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Ties between Wimbledon and the royal family go back a long way. To 1907, to be precise, the first year that the Prince and Princess of Wales (who would become King George V and Queen Mary) attended the famous Championships. King George V later became patron of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, a role now held by the current Princess of Wales. Kate Middleton’s outfits are pored over almost as much as the action on court, and looking back at royal appearances at the tournament we can see how fashion has evolved throughout the decades. Keep up with Wimbledon 2023 via our liveblog. As the iconic Championships begins today (Monday 3 July), a fashion expert talks through some key looks and what they tell us about the style of the era… King George V and Queen Mary During the first Wimbledon Championships after a four-year hiatus due to World War I, the 1919 women’s final was attended by King George V – who was known to dislike contemporary fashion – and Queen Mary. “When George arrived at Wimbledon, the hub of fashion inspiration for trendy Brits going into the Twenties and Thirties, he stood out like a sore thumb,” says Rosie Harte, author of The Royal Wardrobe. Queen Mary wore a fringed dress with a loose coat, hat and gloves, and carried an umbrella. “She, like other members of the royal family, felt pressure to fall in line with George’s conservative fashion preference,” Harte continues. “And so appears here dressed in a slightly dated, soft and cluttered outfit at odds with the trim tailoring and sleek silhouettes beginning to emerge in women’s fashion.” Queen Elizabeth II Queen Elizabeth II became patron of the All England Club in 1952, but only visited the Championships a handful of times. The first was in 1957 when she attended the women’s singles final, wearing a floral midi dress with white accessories. “Unlike the celebrities of their day, the most dutiful of Wimbledon-bound royals have often avoided pandering to the tennis aesthetic when styling themselves for an appearance,” says Harte. “Even as a young Queen at Wimbledon, Elizabeth was always more fond of an outfit that read homely British romance rather than the wardrobe of the modern woman.” The monarch returned to the tournament in 1977, donning a pink coat dress and hat, and in 2010, wearing a similar ensemble in aqua blue. “Each appearance followed the rubric of the Queen’s royal uniform which, as the years went on, became more and more regimented,” Harte says. “Whether she was on the green or sat in a sea of spectators, the eye needed to be drawn to the Queen through the use of vibrant colours that do not typically feature in the Wimbledon setting.” Diana, Princess of Wales Tennis fan Diana attended Wimbledon more than a dozen times during the Eighties and Nineties, during which time her personal style evolved considerably. “Going into the Nineties, the Princess of Wales was under no illusion that her marriage was the fairytale it had initially been framed as,” suggests Harte. “Consequently, the frothy, fairytale elements of her wardrobe, inspired by the traditional looks of more senior royals, began to disappear.” Floral frocks and roomy sailor dresses made way for more structured and tailored looks. Harte says: “Her white pleated skirt in 1991 embodied an elevated tennis skirt, and in 1995, her pale suit jacket with sunglasses folded over the collar set her apart as a sleek modern woman.” Kate Middleton Another big tennis fan, Kate has been snapped in the audience at Wimbledon as far back as 2007, but her first memorable fashion look came in 2012, a year after she married the Prince of Wales. Kate donned a seemingly tennis-inspired knitted dress from Alexander McQueen (the label that made her wedding dress) with a drop-waist and blue accented cuffs and hem. “She radiated the essence of the iconic pre-war tennis star – an aesthetic largely rejected by the royal family,” says Harte. Taking over from the late Queen as patron in 2016, Kate has continued to reference tennis colours over the years with green and white dresses, and in 2022 opted for vintage-inspired looks. “Last year saw her attending Wimbledon in various outfits that used cut, colour and accessories to reference the fashions of the daring, modern woman who emerged in the 1920s and Thirties,” says Harte. “Her bright yellow Roksanda Ilinčić frock was the most subtle of these, but the vibrant colour was uncompromising, making her an unavoidable figure at the event.” Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live The Idol should have been about modern cults rather than Tedros’s weird kinks Stanley Tucci recalls trying to break up with wife Felicity Blunt over 21-year age gap Plans for Prince Andrew to move into Harry and Meghan’s former home ‘quietly shelved’

Scientists have made a major breakthrough with a new type of solar panel that they claim could supercharge the transition to renewable energy sources. A team from the University of Surrey discovered that a nanoscale “ink” coating could improve stability enough to make next-generation perovskite solar cells suitable for mass production. Perovskite is cheaper and lighter than conventional silicon-based cells, as well as far more efficient, however the emerging technology currently suffers from a drop in efficiency and energy output during the manufacturing process. “Performance limits of traditional solar cells are why researchers are switching to examining perovskite as the next-generation solar technology, especially as applications both terrestrial and in space are rapidly growing,” said Dr Imalka Jayawardena from the University of Surrey’s Advanced Technology Institute (ATI). “Our key development in solar panel technology shows a cost-effective approach to scaling of perovskite solar cells, a development which could help countries around the world to reach their net zero targets faster.” The breakthrough was made when the researchers identified an aluminium oxide that minimises the drop in efficiency during the conditioning of perovskite solar cells. Perovskite has been hailed as a “miracle material” for its potential to transform an array of industries, from ultra high-speed communications to renewable energy. Recent advances have seen it used to create self-healing solar panels that can recover 100 per cent of their efficiency after being damaged by radiation in space, as well as break new efficiency records when combined with silicon to form tandem cells. If the cheap-to-produce perovskite cells can be manufactured at scale while retaining their durability and reliability, then the cost of solar panels would plummet. “Solar and wind energy costs are rapidly decreasing based on technology improvements, to the level where worldwide over 80 per cent of all new additional power generation capacity is based on renewables,” said Ravi Silva, from the ATI, University of Surrey. “The levelized cost of solar electricity is now cheaper than most other power-generating sources. With the maturing of perovskite solar modules, the levelized cost of electricity will significantly decrease further, and that is why this is such an exciting area to work.” The research was detailed in a study, titled ‘Modification of Hydrophobic Self-Assembled Monolayers with Nanoparticles for Improved Wettability and Enhanced Carrier Lifetimes Over Large Areas in Perovskite Solar Cells’, published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Solar PRL. Read More Hundreds of years after it was discovered, one material is about to change the world ‘Miracle material’ smashes solar panel efficiency threshold Scientists invent solar panels that work in a snow blizzard September Supermoon: When is it and how to view it? Amazon Alexa is getting the same brain as ChatGPT

PITTSBURGH & CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov 1, 2023--

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DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 22, 2023--

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