The American magazine, Vanity Fair, unveiled its Internati0nal Best Dressed List for 2010 Tuesday. Among the fashion conscious people in the world was Denmark’s Crown Princess Mary.
Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images
Long considered to be a fashion icon in Europe, it appears Australian-born Mary is finally getting recognition.
According to the magazine, the Crown Princess’ favorite labels are Hermès, Prada, Burberry, and Chanel.
She wowed many in the United States with her style when she and husband Crown Prince Frederik visited Washington, DC earlier this year. Even though Mary dealt with a wardrobe malfunction – her shoe fell off while walking through Arlington National Cemetary – she appeared ladylike and regal with her style.
Crown Princess Mary wasn’t the only royal on the list. Pierre Casiraghi, son of Monaco’s Princess Caroline, was named one of the world’s best dressed men. His girlfriend, Beatrice Borromeo, also made the cut.
Another Monegasque girlfriend on the list was Tatiana Santo Domingo, who has been dating Pierre’s older brother, Andrea, for several years now.
Interesting enough, last year when I reported on who should’ve been on Vanity Fair’s 2009 Best Dressed List, Crown Princess Mary was ranked number one by a poll taken by RITN readers.
Click here to see more of the world’s best dressed people.
Rumors have been circulating for several weeks that all is not well with Sweden’s Princess Madeleine and her fiancè Jonas Bergstrom. Tabloids, such as Expressen, are reporting that the couple no longer live together and that the strain of waiting until after Crown Princess Victoria gets married has put a damper on their relationship.
Adam Osterman/Getty Images/FILE
The tabloid also points out that Madeleine and Jonas have not been seen in public together in a long time, unlike Victoria and her husband-to-be, Daniel Westling.
Additionally, the Princess recently went skiing in Switzerland without Jonas – even though that is favorite vacation spot for them.
According to rumors, the couple’s relationship was falling apart last year and the two went to the Italian island of Capri and mend things. That was when Jonas proposed to Madeleine, much to her surprise. Supposedly, Jonas felt it was his last chance to save his relationship with her.
Keep in mind all these reports are from tabloids, who usually are looking to sell papers. Even more so, a few weeks ago Jonas himself spoke to rival paper Aftonbladet and said, “There is no crisis. Madeleine and I are fine.”
But the rumors keep spreading to beyond Swedish borders. The latest edition of Spain’s ¡Hola! published an article about the supposedly troubled relationship. It is only a matter of time before other foreign media pick up the story.
The Princess will be visiting the United States in April and in May. If her fiancèe does not stop by for at least a brief visit, then it would fuel speculation that this relationship won’t have a happy ending.
Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has been all over the business news this week. First with him selling stakes to a major American news company, and then him reiterating his support for Citigroup’s CEO.
REUTERS/Fahad Shadeed
On Tuesday, the Prince announced his Middle East entertainment giant Rotana Group was selling a 9 percent stake to media tycoon Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation. This was a big surprise for many business watchers, since Murdoch’s newspapers and news stations are believed to be pro-Israel and Prince Alwaleed comes from the staunch Islamic Saudi royal family.
Alwaleed acknowledged that difference in a press conference. “It’s not only Fox [News Channel] that in general is against the Arab world. It’s an American syndrome,” he said. “We will always do our best to lower that tone.”
Perhaps what Murdoch is thinking is a way to gain audiences in the Middle East.
“A stake in Rotana expands our presence in a region with a young and growing population where GDP growth is set to outstrip that of more developed economies in the years ahead,” James Murdoch, Rupert’s son and chief executive for News Corp in Europe and Asia, said in a statement.
Murdoch and the Prince have been business partners to some extent for a while. Alwaleed has acquired a 7 percent stake in News Corporation through his Kingdom Holdings, a global investment firm.
On Saturday, Prince Alwaleed was in the news again, albeit briefly. As a major investor in Citigroup, he showed his support for its CEO Vikram Pandit. The bank has been suffering major losses based on risky investments and failing consumer loans.
There’s a new policy regarding the public engagements of the Swedish royal family, and its making members of Sweden’s media scratch their heads. According to royal reporter, Daniel Nyhlen of Svensk Damtidning, the press is not allowed to photograph the royals during their public duties.
AP Photo/Scanpix Sweden/Anders Wiklund
This explains why there hasn’t been any photos of Crown Princess Victoria meeting with the athletes of the Winter Paralympics or Princess Madeleine doing work for the charity Min Stora Dag, both events which have been recent.
Nyhlen considers this new protocol to that of “North Korean mentality.” He went on to say that it is, ” [T]otally absurd! When was this stupid rule? And by whom? Does the Court not think it is important that the media documenting what the royal family do? Or should I interpret it otherwise?”
Like anyone who’s existence depends on the public seeing and knowing what they do, this new policy could wind up hurting the Swedish royals than helping them – if that is the intention.
It seems as though Europe’s royals are cracking down on the media big time. The Dutch royals have the controversial mediacode which forbids the press from taking pictures of them during private moments. Late last year, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II personally asked her country’s media to not photograph her family also during private moments.
But note that those actions are for private moments. Why would the Swedish block out the media during public events?
This week, the Austrian television station ORF was told to remove photographs of Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, her son Prince Constantijn and his family from its website. The pictures were that of the royals arriving in Lech for their annual skiing vacation.
Dutch Photo Press/Patrick van Katwijk
The Dutch royal household felt the pictures violated a mediacode, where private photos of the royal family are not allowed to be published. This despite that ORF showed video of the family arriving at the ski resort.
Media coverage of the Dutch royals coming to Lech has been existence for about 50 years. But this year, there was no photo call because Crown Prince Willem-Alexander and his family are currently in Vancouver for the Olympics.
This is the not the first time the House of Orange’s mediacode caused problems with the media. Last year, Willem-Alexander sued the Associated Press for photographing and publishing pictures of he and his family skiing in Argentina. The Crown Prince won his case even though many of those in the media felt that violated freedom of the press.
Over the weekend, there were reports in the Swedish media that Daniel Westling, the fiancé to Crown Princess Victoria, was suffering an infection due to his kidney transplant last year. The Royal Court denied the claims.
file
In a recent edition of the newspaper Expressen, Westling himself said he never felt any better.
“I wish you could show more respect before they spread false information about my health,” he said.
The truth is, Westling was attending meetings at the royal palace the very day newspaper headlines exclaimed that the royal fiancé was acutely ill. Friends of Daniel and Victoria fretted over the news that turned out not to be true.
He also said reports that he was under medical care weren’t true. Instead, Westling was simply getting check-ups from his doctor.
Westling has suffered a non-inherited kidney disease since childhood. His kidney transplant took place three months after the announcement of royal engagement. His father, Olle, was the donor.
Westling will marry the Crown Princess on June 19th, and according to him, his transplant is not a danger to the upcoming nuptials.
Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II has told the paparazzi to leave her family alone as they prepare for Christmas. According to Buckingham Palace, Her Majesty told newspapers not to run pictures of her family taken by freelance photographers. The Palace said she wrote to the newspaper editors requesting this.
AFP/Pool/File/Phil Noble
The letter was “in response to many years of the royal family being hounded by photographers on the queen’s private property,” the Palace is quoted by the AP in saying.
This action was not prompted by any recent event and has been in the works for months. Members of the British royal family, particularly Princes William and Harry and their girlfriends, are often hounded by the paparazzi in private situations.
Prince Charles’ spokesman, Paddy Harverson, told the Sunday Telegraph that members of the House of Windsor “feel they have a right to privacy when they are going about everyday, private activities.”
“They recognize there is a public interest in them and what they do, but they do not think this extends to photographing the private activities of them and their friends.”
Some speculate the royal crackdown on the paparazzi may be linked to Prince William at last announcing his engagement to longtime girlfriend, Kate Middleton. Perhaps, but it is the Christmas season, and such speculation reaches fever pitch as this time.
Check out this clip from Newsy.com on the British media’s reaction to this:
Infanta Elena, the eldest daughter of King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia is said to be going through the final stages of her divorce from Jaime de Marichalar. While there has been no official statement from the royal family, the Spanish media has been buzzing about this for a few days now.
According to various outlets, the Infanta and her husband – who have been estranged for two years – have left open the possibility of reconciliation. But that may not be so anymore. The couple have shared joint custody of their two children, Froilan Felipe, 11 years old and Victoria Federica, aged 9, with the kids switching weekends with each parent.
Another rumor going around is that de Marichalar wants to keep his title of Duke of Lugo, even if he does divorce from Elena. Supposedly that is what’s delaying divorce proceedings. The Duke has not participated in official engagements since November 2007.
Again, this is all simply speculation. Until the royal family announces Infanta Elena’s divorce, one could only guess what will happen next.
The British press has been buzzing about a possible reunion between Prince Harry and former girlfriend Chelsy Davy. The two ended their longterm relationship in January, but there have been rumors of them secretly meeting up since then. So, are the rumors to be believed?
Getty Images FILE
According to the Daily Mail, Harry and Chelsy are definitely back together. A source has been quoted as saying: “Harry and Chelsy are back on, but they are keeping things very low key. They want to take it very slowly and are determined to keep things quiet.
“Chelsy in particular finds the media attention when she’s with Harry very hard to bear. They don’t want any pressure and have decided to keep the news very much between themselves.
“You certainly won’t see them out clubbing together, but they have been meeting up in secret over the past few weeks to talk about their future and whether they actually have one. Harry has missed Chelsy hugely and is desperate for things to work.”
The Daily Mail is one outlet that has been reporting alleged meetups between the two. A noted one involved Harry wearing a wig while clubbing with Chelsy.
But at the same time, the rest of the British media have had reports on both Harry and Chelsy seeing other people. In addition, the Telegraph recently had an article about Chelsy not having any time for her Prince since she is studying hard for a law degree. The newspaper also says Chelsy is moving further out of Harry’s circle of friends.
But the Express has a source quoted as saying: “Harry is still besotted with her and she can’t get him out of her head, even though she’s been seeing other guys. I don’t think they’ve fully resolved some of the problems between them yet but we all think they’ll give it one last shot.”
Prince Harry and Chelsy had a shaky relationship during their five years together. While appearing very much in love in public, there were rumors of rifts. Often those rifts had to do with Harry’s military training and allegedly flirting with other women.
Now, if these reports of a reunion are true, it would be a wonder to see if Harry and Chelsy would be together once and for all.
A Dutch court today ruled in favor for the Dutch Crown Princely family in a lawsuit against the Associated Press. Judge Sjoukje Rullmann said that the U.S. news agency violated the family’s privacy during a skiing vacation in Argentina.
AP FILE
The AP expressed disappointment and said in a statement that it will “review this ruling with its counsel and evaluate appropriate next steps.”
The AP photographed Crown Prince Willem-Alexander, Crown Princess Maxima and their eldest daughter Catharina-Amalia skiing at a resort in Argentina last month. The pictures appeared in several Dutch news outlets. When the royal family asked that the photos be removed due to a media code which protects the royal family’s privacy, the news outlets agreed. But when the AP did not, a lawsuit came about.
The news agency argued that the royal family were public figures in a public place. But Judge Rullman ruled that while that was so, the Dutch royals had a right to privacy as anyone else.
“The four photos that are central in this case were taken during a private vacation of the plaintiffs and show them during private activities,” she ruled.
“The conclusion is that the right to respect the personal sphere weighs more heavily than the right to freedom of expression in publishing these four photos,” the ruling said.
“Plaintiffs must, as public figures fulfilling a constitutional function, endure attention from the media, even when they are appearing in private and especially when they appear in a public place. However this does not mean that the plaintiffs, when they appear in private, should always have to be alert that photos made in that situation can be offered to the media for publication.”
In a statement, the AP said the ruling “would have the unfortunate effect of unduly restraining the exercise of freedom of information globally, and seeks to create a real risk that the public might be kept in the dark in relation to activities about which it has a right to know.
“The decision also seeks to impose an undue and unprecedented burden on a global news operation like the Associated Press and fails to recognize that individual publishers make the actual and final determination whether publication of particular information is justified within any given jurisdiction,” it said.
Judge Rullman ordered the AP to pay 1,000 euros ($1,435) for the publication of the photos.
There is a media code within the Dutch media where the royals are granted privacy in exchange for posing for the media at certain times. When the AP photographed the royals skiing, the family felt it violated the media code.
Recent Comments