The Crown is royal cosplay – look out for James Bond and King Charles as a 1990s rock star
There’s been much hoo-haa about how The Crown isn’t historically accurate, but one element about the show that is close to fact is the style sense of the royals.
It’s hard to believe by today’s standards but in the 1990s Prince Charles was actually something of a style icon. God love him, but these days we’re used to seeing the King looking forgettable in rather pedestrian two-piece suits, but back in the day Charles’ attire was as much of an accepted part of the man’s personality as his love for a good joke and an extramarital affair. (We’ll leave that part to The Crown…)
In the first episode of The Crown season 5 – which City PM reviewed here – Charles looks fetchingly like a rock star, sporting a skinny cravat on top of a linen white shirt and flailing around on board a yacht. This is a Charles the trend set could get on board with. In another episode, he looks pleasingly louche sporting a burnt yellow pocket tissue and matching polka dot tie also in the same shade. Charles! Were you ever really this carefree?
It’s flirtatious and ostentatious, much like actor Dominic West’s performance as the prince. Some critics have said he goes over the top but while I was watching the new season I chose to accept that Charles is really this foppish – it’s way more fun that way.
Dalton is excellent at playing the handsome Townsend, who’s dressed so suavely that this basically feels like James Bond cosplay.
Elsewhere there is more fun to be had in surveying royal clothing in the series. Timothy Dalton aka the guy who played “serious James Bond” in the late 1980s has a role as Peter Townsend, Princess Margaret’s 1950s love interest. He’s wearing a pristine black tux in one episode and even goes to a cocktail party. They stop short at ordering an actual martini, shaken not stirred, but was the real Townsend like this? Probably. Party-loving Margaret wouldn’t have put up with a bore, but either way, Dalton is excellent at playing the handsome Townsend, who’s dressed so suavely that this basically feels like James Bond cosplay.
Besides seeing royals as other, cooler people entirely, this season of The Crown is an excuse to study an absolutely fabulous era of men’s suited clothing. The 1990s earmarked the normcore trend, epitomised in the clothing of men like Jerry Seinfield, which was all about oversized suits, often in uniform blocks of colour, and sometimes with powerful touches like angular lapels. Wolf of Wall Street served it first and now The Crown is offering a new slice of 1990s style nostalgia.
If the show offers the chance to imagine Charles as a riotous rock star, spilling his Red Stripe overboard from his yacht then we say why not?
The Crown series 5 is streaming now on Netflix | Read our The Crown season 5 review here