by favourite Wales photographer Matt Porteous during a private holiday in Cornwall — it’s their only daughter, Princess Charlotte, who has people talking.
“Celebrating 15 years of marriage,” the couple captioned the sweet snap, which shows the family of five lying barefoot in the grass alongside their two dogs.
Charlotte, long hair tumbling over her shoulders, is lying next to little brother Prince Louis in a light top and dark shorts, and she sports a very deliberate beauty choice that royal watchers have clocked immediately.
The young princess is wearing a striking blue polish on her finger nails.
It’s a bold departure from the neutral tones traditionally favoured by royal women, and one that carries more than a hint of her burgeoning personality.
The shade echoes the baby blue Self Portrait dress she wore for Easter Sunday earlier this month, suggesting this is a young woman who knows exactly what she likes.
It’s not the first time Charlotte has made a statement with her nail polish either.
Last July, she turned up to Wimbledon with her parents wearing a bubblegum pink hue as she watched Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner battle it out on Centre Court.
While the late Queen Elizabeth II was famously partial to a neutral polish — and royal protocol has long leaned toward understated shades — the reality is that the women of the royal family have quietly been bending that rule for some time.
With Kate herself raising eyebrows as she flexes the royal fashion rules, appearing with red nails at a church service back in 2023.
Charlotte is clearly watching, and learning fast, as she grows up in the public eye.
A palace insider told People that she is “quite a strong character, almost wise beyond her years,” while another source noted she is “a natural, and has taken to royal events like a duck to water.”
With her 11th birthday coming around on May 2, the Tween princess is very much finding her fashion stride, and it seems she intends to do it very much on her own terms.
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