How the King and Queen revamped their wardrobes for their Australia and Samoa tour

The fashion on a royal tour should never overshadow the diplomatic mission – but wardrobe planning for something on the scale of the King and Queen’s tour of Australia and Samoa this week will have required months of preparation all the same.

And yet, alongside all of the carefully coordinated visual messaging, there have been some subtle style updates that have made the couple’s otherwise familiar wardrobes look slightly more au courant.

Take Camilla’s sunglasses, from French eyewear brand Izipizi, best known for its chic off-the-shelf reading glasses. The pale blue “E” style, £40, coordinated nicely with her go-to palette of whites and blues, and she’s worn them on several occasions over the course of the trip. The King’s sunglasses appear to be from the same brand, in a different colourway.

The Queen has switched up her dress formula, too, stepping out in silky tunic and trouser sets by Anna Valentine – one of her go-to couturiers – an elegant formalwear solution in a hot and humid climate that does away with the need to wear tights (a necessity when styling a dress). With it, she carried a mini raffia basket bag from Heidi Klein, a luxury beachwear boutique, an accessory that worked better in the context of an ‘ava ceremony in Samoa’s capital, Apia, than a typical boxy leather handbag style.

“We made that [tunic and trousers] a few years ago,” Valentine tells The Telegraph. “She’s collected them over the years.”

It was a smart decision, because looking good in the heat is challenging for anyone, let alone someone in their 70s whose job involves them being photographed from every angle. All of these factors are considered in the design process, but keeping the wearer cool is Valentine’s number one priority. “It’s really hard, [creating] things that look good in the heat, that don’t crease up too much,” she says. “That’s why the tunic and trousers work so well, because the fabric is slightly away from the body. We make the tunic and trousers in very, very fine layers of very breathable fabrics, and they feel very cool. So that is really important, and also to look elegant at the same time.”

Then there are the very particular requirements that come with dressing a member of the Royal family. Consider the challenges: a tour wardrobe must be polished and appropriate for each engagement. Outfits should be bold enough that the King and Queen are easily identifiable, in an uplifting palette (black is too funereal), but not so bold that the outfit distracts from the event and the reason they are there.

“There is a lot of thought [put] into everything, the pitch of the shoulder, what’s going to lift it up, what’s going to flatter from this side or that side,” Valentine says. “Photographers take photos from every angle; that’s why the Royals often end up going for a very tailored look. I think the tunic and trousers are the most fluid of the pieces that the Queen wears. I always try to think of things that swing or move beautifully, so that when they’re captured, they don’t look too stiff.”

The King, who has always had an appreciation for style and tailoring, also raised his game with one of his most interesting tour wardrobes to date, including a white bush jacket that he designed himself and had made by Savile Row tailor Anderson & Sheppard. It was trimmed with blue embroidery by the Samoan School of Fine Art. The colour is important: in Samoa, blue represents freedom and the ocean, the latter of which surrounds the islands. The resulting look was smart, climate and occasion-appropriate and a charming way to celebrate the host nation.

It has a history too, says Stephen Doig, the Telegraph’s Men’s Style Editor: “This pays homage to one of the King’s most enduring looks, the safari jacket worn on royal tours throughout the 1980s, while the considered detail celebrates the local culture. Anderson & Sheppard have been the King’s go-to for decades, known for their softness in the lofty realms of Savile Row tailoring and their peerless fabrication. By marrying the two worlds, the King demonstrates that he’s a deft sartorial diplomat.”

For a dinner and reception for the Commonwealth Heads of Government at the Robert Louis Stevenson Museum in Apia, the King celebrated Samoan talent once again, opting for what was described as “Red Sea rig dress” with a blue and white print by the Samoan School of Fine Art on the sleeves, epaulettes and cummerbund.

Even on arrival in Samoa, the King paired his suit with a bright blue tie in another tribute to the country.

While Charles knows the rules of diplomatic dressing inside-out, the burden of actively carrying out the task will often fall more heavily on the women of the Royal family. His mother, the late Queen, turned it into an art form, and now it is up to Queen Camilla, the Princess of Wales and the Duchess of Edinburgh to assume that role.

Enter Valentine, again, who also created an evening iteration of the tunic and trousers, in a pale blue that shimmered with beads, for Queen Camilla. “The whole dress has embroidery on it that’s taken from a traditional Samoan flower design,” she says.

It’s an approach to diplomatic dressing that can be likened to the late Queen’s yellow Norman Hartnell “Wattle gown”, which she wore on her first trip to Australia as monarch, and featured an Australian wattle plant in the embroidery. She went on to reference that moment in her wardrobe and jewellery on subsequent tours of the nation. Camilla paid tribute to that 1954 visit when she wore Queen Elizabeth’s Wattle brooch on her first day in Australia.

We also saw the Queen debut a number of new dresses by Fiona Clare. They share a sleek, tailored silhouette with which Camilla has become synonymous. “Sometimes I am creating for an occasion or trip but the weather can often change what might be worn,” Clare says. “It’s always a lovely surprise when Her Majesty wears one of my designs unexpectedly, which happened when the King and Queen Camilla arrived in Australia.”

For Clare, the same considerations are applied to every piece she makes for the Queen: “When designing for a high-profile tour, it is the same as for all occasions, I take everything into consideration, especially how it will look in a photograph. I only use natural fabrics, they are lovely to wear, hang beautifully and are sustainable; all my designs are lined with silk which is so lovely to wear.”

We can expect to see Camilla wear many of these pieces in the future too – a factor that pleases the designers who work with her. “It’s very satisfying to see that they are being worn again, and they don’t date particularly,” says Valentine. “We have added length to things for her over the last few years, because she used to wear her dresses quite a lot shorter. We’ve added bands on the bottom to update them and modernise it for her.”

And by all accounts, the Queen takes pleasure in engaging with the fashion side of royal life too. “She definitely enjoys the new pieces,” Valentine says. “I think that she enjoys slightly quirky things as well.”