Kate, the Princess of Wales, attends a launch event for the Shaping Us campaign in London, on Monday, hosted by The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood. Photo / AP
Kate, the Princess of Wales, attends a launch event for the Shaping Us campaign in London, on Monday, hosted by The Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood. Photo / AP
OPINION:
I’m having to work very hard – very hard indeed – to resist every cliche and shopworn, over-Instagrammed saying here about the power of fashion when it comes to describing the latest ensemble worn by the Princess of Wales.
There she was on Tuesday morning, striding onto a stagewearing the sort of getup the Oxford dictionary should use to illustrate their entry for ‘power suit’.
If ever there was a sign that (praise be!) Kate’s froufrou days of trad wife frocks are far behind her, then it was her rolling up in a $4300 Alexander McQueen blazer and trousers to announce a major new early years initiative.
It is an image of the princess – businesslike and unapologetically leading – that must tickle pink the hearts of every card-carrying feminist between here and the Virago Press head office.
And it is an image that, coincidentally, throws into stark relief the degree to which her brother-in-law and Spotify’s least productive hire Prince Harry is well, not exactly setting the world of philanthropy on fire.
This came after, late on Monday night, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s Archewell Foundation (AWF) put out their first Impact Report, revealing that of US$13 million ($20m) raised by the Foundation, US$3m ($4.65m) had been donated.
As the public shadow cast by Kate and husband Prince William’s charitable work grows, it is impossible not to compare the two royal charitable outfits on both sides of the Pond.
Prince William and Kate, the Princess of Wales, who wore an Alexander McQueen blazer and trousers to the event - a true power suit. Photo / AP
The reason that Kate was on that stage, wearing the dickens out of a blazer and looking like a CEO delivering keynote address at Davos in between hostile takeovers, was that she was launching the latest high profile campaign of her Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood.
Now I’ll be honest: For years I thought that Kate would hardly have impressed her mother-in-law Diana, Princess of Wales with her occasional charity outing. For a long time, Kate seemed to have all the drive of someone who had a well-thumbed copy of that literary abomination The Rules and was more interested in wafting around Whistles than actual work.
Basically, that she was well pleased with her lot in life as a well-dressed accessory to husband William, a well-meaning but lacklustre fragrant adjunct.
Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.
In the last five years, Kate has begun gathering experts from science, academia and government to discuss children’s development between pregnancy and age 5. The animating idea here is that if you can fundamentally change and improve the way a society and country supports little ‘uns and their parents in that crucial time period before school, you can dramatically reduce rates of mental illness, addiction and homelessness in the decades to come.
For Kate, this is not glamorous work; there are no short-term, made-for-the-cameras PR wins; and all those preschool photo ops guarantee the inevitably of getting finger paint on one’s favourite McQueen trousers.
But the princess’ early years works is ambitious and progressive stuff; the sort of forward-thinking that has the power to genuinely change millions of lives in the future.
Likewise, her husband and number one supporter Prince William, who was there at her side on Tuesday, has a big-picture project of his own in the form of the global $98 million Earthshot Prize.
Meghan, Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex at the 2022 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Ripple of Hope Gala in New York last year. Photo / Getty Images
Contrast that with the Sussexes, who are approaching their three-year mark in the United States, having introduced their charitable Archewell Foundation towards the end of 2020.
Since then, AWF has popped up sporadically to announce various scattergun moments of do-goodery, for example, when they donated to Save the Children and UNICEF Nigeria in the wake of catastrophic flooding in the African country last October or when the duchess supported the female-driven protests in Iran via her choice of T-shirt. (Take that Ayatollah!)
Up until this week’s report came out, it seemed like AWF’s greatest contribution lay in their enthusiastic use of press releases.
Au contraire. This week’s Impact Report details the extent to which Archewell has been making tangible, significant differences in thousands of lives, including rescuing 7468 people from Afghanistan via a partnership with the Human First Coalition and helping serve 50,000 meals in partnership with World Central Kitchen. It’s bloody impressive stuff, not least of which is the fact that until now they have not been loudly shouting about their efforts.
None of this should be diminished, and this work is to the Sussexes’ absolute credit, but what the AWF report and Kate’s London launch highlight is the wildly different levels the two duos are now playing on. One lot, which is spread across a range of often grassroots outfits and aimed at making an immediate impact; the other, focused and legacy-making stuff, with benefits that will be reaped by our children and our children’s children.
While this may well be a clear-eyed strategic choice on the part of the Sussexes, their humanitarian work remains truly overshadowed by their energetic potshot-taking at his family.
AWF might have helped people around the world but thanks to Harry and Meghan’s repeated strikes against his tweedy family and The Firm, their names are not synonymous with charity but the sort of corrosive family feuding and sniping that would have kept Will Shakespeare in material for decades.
One Washington Post writer worked out that the Sussexes have given and undertaken approximately 40 hours of interviews and media engagements since arriving in the US.
The Princess of Wales' projects are focused on leaving a legacy. Photo / AP
For the duke and duchess in 2023, their brand is not founded on them as humanitarian leaders but on the never-ending, multiverse of family misery that is Harry and Meghan versus the House of Windsor.
I suppose it comes down to the fact that their charitable work does not feel like the defining force in terms of their public image.
Maybe part of the reason why that is is because of sheer necessity given his dear pa no longer picks up their bills and they have a reported $14.6m mortgage. (A first for Aitch after a lifetime of living in grace-and-favour homes.)
In the last two and a half years or so, they have signed deals with Netflix, Spotify and Penguin Random House that, combined, are reported to be worth more than $218m.
Shooting a six-hour “documentary” series, penning a 400-page plus book even with the help of a ghostwriter and putting out a 12-part podcast series all consume a hell of a lot of hours in the day I’d imagine, hours that can’t be spent plotting and planning how to make the world a better place.
And therein lies a fundamental difference with William and Kate, who can dedicate each and every working day to plugging away at their major projects, with only time for a quick round of coronation chicken sandwiches, crusts-off, for lunch.
The Sussexes, having left to find freedom, raise chickens down the road from Oprah, and to learn first-hand about the pain of interest rate rises don’t have that luxury.
What will be interesting to watch is whether, as Harry and Meghan settle into their US careers, they are able to start working on more ambitious, far-reaching projects or whether, without the support network and infrastructure of the Palace, they struggle to really gain much traction.
Harry launched his hugely successful and ongoing Invictus Games in 2014. Can or will we ever see the couple ever mount any sort of similar global endeavours in the same league as this? Or in the same league as William’s Earthshot or Kate’s Early Years or his father’s pioneering Prince’s Trust or his mother’s (ultimately Nobel Peace Prize-winning) landmine campaign?
Can or will Harry and Meghan ever begin to play on the same philanthropic field as the Waleses are now?
If there is one lesson in all of this it is that day jobs really can really get in the way of changing the world. That and the awesome power of a great pantsuit should never be underestimated.
Daniela Elser is a writer and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.
