BEING MEGHAN MARKLE means that everyone is going to be looking at what you wear to any event and discuss it in great detail. This can be great if you’re a designer or for shops like Zara but can get tiresome when people get critical over tiny details.
For example, it was the Queen’s birthday Parade on Saturday which meant the entire Royal family was out in force. Royal protocol apparently dictates that Royal women shouldn’t wear off shoulder or more revealing styles. As we all know, shoulders are very dangerous and should not be seen in public.
I myself found this out the hard way when I wore an off the shoulder top at Maynooth train station and as I passed a mother she saw my shoulders and pulled her child closer to her (true story I swear, my shoulders are dangerous).
Anyway Meghan Markle is much more important than me and thus her shoulders are subjected to much more online abuse than mine, which of course is exactly what happened.
People accused her of not being ‘ladylike’.
"lady"? She will never be a "lady". She broke the royal protocol again by wearing a sexy dress when a more discreet outfit was de rigueur and not a "off shoulder dress". She will never learn because she craves the limelight
— Swati (@Facfortia) June 9, 2018
Kate will ALWAYS be the classy one. Who wears an off-the-shoulder number to such an event? Oh, MM, that’s right. 🤦♂️
— DRobert (@DRobert24754402) June 9, 2018
And that she was stealing the limelight from the Queen.
Anyone who thinks I’m being harsh, think about if it was your birthday, someone turns up and everyone locks on to them. You’d be not HP. Harry should have told her to be more understated in her choice of outfit. Not many comments about how good the Queen looks
— Norman Sufrin (@NormanSufrin) June 9, 2018
There are a number of things to unpack here. Firstly there’s this weird obsession with pitting Kate Middleton against Meghan Markle which is weirdly obsessive and really unnecessary. Two women can co exist and not be in competition of who wore it best.
Secondly of all the things that could be classed as ‘revealing’ shoulders are not one of the things that immediately spring to mind. She hasn’t exactly turned up in a mini skirt and crop top has she?
Thirdly as many people have pointed out, Kate Middleton and THE QUEEN have occasionally displayed their own shoulders and not an eyelid was batted because THEY’RE JUST SHOULDERS.
— Hannah R. (@hannahlaylah) June 9, 2018
If we’re going to be real about it, some of the trolls have an issue with Meghan because she’s not a “traditional” member of the Royal family.
It’s been happening since her engagement was revealed with some tabloids calling her “exotic” which we all know is a not-so-subtle undertone for “not white”. Anything she does that as seen as non traditional will be blown way out of proportion and some of the trolls among us will call her an attention seeker or much worse.
Meghan Markle has gorgeous shoulders but that shouldn’t matter. As Captain Barbosa in Pirates of the Caribbean once said protocols/codes are more like guidelines anyway.
