Back to the future

In centuries past, a royal outfit was more of an event.  Kings and queens were just about the only people who could afford the truly stunning fabrics and fashions of the day and so when they wore something everyone looked and everyone wanted to look at the whole thing.  The back view was just as important as the front.  Trains, covered buttons, jewels in hair - all staples of a historic royal wardrobe. But in the 21st century it seems, the back of an outfit isn't nearly so important. Take the recent appearance of the Queen of Spain on two evening engagements in Malaga.  While there were lots of shots of Letizia facing forward, there were hardly any of her back.  Which meant that the whole point of what is an otherwise fairly standard black dress went without a second glance.

The front of the frock got a lot of attention, shame the main detail was at the back.  Queen Letizia of Spain in Malaga on September 5th 2014

(photo casareal Twitter)

Her Varela dress has an embroidered panel in the back that gives the outfit a totally different look from the back.  Forward facing it's a well made, well fitting LBD.  Give it a backwards glance and you've got something more unusual.  Except this time round, no one really seems to have noticed.

On the reverse - Letizia meets fans in Malaga

Perhaps it was the wrong event for the dress as the queen, after her walkabout, was touring an exhibition and then sitting down for a dinner so her back was hardly going to be on display for that long.  Perhaps it's because the demand for photos is so great that a couple of snaps of a smiling monarch and it's job done.  But either way, it meant that this particular royal outfit only got half the attention it needed and ended up backed into a regal fashion corner.