Charles. Leaning against an oak tree, his gaze fixed on the horizon, into the future, without being blinded by the sun or cooled by the shadow. Leaning on an ancient tree and on a cane. Millennial throne and scepter. It is a photograph that almost sums up a life, which is an abbreviated biography. The saint said that "patience achieves everything". Is it the image of a retired man in emptied England looking to the horizon or one who is new to the office and will be getting a fix shortly?
The perseverance of Carlos III has been high, high as the vaults of Westminster Abbey, where he will be crowned. It is the same church that houses the immortal remains of Charles Dickens, Charles Darwin and, who knows, one day also those of Charles Chaplin.
This May 6, for a change, the British favorite Coronation Street will not be the television series that has been on the air for 63 seasons. The world audience will be elsewhere, watching the man who had to wait so long. What has he done during this time? Despair, sure. Because he is "King by the Grace of God", but human. As much as the Tudor heir and Tom Canty, Mark Twain's The Prince and the Pauper.
At the same time, he has also done a lot of homework. Although in his first days as monarch his fingers were dirty with the fountain pen, the monarch has been carving out his narrative, with blurs, but exalted now that his era begins without some presences that have sometimes thrown him out of the front row: his mother, the mother of his children, his sons and daughters-in-law.
The truth is that Carlos III has left many stories along the way and not only those that have fed the tabloids for decades. You just have to trace his traces, from the most political, those linked to architecture, organic farming, environmental conservation, to the most mundane, with quotes, like his style of clothing.
The one who was Prince of Wales for so many years has been an ambassador of a certain British fashion. The day Vivienne Westwood, the queen of another British style, died, the monarch had an act in Milton Keynes. He wouldn't have donned a snood cap over his face like actor Richard E. Grant, but he did send a delegation and on his assignment that day he dressed in a stark black coat. Although maybe it was a coincidence.
If Carlos III has shown anything, it is that he is not a king who walks around naked, like the one in the story, pretending that he is wearing magical clothing. "My style comes back every 25 years." It is one of his best-known phrases in this regard. Now, in this world of parallel worlds, we can see him dressed today.
In his version of 30 years ago in the skin of Dominic Wiest in The Crown (crossed jackets and serious rictus because the oven was not for buns). Or in the seventies, when the role of him was embodied by Josh O'Connor, who won an Emmy for his portrayal of a carefree young man who had a lot left to reign (although he did not know how much) and who always went like a paintbrush. .
It's funny, because the strictest fashion critics (those mercilessly caricatured by Robert Altman in the film Prêt-a-porter) have said that beyond what is told in The Crown, the actors' clothing deserves a ten. The costume design team that Amy Jordan directs in the series embroiders it. Another thing is how the temperament of the characters is drawn and if the stories that are told have much more sauce (Worcester) than what actually happened.
“Hello, nice to meet you all. I don't look the least bit like how they portray me on Netflix ”, assured Carlos III himself, before the death of his mother (he was not yet king), in a private act and as a humorous presentation. English humour, surely. It was revealed by the Scottish Socialist MP Anas Sarwar at the Fringe, the Edinburgh festival, last year.
It is already known that the most elegant man in the history of the United Kingdom was called George Brian Beau Brummell (1778-1840) and for this reason (and only for this reason, because he did not pay his bills) he has a statue in the Mayfair neighborhood.
It is in Westminster that the oldest, most elegant and most expensive establishments in the city are to be found; fashion, footwear, leather goods and even liquor stores and rooms to smoke cigars, without forgetting Dukes, the bar of the hotel with the same name. From Savile Row to Jermyn Street, from Saint James to New Bond Street.
These are, in effect, the streets of James Bond. This is where an unstoppable partnership comes in. Killer elegance without disheveled. In just a few feet from London, King Carlos III dresses and puts on his shoes. If he appears in his favorite stores it is ceremonially, as an official visit.
He doesn't go into the store to ask for the time. But they are, curiously, some of the establishments that have dressed the heroes and villains of the 007 saga, starting with its creator, Sir Ian Fleming and ending with Daniel Craig, waiting to find out who will be the new licensed to kill.
With some differences, yes. Fleming was very faithful to the Floris perfumery, also a favorite of Queen Elizabeth II. Carlos III would be devoted to that Christian Dior cologne that publicizes the sauvage Johnny Depp playing the electric guitar in the middle of a desert. But if that detail is known, it is because his son Enrique reveals it in his biography.
For obvious reasons, and in an era where hacking isn't just phone calls, discretion around the monarch is strict. But he's been known to wear Turnbull shirts
Known to wear Lobb and Crockett shoes
Now that he is king in capital letters, he can continue to be elegant while waiting for how often the tenant of 10 Downing Street changes. The one leading the polls for the next election is called Keith Starmer, Sir Keith Starmer.
