A Palace's colourful future

The Prince's Palace in Monaco has been undergoing quite a few design changes in recent weeks.  First, Prince Albert paid homage to his Irish roots - his great grandparents moved from Ireland to America in the 19th century - by bathing his home in green light to mark St Patrick's Day.  And now, along with Princess Charlene, he helped turn the palace blue to highlight World Autism Day.

Prince Albert and Princess Charlene of Monaco show off their new exterior design as they temporarily turn their palace blue to highlight World Autism Day

In 2007, the United Nations made April 2nd the day when the work to understand autism and help people who have the condition is placed centre stage.  It's thought around 67 million people around the world have autism.  Princess Charlene is the Honorary President of Monaco Against Autism and it was the princess who flicked the switch to floodlight her home blue - the colour chosen to symbolise the global campaign.  On the same night, around the world, other famous building were bathed in blue light to draw attention to autism.

The Prince's Palace in Monaco is bathed in blue for World Autism Day

The royal couple have set a bit of a trend for lighting their home in different colours for different events and all eyes are now on Monaco to see which brighter shade of pale Albert and Charlene choose next.

The Prince's Palace in Monaco on St Patrick's Day when Albert II of Monaco honoured his Irish roots by turning his home green

Royal support for Winter Olympics stars

The gold medal for royal support at the Winter Olympics 2014 at the moment is with King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands.  The royal couple has been perhaps more high profile than their country's athletes as the Sochi Games get under way. After lots of waving from the stands at the opening cermeony, the king and queen have now given us bicycling in the Olympic park, tea in the Olympic village and big excited grins at the ice skating.  They are running rings around other royals at the event.

Willem-Alexander and Maxima of the Netherlands get very excited about the ice skating in Sochi

Albert and Charlene of Monaco are putting in the royal support hours as well with plenty of appearances at different events around Sochi.  But while Albert is all smiles, he might be telling one too many stories of the time he was an Olympian as Charlene has looked a little distant at times.

Prince Albert and Princess Charlene of Monaco at the Winter Olympics in Sochi

Princess Anne is still at the Games as is the Grand Duke of Luxembourg while the Norwegian and Swedish royals are expected to arrive later in the next few days.  But they are going to have their work cut out when it comes to regal flag waving.  Willem-Alexander and Maxima are looking strong in gold medal position at the moment.

Have bikes, will travel - the king and queen of the Netherlands on their tour of the Olympic village.  

Royal birthday bonanza

Mia Grace Tindall has picked the right time to arrive.  Every now and again, there is a rush of royal birthdays and the cold and frosty weeks of January are one of those times.  Since the new year arrived, no less than one queen, one king, seven princesses and one prince have blown out their candles and another prince and a former queen are about to celebrate their big days.  January is a royal birthday bonanza month.

The latest royal birthday girl is Princess Charlene of Monaco who turned 36 on January 25th 2014

Charlene of Monaco is the latest royal to mark her big day as she turned 36 on January 25th 2014 by signing copies of a new book on her home country, South Africa, to which she has written the forward.  Her celebrations were just two days after those of her sister-in-law, and her husband's heir for now, Princess Caroline who was 57 on January 23rd 2014 and opened cards and presents from grandchildren for the first time.  Denmark's royal house has had its fair share of jelly and ice cream birthday parties this month with twins Vincent and Josephine first to celebrate, turning three on January 8th 2014.  Little cousin, Athena, was two on January 24th.  

Athena of Denmark stands still just long enough for a photo to mark her second birthday

Mia Tindall will never have the most famous royal January birthday in Great Britain as cousin Kate of Cambridge celebrates her big day in the same month.  The duchess turned 32 on January 9th with no public appearances or photographs or even a glimpse of her but the event still dominated royal news for days.

Kate, Duchess of Cambridge made headlines for days when she celebrated her birthday on January 9th even though she wasn't seen in public at all 

In Norway, future queen Ingrid Alexandra turned ten on January 21st while the day before the new Queen of the Belgians, Mathilde, celebrated her 41st birthday.  And to make it a hat trick, the Countess of Wessex also turned 49 on January 20th.  While Sophie and Mathilde were hidden from view with no special events to mark their big days, Ingrid starred in a set of birthday portraits.  

One of three birthday portraits released to mark Princess Ingrid Alexandra celebrating her first decade

In Spain, the royals have got very little to celebrate at the moment and no mention was made of the birthday of the king's son-in-law, Inaki Urdangarin, who turned 46 on January 15th.  Ten days earlier, King Juan Carlos celebrated his 76th birthday with no public events or photos.  As his son and heir, Felipe, prepares to turn 46 on January 30th there have been a rash of articles about a possible crisis in his marriage to Princess Letizia as well as more questions about the future of the crown itself.  

The latest appearance of Prince Felipe and Princess Letizia, two days ahead of his 46th birthday, as they visited Tenerife

And to round off the royal birthdays this month, Beatrix of the Netherlands celebrates her first big day since abdicating.  The former queen of the Netherlands turns 76 on January 31st 2014. And the royal birthday cake makers get to breathe a sigh of relief - February is a much quieter month for royal anniversaries.

Princesses as cover girls

What better way to mark turning forty than appearing as a cover girl on one of the world's best known fashion magazines?  It's certainly one up on buying a load of face cream, drinking too many cocktails and wondering why you don't really look or feel any different the day after the big day than the way you did before.  Mette-Marit of Norway is enjoying her last few days being a thirty something before she hits the big four-oh next Monday and as part of the celebrations, she's now given an interview and exclusive photos to the Norwegian version of Elle magazine.

 

Mette-Marit of Norway in a very floral dress to mark he 40th birthday

 

The cover also promises tributes from some of those closest to the Crown Princess on her big birthday.  It's not the first exclusive interview the princess has given this year - earlier in the summer she spoke to the glossy supplement that comes with Norwegian daily Dagbladet about her week long visit to Burma where she was seeing and promoting the work of organisations including the Red Cross.  But this is a more personal chat on a personal occasion - there's a special celebration this weekend as well in Norway for the 40th of the woman who will one day be queen consort.  And magazines in her own country, and around Europe, have been carrying the official photos released to mark the occasion several months ago - so to have new snaps and a fresh chat with the princess is a scoop for Elle.

 

 

 One of the official photos taken to mark the 40th birthdays of Mette-Marit and her husband of 12 years, Haakon Magnus.  The snaps have been in European magazines over most of the summer.

 

But Mette-Marit isn't the first princess to pose for exclusive front covers this summer.  Princess Charlene of Monaco has spent quite a lot of the summer posing for magazines.  First she hit the front of the Japanese edition of Vogue - her husband's mother, Grace Kelly was a Vogue cover girl more than once - and then this month she's on the front of the South African print of Marie Claire.

 

 

Princess Charlene of Monaco on the front of Japan's Vogue magazine

 

The Marie Claire interview is in support of a campaign to find eight women who can go for gold for South Africa in the swimming pool at the 2016 Rio Olympics.  And if they do get a girl on the podium, she'll have gone one better than the princess who finished fifth in her Olympic appearance in Sydney in the 4 x 100m medley relay.

 

 

Marie Claire magazine in South Africa features homegrown princess, Charlene, on the cover as she lends her support to a bid for gold at the Rio Olympics of 2016

 

It's interesting to see such a splurge of royal ladies on big magazine covers.  There's no doubt that royalty really sells at the moment.  There's been a revival of interest in all of Europe's ruling households in recent years, helped by all of them having young, photogenic families coming to the fore.  And the biggest news of all remains Prince George.  Anticipation over the first full face photos of the baby who will be king one day is growing by the day.  Magazines and newspapers, not to mention TV and online, have been showing and reshowing those now famous shots of Kate, Wills and the dark haired bundle attempting a wave for three weeks now.  In the UK, most of the big Sunday newspapers reported jumps in sales, helped by souvenir supplements for two big British occassions - Andy Murray winning Wimbledon and the birth of future king, Prince George - with the Sunday Telegraph boasting a 3.35% rise in copies shifted.

 

 The arrival of a new prince, as well as a British man winning Wimbledon, helped the Sunday Telegraph sell 436,000 copies in July 2013 - a rise of 3.35% on the month before

 

But of course, none of the coverage of the royal baby has so far included any exclusive shots.  The new royal families of Europe are quite good at keeping up the stock of official photos but something special that no one else has before you is what all paper and magazine editors want.  It can be hard to come by and Vanity Fair has been the most successful, with plenty of exclusives over the years.  It's still to land the special 'at home' with Wills and Kate although the prince did pose for the famous 2003 edition of eligible princes and princesses that became even more celebrated when several of the single sovereigns in waiting announced their marriages within months of it hitting the newsstands.

 

 

William posed for the cover of Vanity Fair magazine in 2003



 

There were some already married couples in that Young and Royal spread - among them Marie-Chantal and Pavlos of Greece.  And Marie Chantal is back posing for magazines, gracing the front of the  Hong Kong Tatler for August.  But Marie Chantal is on the front of a lot of magazines quite a lot.  She's had several Vanity Fair front pages and has even cropped up in ES magazine which is given away free every Friday with the Evening Standard in her adopted home city of London. She has a bit more freedom as the queen in waiting of a crown that no longer rules.

 

 

Marie-Chantal of Greece is a businesswoman as well as a princess and her design and fashion gets her a lot of press coverage