By Amanda Platell


Seeing double: Carole Middleton shopping in a lookalike outfit to her daughter Pippa's


Holy mother-of-the bride! What does Carole Middleton think she looks like? The 56-year-old mother of three may have the enviably slim figure of a woman half her age, but surely her days of getting away with thigh-skimming flirty skirts, bare legs and trendy biker boots are long gone.

The mind boggles at what Mrs M might be planning to wear as mother of the bride at the Royal Wedding.

Let’s hope Mum doesn’t lose sight of the fact that her role is to support and complement her daughter, not compete with her.


Carole was pictured in the Daily Mail yesterday doing a little pre-wedding shopping with her younger daughter, Pippa. From behind, they could have been sisters. Both wore short skirts, flat boots and navy jackets that showed off their gym-toned bodies. From the front, it was another story.

This isn’t to say Carole doesn’t look terrific — it’s plain to see where the girls get their stunningly slender figures. But there comes a time in every woman’s life where her wardrobe has to offer a nod of acknowledgement towards her advancing years.

Not give in to them, not become boring or fuddy duddy, but accept the fact that though we may feel like a teenager at heart, we just don’t look like one any more.

To put it bluntly, dressing too young just makes a woman look older.

Walking down the street in matching outfits, Carole and Pippa looked as if they were filming an episode of the BBC series Hotter Than My Daughter — a reality show where daughters despair of their mutton-dressed-as-lamb mothers and their too sexy, too revealing, too young choice of clothes.

Such behaviour from Carole Middleton will only give ammunition to those cynics who think she is a shameless social climber. William’s more snooty friends who called out ‘Doors to manual’ every time Kate entered the room — in reference to her mother’s former career as a trolley dolly — will be having a field day.

Dressing too young: Carole, 56, wears a dress more revealing that her daughter Kate's choice


We should have seen this coming when, following the engagement announcement, Carole turned out for the world’s press in a pair of ridiculously tight skinny jeans and high-heeled boots topped off with a cropped zipper jacket that looked as though it had come straight out of the window of Topshop.

Or when she and Kate spent a day at the polo together in matching low-slung skinny jeans, hipster belts, and hers ’n’ hers designer wellies.

It’s not denim that is the problem after 50; it’s the style. Carole is constantly trying to look like Kate’s best friend, not her mother. Let’s not forget that bright orange cocktail dress (worn with a matching tangerine fake tan) she was snapped in early on in Kate and William’s relationship. It ticked all three fashion faux pas boxes: too young, too tight, too bright.

And Carole Middleton is not alone. The trend for good-looking mothers to compete with their daughters in the glamour stakes seems to be creeping into all sections of society.

It’s known as the 15/50 phenomenon — because the woman may look like a teenager from behind, but she is decidedly middle-aged from the front.

Like mother, like daughter: Carole dresses in a nearly identical outfit to Kate's for a day at the polo


Fergie is a classic example, turning her daughters Eugenie and Beatrice into mini-me clones, the poor lasses. At least Carole does have some fashion flair and a sensational figure.

Socialite Ivana Trump often dives into her daughter Ivanka’s wardrobe and looks utterly ridiculous as a result.

The trend is partly down to the fact we are constantly being told 50 is the new 40 and — let’s face it — today’s middle-aged women who keep themselves in shape are unrecognisable from how their blue-rinse mothers in their sensible shoes looked at the same age.

I was 26 when I got married and my mother was 55. She wouldn’t have dreamed of wearing the kind of clothes I wore at that age.

She was magnificently matronly in the sweetest and truest meaning of the word — dignified, mature and, most importantly, motherly.

And that’s exactly how I wanted her because she was my mother, not my friend. So many women today blur the edges and I can’t believe it helps mother or daughter. Children, especially daughters, need their mums to be role models, not fashion models.We’re told Carole is frantically dieting for the wedding. I’d have thought a far more important role for the mother of a nervous bride would be to keep Kate’s worrying weight loss in check.

Inappropriate choice: When Carole and Michael turned out for the world's press following Prince William and Kate's engagement, she wore a pair of ridiculously tight skinny jeans and high-heeled boots topped off with a cropped zipper jacket that looked as though it had come straight out of the window of Topshop


It’s yummy mummy gone mad. Young women don’t want to be competing with their mothers to see who can look the thinnest and the sexiest.

Just imagine how elegant a woman with Carole’s figure and her natural good looks could be with the right styling.

I must confess that I have a personal shopper friend to thank for saving me from a mutton misadventure not so long ago.

We were trying on clothes in an upmarket department store and I had my heart set on a beautiful, black leather biker jacket.

It fitted like a dream, but she pulled a disapproving face when I tried it on. Too tight, too expensive, too daring? ‘No darling,’ she said. ‘Too young.’

Blunt. Depressing. But true. And I would offer the same advice to Carole. It is partly insecurity, a denial of the passing of the years, that makes women dress inappropriately.

Success came late to Carole, from cabin crew to millionaire businesswoman on the back of her Party Pieces company. But she seems never to have really grown up.


Mini-mes: Sarah Ferguson similarly competes to look as glamorous as her daughters Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie


Like many of us, it’s a cruel fact of life that so often we can’t afford gorgeous clothes when we’re younger. When you have the body you don’t have the money, when you have the money you’ve lost the body — but that, I’m afraid, is life.

The danger, of course, is that when you get into your 40s and 50s you hanker for all the lovely clothes and shoes you missed out on in your youth.

But no amount of tight jeans, biker boots and leather jackets can turn back the clock and however much we may wish to recapture our 20s and 30s, it’s like juggling mercury — impossible.

I have huge sympathy for Carole Middleton — the pressure to look good must be enormous — but it’s not her role to compete with her daughter in the run-up to her wedding.

There’s only room for one shining star on that day — and it’s Kate.


source:dailymail