Crown Princess Victoria’s birthday is a proper celebration each and every year. It’s Victoriadagen! So a big birthday calls for even more: a Te Deum and carriage ride around Stockholm on Friday, plus the annual events held on the island of Öland, where the family has their summer residence, Solliden Palace.
L to R: Princess Madeleine, Chris O’Neill, Queen Silvia, Prince Daniel, Princess Estelle, Prince Oscar, Crown Princess Victoria, King Carl Gustaf, Princess Sofia, Prince Alexander, Prince Carl Philip.
Victoria celebrated her 40th surrounded by the entire Swedish royal family, and I have never been more convinced that a family coordination memo went out in advance.
Dress code: Please resemble a summer garden of pastels. DONE.
In an embellished dress with a small matching hair ornament from Pär Engsheden, Victoria was the garden-iest of them all. Butterflies everywhere, with enough left over for Princess Estelle to get a few butterflies for her hair. Awwww.
If you can't get a frilly couture dress from your wedding gown designer for your birthday, when can you? (A question we all debate on a daily basis, I'm sure.) This is doing your birthday up right.
Erdem has fast become Princess Madeleine’s go-to label for daytime royal events, and Philip Treacy’s a hat favorite. (This is also a royal twin moment:
Princess Marie has also worn this dress.) Props to Madeleine for picking a layered choice that still managed not to look disheveled while corralling energetic toddlers.
Princess Sofia amped up the floral print with her custom Ida Lanto dress. Did I mention how DELIGHTFUL it is to see some actual hats on the Swedish royal ladies?
Dress code #2: Leave the not-a-hat hat stuff to me, ladies. XO, Vic. I feel like I’ve waited sooooo long to see Princess Sofia bust out a proper hat and bless her heart, she went entirely Eliza Doolittle with it.
After the Stockholm celebrations, the family hopped over to Öland to commence the annual celebrations for Victoria’s birthday, starting with a Friday evening concert. Queen Silvia and Crown Princess Victoria always wear the traditional dress of Öland for this event.
It’s only Silvia and Victoria that go traditional, so that frees up Madeleine and Sofia continue interpreting the morning’s summer garden memo in a more casual mode. And, wisely, to go the wedge route on the grass. There's a certain sort of genius to what Madeleine's doing here. This is admittedly not that great standing up. But seated? It's way better. And seated is the entire game here.
Saturday finished up the annual events as Victoria and her family, with the King and Queen, greeted well-wishers at Solliden Palace.
Dress code #3: On Saturdays, we wear light blue. Going out on the most coordinated note of all. Even the gents this time! Between these two blazers and Carl Philip's suit from the concert, this is as close as we get to summer dressing from the Blue Suit Club. I'll take what I can get.
Photos: SVT screencaps and Getty Images as indicated
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