How to be a cape queen like Camilla
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Over the past few years, capes have become almost as synonymous with Queen Camilla as that cumulus of blonde hair.
An early public sighting was in December 2019 when she wore a short black cape over a red dress to host a children’s party at Clarence House. Made for her by Fiona Clare, one of the then Duchess of Cornwall’s inner crew of designers, it’s a versatile little number that has zips running up the wide sleeves which can be fastened to create a kimono style jacket.
Since that far off epoch, the Queen has worn the cape repeatedly, sometimes with the same dress, as when she visited a poppy factory in November 2021; over a teal dress to the 95th Field of Remembrance in November 2023 and with a tartan suit at the Ukrainian Catholic Church in London in 2022. Most recently she wore it this week with a blue Anna Valentine dress when she accompanied King Charles home from the London Clinic on Monday.
There you have the virtues of a cape. Whether for a hospital visit (that will be photographed by the world’s press) or a party, they hit the right note of smartness and ease. Need to snazz up some jeans fast – put on that cape. Get the length and cut right – not all capes are created equal – and you have a versatile top layer that brings warmth and adds definition without obliterating what you’re wearing underneath.
When capes first became fashionable again after decades in the shade – about 2015 – they were tricky devils for anyone under around 5ft 7in. If you weren’t tall, most of them reached mid thigh: an unflattering, leg truncating optical move that no one needs. The Queen is reportedly 5ft 4in and wears capes that either stop at her waist (a useful way to highlight it) or are floor length.
The most glamorous iteration of the latter, to my mind, is the midnight blue Dior cape dress she wore to a banquet with President and Madame Macron in Paris last Autumn. Just grazing the floor, in a silk chiffon that drapes almost ethereally, it’s the quintessential modern state gown: grand but somehow easy.
In the early 1960s when capes were last truly in vogue, they tended to be stiff affairs, in duchess satin or moire taffeta. This was the last gasp of empire(s). London was swinging and machine washable mini skirts were all the rage. But in Washington DC, Jackie Kennedy reigned as a fashion leader who influenced the way women across the globe aspired to dress, and her way was not swinging. Thanks to her, a dress with a train was as far from swinging as imaginable, albeit ultra elegant.
For the county set in the UK, capes have never truly gone out of style. They’re too practical. In 1980, the then Camilla Parker Bowles was photographed outside a party in a Sherlock Holmesian checked cape. Capes have always been very accommodating and more glamorous over ball gowns than coats, which are rarely the right length.
A young Princess Diana was also partial to them, most notably when she wore a romantic black velvet cloak-type cape over a full skirted emerald silk ballgown in 1981. Thirty-five years later, her American daughter-in-law Meghan has also discovered how good a fitted, slimline cape dress can look on petite figures that might be swamped by more voluminous cuts.
A well-proportioned cape and dress can look more interesting than a matching coat and dress on just about any one. Meghan‘s cream wool-coloured sheath dress, famously worn on a visit to Cheshire in 2017 with the late Queen, when relations between the two women seemed promisingly warm, featured a diminutive shoulder-cupping capelet that was perfect for her body, although arguably a Parisian couture cape dress on a day visit to open a bridge and have lunch with local dignitaries might be read as a bit too grand. Sure enough, by some of her critics, it was.
Meghan’s Givenchy cape combo was the real thing; unlike Jackie Kennedy, who was banned from wearing French designers and exhorted to wear homegrown American ones. Nor did the criticism about grandeur deter Meghan.. Capes became her de facto royal look. A red Safiyaa column. A blue one. A green Emilia Wickestead cape dress in 2021. A black Dior cape dress for the funeral of the late Queen. Noticeably in her new life of “freedom” Meghan has abandoned the cape in favour of wispier strapless or spaghetti strap dresses. This is sartorial morse code writ big.
Meanwhile the Princess of Wales is correcting the cape deficit. The gold Jenny Packham cape dress she wore to the Bond premiere in 2021 was a stand-out , just when we were in the depths of a glamour famine. In December 2023, the Princess wore a dramatic full skirted 1950s style Catherine Walker red cape dress to meet the South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol and first lady Kim Keon Hee in London. The antithesis of her no-nonsense business trouser suits, capes seem to be an indication of her fully blossomed confidence at big state events. Just as they are for Camilla – as well as allowing her ample wrist room for displaying the jewellery she loves.
They’ve also become a favoured prop of other royals, from Princesses Caroline and Charlene of Monaco to Queen Maxima of the Netherlands and Queen Letizia of Spain. They’ve also been featured at every awards ceremony this year.
Grand but contemporary, occasionally just a little bit camp (in a good way – see Penny Mordaunt’s Safiyaa cape dress at the Coronation) and wonderfully helpful in creating a sleek outline that gives everyone improved posture, long – and short – may they reign.
Get the look
Wool blend cape, £125, Cos; Aligne Wool blend wrap cape, £179, Anthropologie
Blanket stitch poncho, £120, Jigsaw; Wool blazer, £189, Arket
Limited Edition Deconstructed blazer, £349, Zara
