When the images of the Princess of Wales attending the Remembrance Sunday ceremony in London first circulated, the response wasn’t one of reflection about the event she was marking. Instead, social media posts and news articles were flooded with comments about how she looked - specifically, negative remarks claiming she looks old.
‘What has happened to her? She looks too old in a very short time,’ one user commented on a photograph of Kate Middleton on Instagram. ‘She's ageing terribly.’ Another posted, ‘She went from young attractive mum to mother of the bride overnight,’ while another wrote, ‘She's ageing like milk.’
It’s a sad indication of the environment that all women, not just women in the public eye, are living in - with impossible beauty standards meaning you simply cannot win. There are some that suggest you mustn’t show any signs of ageing, but also ones that criticise you for having any cosmetic treatments which are too obvious, or that go wrong. It’s impossible to navigate, just askKylie Jenner, who this week has been similarly torn apart for looking older than her 27 years, with commenters on social media suggesting that her use of filler - which she has been open about - has aged her prematurely.
The comments on a video of Kylie speaking at a Wall Street Journal event on 2nd November were just as shocking as those about Kate. ‘Kylie looks so old, she looks older than Kendall, Kylie looks about 32 or 33,’ read the top comment of one video, receiving over 4,000 likes. ‘Kylie looks so much older than her age,’ another read. ‘Kylie Jenner looks about 47 years old in person,’ said a user on X.
When it comes to Kate Middleton, especially, appearance has always been a huge chapter of her story. What she wears is tirelessly decoded and reported by the press, if her hair changes colour, by even the most subtle of shade switches, it’s breaking news. When she got ‘curtain bangs’, a long fringe for those not in the know, Kate’s hair made headlines around the world. And while she is so often held aloft for barely ever putting a sartorial foot wrong, when it comes to her looks it seems Kate isn’t immune from the pressures that all women face to keep any signs of ageing quietly under wraps.
Some trolls even saw fit to compare how she’s ageing to Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex, 42, with one commenter writing, ‘She is younger than Meghan, but she looks older’. Tearing a woman apart for signs of ageing is one thing, but pitting them against another woman? That’s just cruel, and unfounded.
It could be argued that living in the public eye, especially in a high profile Royal role, means that any debate or criticism about your looks just comes with the territory. Just look at Princess Diana, who was routinely condemned for presenting herself in certain ways. In her book HRH: So Many Thoughts on Royal Style, writer Elizabeth Holmes claims that the attention Diana received for how she dressed was a source of resentment within the Royal Family, and that it was used to paint her as ‘shallow or frivolous’ in the media.
Of all the media scrutiny given to Princess Diana, perhaps the most outrageous was tabloid commentary that she was too fat, her son Prince William said in a television interview in 2007. ‘Someone said she had cellulite or something like that. As a woman in the public eye, she tried so hard and was so glamorous, always in the gym,’ William told NBC's Matt Lauer.
Twenty-five years on, though, and not much has changed when it comes to the standards of beauty we hold high profile females to (and, in turn, the rest of us). Ageing naturally in the public eye has become one of the most revolutionary things one can do, in the age of social media filters and aesthetic treatments, all designed to make women look as young as possible, for as long as possible.
A-list women are now speaking out about the ageing double standards they face (because while they are torn apart men are praised for ageing, called ‘silver foxes’ or told they are ageing like a ‘fine wine’. Madonna has been criticised for how she looks at almost every age. After an appearance at the Grammys earlier this year, her appearance drew so much negativity she made a statement. ‘Once again I am caught in the glare of ageism and misogyny that permeates the world we live in. A world that refuses to celebrate women pass (sic) the age of 45 and feels the need to punish her if she continues to be strong-willed, hard-working and adventurous,’ the 65-year-old wrote on Instagram. Model Paulina Porizkova has written a book of essays about womanhood at every age, called No Filter. She has said of ageing in the public eye, ‘You don't get to dismiss me because I have some wrinkles and sags and grey hair now, when I'm kind of fabulous, the most fabulous I've ever been. In fact, I'm going to just put it out there and go, you know what, this is me at my best. Deal with it!’
'It's almost as if people don't want us to be perfectly okay with where we are'
Sarah Jessica parker
Sarah Jessica Parker has been very open about how much criticism she’s received for how ageing was depicted in the Sex and the City reboot And Just Like That. She told Vogue, ‘Everyone has something to say, '‘She has too many wrinkles, she doesn’t have enough wrinkles.” It almost feels as if people don’t want us to be perfectly okay with where we are, as if they almost enjoy us being pained by who we are today, whether we choose to age naturally and not look perfect, or whether you do something if that makes you feel better.’
We should keep those words in our minds when we are faced with a photograph of any woman, in the public eye or not, and feel the need to cast any judgement about whether the years have been ‘kind’. If we’re choosing to age naturally or we’re not, it’s entirely personal. And when it comes to criticising Kate Middleton, or comparing her with Meghan Markle, people would do well to remember that her face is quite simply: none of their business.