A battle royal! Queen meets Crown Princess. Who is prettier, better dressed, more popular, better conversed in her adopted language, more accepted in her adopted country. Queen Máxima will accompany her husband King Willem-Alexander on his State Visit to Denmark next week and Crown Princess Mary will play an important part in hosting the Dutch visitors. One reason to pit the two glamorous woman from the southern hemisphere against each other.
How do they match up?
The Dutch and the Danes will give different answers and will have different views. Máxima gets praise for her clothes, Mary has a reputation for being fashion savvy. The Australia born Crown Princess can be seen at fashion shows, and is actually promoting Danish and Australian designers. Máxima favours dresses designed by Belgian fashion designer Edouard Vermeulen, and Dutchman Jan Taminiau, but does not actually promote either.
Both Crown Princess Mary and Queen Máxima were told by their respective fathers-in-law to study the language of their new country well. Prince-consort Henrik, whose mother tongue is French, is still ridiculed by the Danes for his rusty Danish, almost 50 years after coming to the proud Scandinavian country to marry its Crown Princess Margrethe. Prince Claus of the Netherlands faired better.
He met with fierce resistance when his engagement to Dutch Princess Beatrix was announced in 1965. Not because of his person, but because of his nationality: German. One way to overcome the opposition from the Dutch, who still remembered the German occupation only 20 years earlier, was to learn the language quickly. Máxima did the same, astounding the Dutch the day her engagement to Prince Willem-Alexander was made public. Her simple words in the tongue twisting language won the population over.
Queen Máxima and Crown Princess Mary come from different backgrounds and different countries, but both hail from the southern hemisphere: Argentina and Australia. Mary has kept the ties to her native country alive much more than Máxima. The Danish Crown Princess has given exclusive access to Australian magazines, has promoted Australian dress makers, is even patron of several good causes in her former home country. Mary and and husband Crown Prince Frederik have also used the Australian interest in them to promote Denmark ‘down under’.
Máxima on the other hand got criticized for supposedly ignoring her Argentinian roots. She did not support the Argentinian national football team for instance, not even when they were not playing the Netherlands. She was criticized for not singing the Argentinian national anthem [Queen Margrethe of Denmark, whose mother was Swedish does sing along with the Swedish anthem when it is played in her presence], stating she was Dutch now.
Máxima has visited her native country regularly, but only a few times in an official capacity: twice for her UN work, and once accompanying her mother-in-law Queen Beatrix on a State Visit in 2006. These days visits are family oriented, to spend Christmas with her elderly parents and her siblings. And there is no promotion of anything Argentinian – neither in the Netherlands, nor in Buenos Aires.
Crown Princess Mary has her devoted dissenters, people who get a kick out of ruthlessly dissing her every move [RoyalDish]. They claim the Princess is all about looking good, and not about substance despite some patronships for the UN. Queen Máxima has been given a more independent role, also for the UN, in which she is able to use her former skills as a banker. Criticism of Máxima has been milder by comparison. Her language has not improved in the last years, and she and her husband are seen as enjoying the royal life too much.
On Tuesday Máxima and Mary will meet in Copenhagen. The press will watch them closely, as the Spanish media did earlier when Máxima and Letizia met. For two days both women will be under a magnifying glass. And the winner is?
© Royalblog, Hans Jacobs; Photos: © Monarchy Press Europe, BB
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