Princess Beatrice: is she really the best-dressed woman in Britain?

Name: Beatrice of York.

Age: 35.

Appearance: “The pinnacle of contemporary splendour.”

You’re feeling florid today. “Pinnacle of contemporary splendour”? Not my words – Tatler magazine’s, casting an approving eye on Princess Beatrice.

I haven’t revised my minor royals recently. Which one is she? Ninth in line to the throne; Andrew and Fergie’s eldest.

Oh dear. No, this is a nice story for once: she’s topped Tatler’s “best-dressed” list for 2024.

Who else has won this coveted “wearing clothes” prize? Glad you asked: Lady Eliza and Lady Amelia Spencer (Princess Diana’s nieces) in 2021; the then Duchess of Cambridge in 2022; and Akshata Murty last year.

They have a type and it’s posh and rich. No surprises there, although Cruz Beckham and Chelsea FC’s Ben Chilwell also made the cut this year.

Hang on … Beatrice? Wasn’t she the one who wore a flesh pretzel on her head at William and Kate’s wedding? I thought it looked more like two taupe snakes fighting over a Creme Egg, but yes, she wore the vaguely fallopian Philip Treacy fascinator that attracted widespread mockery. There was another she wore for Peter Phillips’ wedding, which made it look as if her ear was being attacked by angry butterflies.

And she’s a fashion icon now? Yes! Tatler admired her “pairing vintage-inspired cuts with fresh-from-the-catwalk glamour”, including edgier fashion names such as The Vampire’s Wife, Erdem and Richard Quinn. Her transformation has been credited, at least partly, to her new stylist, Olivia Buckingham.

Nice bit of nominative determinism there. I’m not sure she needs to be named after a palace to prove her aristocratic fashion credentials: she was sixth on the Tatler best-dressed list herself last year.

In the nicest possible way, why should I care about this? Well, Beatrice got a very rough ride when she was younger, facing cruel scrutiny of the way she looked and what she wore. She talked about the difficulty of living in an “overexposed environment … struggling with your weight and what fashion choices you are wearing” when she was helping to promote an anti-bullying book in 2017. She faced pretzelgate gracefully, selling the fascinator on eBay, giving the proceeds to charity and saying: “When everyone else was saying you look ridiculous, you have to have a sense of humour about that.” So fair play to her and congratulations on this fashion coronation.

We like rehabilitating royals, don’t we? Well, that or, you know, the absolute opposite. But yes, think of Camilla, who used to be viewed as a wicked femme fatale and panto villain; now, she’s the country’s endearingly naughty auntie, recently and relatably caught cracking up at cows mating. There have even been moves to rehabilitate the pretzel itself. In 2022, Grazia said: “The unorthodox shape and the understated colour created an iconic, memorable fusion.”

Do say: “God save the pretzel.”

Don’t say: “Let them eat pretzel.”