Can you spot what’s missing from these royal rig-outs – and why Prince William is going it alone? From George V to King Charles III, it’s a question of what suits…
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He’s supposed to be unflappable – in public at least.
So perhaps that’s why the King prefers his suits to be without one rather traditional feature – the flaps that are supposed to cover the pockets on the coat, as it is properly known?
Why? Charles is known to like clean lines – and dislike unnecessary frills.
Some royal watchers, though, suggest that flapless pockets are easier to stick his hands in, and he certainly does plenty of that.
However, it seems to have stopped with the younger generation as Prince William and Prince Harry have both been seen with them.
Not that the King is the first royal to go flap-free. His father Prince Philip seems to have taken much the same approach.
As did other royals in times gone by, as these pictures show…
Unflappable: King Charles III on visit to the Eastlands Library in Nairobi
Look – no hands. Prince Albert, later King George VI, and Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, later the Queen Mother, pictured on honeymoon in 1923
Ready for anything: the late Duke of Edinburgh in country tweed at the Braemar Gathering in September 2017
Not keen to follow suit: the Prince of Wales shows he likes to cover up (his pockets) in Sheffield
Buttoned up. King Charles likes his father’s style of suit – as displayed on a visit to a French vineyard earlier this year
Trend setter: Did George V pictured with Queen Mary shortly after their marriage in 1893 set the template for royal pockets?
Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, left, pictured in uniform with his cousin King George V in 1910
King George V, in his study at Sandringham House, Norfolk, in 1897
