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British Royals

Royal ladies top list of fashion influencers

Global fashion search platform Lyst, has released a new interactive report exploring 100 years of the royal fashion effect. Some of the royal influencers included in the report are Queen Elizabeth II, Diana Princess of Wales, and the newest royal lady, Ms Meghan Markle.

The report combines historical insights with current global fashion search data, tracing the origins of the British royal fashion influencer phenomenon. After analysing more than 30 outfits for each featured royal, Lyst have selected their most influential looks.

“Forget the Kardashians or the Hadids; the Windsors are the ultimate fashion influencer family. At Lyst we’re used to looking into real time, reactive spikes in search and sales when a celebrity influencer wears a fashion brand. For this project we wanted to investigate the longer term ‘ripple effect’ of fashion trends endorsed by the royals over the years” explains Lyst Editor, Charlotte Austin.

She adds: “Based on our research, we believe Princess Diana is the most powerful royal fashion influencer of all time. While we’re seeing phenomenal spikes in demand for all things Meghan-endorsed right now, Diana’s lasting legacy as a trend setter and continual source of inspiration for generations of designers and fashion lovers makes The Diana Effect an incredibly powerful fashion force.”

But what are the main royal-inspired fashion trends from the report? Well, one of the most iconic trends has to be ‘the power shoulder’, first warn by Diana, Princess of Wales. She was crowned ‘Dynasty Di’ after donning the statement shoulder pads, and thanks to her, the shoulder pad industry is still booming. Blazers with shoulder padding by Balmain and Saint Laurent are still a worldwide fashion trend.

Diana Princess of Wales. (Photo: Paisley Scotland, Flickr.)

Bride-to-be Meghan Markle has recently created the ‘power coat’ trend. Her white Line the Label coat sold out within 12 hours after she wore it. After Ms Markle wore a long double-breasted tartan Burberry coat in Edinburgh, Burberry coats went soaring 120 per cent. This goes to show that Prince Harry’s fiancé is already a major fashion influencer across the world.

Queen Elizabeth II is an influencer in the fashion world for her top handle handbags and equestrian style. Her Launer London handbags are searched for once every six minutes according to Lyst’s report, and the searches for ‘top handle bags’ increased 27 percent during Fashion Month in February.

The Queen’s love of horses and riding means she has worn many tweed suits and riding boots during her reign. Knee-high boots, jodhpurs and tweed blazers all made an appearance in the Spring/Summer 2018 collections, including Chloé and Burberry, showing they are still a major trend.

Princess Charlotte is the youngest royal influencer in the report, with the 2-year-old setting trends already. Searches for British childrenswear designer Rachel Riley spiked 149 percent after the Princess wore a blue party dress for the Royal Family’s tour of Berlin in July 2017.

Lyst lets you search thousands of online fashion stores at once, bringing together five million products from 12,000 of the world’s leading brands in one place. Last year over 80 million shoppers from 120 countries chose to use Lyst.com.

All information used in this article is from the global fashion search platform Lyst.