King Charles looked to be wearing a string bracelet at recent royal trips, which could have been gifted by his Swiftie granddaughter.
This summer, King Charles and Princess Charlotte are cooperating in an unexpected way.
When the King, 75, waved as he left the State Opening of Parliament with Queen Camilla on July 17 (which coincided with her 77th birthday), he was wearing a string bracelet around his right wrist. The British king has recently been wearing the red and yellow twisted strand ornament, which is similar to the ones worn by his 9-year-old granddaughter Princess Charlotte this weekend.
On July 14, the tiny princess went to Wimbledon with her mother, Kate Middleton, and aunt Pippa Middleton for a girls’ day out, watching the men’s singles final from the front row of the Royal Box. Princess Charlotte stood, clapped, and adjusted her sunglasses throughout the tennis tournament, revealing that she wore two string bracelets on her right wrist.
While they don’t look exactly like her grandfather’s bracelets (Charlotte’s were pale pink and blue), it’s worth noting that the royals began wearing them about the same period.
King Charles’ bracelet was first noticed when he came to Wales with Queen Camilla on July 11, waving as he entered the Senedd to honor the 25th anniversary of Welsh Parliament’s devolution from the United Kingdom.
On July 15 and 16, the king was photographed wearing it again during a two-day visit to the Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey.
The King has previously paid discreet respect to his grandkids through fashion, with the Daily Mail reporting that the pink and blue dinosaur tie in his royal wardrobe is “thought to have been a Christmas gift from one of his grandchildren.”
The monarch initially wore the accessory to church in January 2023, and he wore it again when he returned to public business in late April, following the palace’s disclosure of his cancer diagnosis in February.
String bracelets have long been a summer must-have, and they became connected with Taylor Swift after the singer added a line about friendship bracelets in the lyrics of a song from her 2022 album Midnights. Friendship bracelets had an explosive pop cultural moment during Taylor Swift’s global Eras Tour, which Prince William attended with his two eldest children, Prince George, 10, and Princess Charlotte, in London on June 21, his 42nd birthday.
The royals met Swift and her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, behind the scenes of the event at Wembley Stadium and took rare photographs together. Princess Charlotte looked unusually happy in the photo that the Prince and Princess of Wales shared on their official Instagram account.
During the concert, Princess Charlotte and Prince William were seen dancing wildly in a VIP box as Swift performed her song “Shake It Off.” Princess Kate, 42, and Prince Louis, 6, did not attend the event since the Princess of Wales is now undergoing cancer treatment.
Princess Kate’s day out at Wimbledon with her daughter and sister was her only public appearance this year while undergoing treatment, and a royal insider says the kind reception she received there will have been satisfying.
“This will have given her sustenance. She has gone through something awful and stressful, and it is crucial to have little wins to look forward to or to give you the courage and energy to go forward,” a palace insider tells PEOPLE exclusively in this week’s issue. “And this was it.”
