Monday, August 11, 2014

Royally Speaking with Order of Splendor

To keep us busy over the summer, we are doing an interview series featuring some of our favourite royal bloggers (in no particular order). In today's edition I talked to the person behind Order of Splendor about our mutual love of Elie Saab and how royal fashion can be used in a diplomatic way.

I think I discovered your blog sometime around the wedding of Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden. For how long have you actually been running Order of Splendor and what made you want to start your own blog in the first place?
Photo: Zimbio
I started blogging just before Victoria's wedding, June 2010. I suppose you could say I started for purely selfish reasons - I wanted to talk about the topics I wanted to talk about, in the way I wanted to talk about them. It remains a surprise to me that anyone else tunes in, really!

These days many princesses and queens are often judged by what they are wearing and which designers they are sporting. Do you think this is a recent development or maybe has there always been a certain focus on royal fashion but through the internet et al it has simply become a much quicker world-wide phenomenon? And how do you judge how they are judged, is the fashion aspect an important one to you?
There are examples of royal fashion trend-setting going back centuries, today's media and technology just allows for a wider and faster influence. The ladies (and gentlemen) at a royal court may have been the ones with the access and means to copy royal fashions once upon a time, but now anyone with an internet connection can tune in and do the same. Occasionally royal fashion can be used in a diplomatic way - wearing a French label on a visit to France, for example - but I consider it mainly a secondary concern. The fashion aspect is only important to me in the sense that it can be fun and frivolous, and everyone can do with a bit of fun and frivolity in their lives (hence why I chose to blog about these sorts of topics!).

Photo: AFP
It’s not a secret that both you and I love Elie Saab’screations. If you could steal any Saab dress from the grand ducal wardrobe, which one would it be?
Go big or go home, I say: I'll take Stéphanie's wedding gown, thanks.

Imagine you could be locked up in a royal jewellery vault for a night, which monarchy's jewellery vault would you want it to be and which tiara would you try to smuggle out to take home afterwards?
I'll be predictable for someone that also runs a blog about Queen Elizabeth II's jewels and say I'd lock myself away in the British vault(s). I'd snag the Girls of Great Britain and Ireland Tiara for myself, and while I'm at it, solve the mystery of just how much stuff is stashed away there once and for all.

Lastly if you could invite six royals (dead or alive) to a dinner party, which ones would find an invitation in their mailbox? (And which tiaras would the ladies in your group be wearing?)
Four ladies that seem like they'd be up for a bit of gossip and a good laugh: the Duchess of Cornwall (wearing the Delhi Durbar Tiara), Crown Princess Victoria (in the tiara belonging to the late Estelle Bernadotte that the royal family has maybe/possibly/or maybe not bought back), Queen Máxima (really anything she's never worn before would do), and Sweden's late Princess Lilian (in the Leuchtenberg Sapphires, which she didn't get to wear during her lifetime). And let's add two gentlemen that always seem to be having the most fun: Prince Henrik and Prince Harry.

11 comments:

  1. Love the Order of Splendor and Luxarazzi together! In fact, I think these two blogs might work well together on some collaborative Luxembourgish royal splendor projects. Thanks for the interview with OoS!

    ReplyDelete
  2. the only part i do find strange is the following: "It remains a surprise to me that anyone else tunes in, really!"


    you're the only one, OoS, to find _that_ surprising, believe me.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Woot Woot! Great interview, as we'd expect.

    ReplyDelete
  4. That dinner party needs to be larger! And take place in a theater in the round so the Splendorists and Luxarazzists can be the audience. Well done Sydney, thank you.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Love both blogs - thank you SydneyLux and OoS!

    ReplyDelete
  6. What a fantastic interview!! OoS, I LOVE your guest list!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Two of my favourite blog(er)s together! Yay!

    ReplyDelete
  8. OSS - I was sure you would ask for Maxima in the Stuart Tiara!! I can't be the only one just waiting to see that one come back into the light!!

    ReplyDelete