CREATING
conducive business environment is what all nations strive for, this
attracts businesses and investments for a country to grow and forge
forward.
Businesses
and investments grow where capital flows and for this to happen there
must be favourable atmosphere in terms of easiness to start and run a
business at a particular country.
Those
who manage to keep their houses in order are the ones who reap
benefits. Business and Registration licensing Agency (BRELA) is making
sure that Tanzania’s business environment is improving and it does that
not by mere words. Correspondent Aziza Charles explains some recent
measures taken by the Agency in that line...
THE
Business Registration and Licensing Agency (BRELA) has for the past one
year taken measures that significantly contributes to Tanzania’s
endeavours to become a preferred destination for both domestic and
foreign investors.
The
agency started by promoting corporate governance by announcing a 90-day
ultimatum for companies registered in Tanzania to file their Annual
Returns, with the Registrar of Companies, accompanied with their Audited
Accounts and threatened to strike off the Registers companies failing
to do so and take to court owners and officers should they fail to do
so.
The
grace period commenced on October 6,2014 up to January 5, 2015. Another
good, visible step taken by BRELA was some several educational campaigns
to educate Tanzanians on services they offer and how people can benefit
from the agency. The Agency visited several regions sensitising
Tanzanians to make use of Brela for their benefit and the nation’s
development as well.
During
the tour, people registered their business names electronically and
therefore got a chance to formalise them and stand a chance to gain more
on whatever they are doing.
Last
week, Brela management again promised continued best services to
Tanzanians with the aim of supporting business growth in the country.
The
agency’s Chief Executive Officer, Mr Frank Kanyusi, said they are
continuing to take various measures to improve business environment and
make Tanzania a preferred destination for both domestic and foreign
investors.
“We
are implementing various projects to make it easy for people to
register business names and companies with efficiency,” he said in Dar
es Salaam.
Giving
an example of some of the measures taken, Mr Kanyusi said the agency’s
clients will now get their Tax Identification Number (TIN) at Brela
premises after the opening of Tanzania Revenue Office (TRA).
The
improvement goes hand in hand with the agency’s relocation to a new
modern Ushirika Tower along Lumumba Street where the offices will be at
Sixth, Seventh and Eighth floors.
“The
new office will help us discharge our services with efficiency and
therefore positively contribute to national economy,’ he noted. He
explained that the new building has provided the agency with a much
bigger space that will enable them serve many people, at the shortest
time with efficiency. Services will be offered at the reception where
all concerned officials will be stationed.
Acting
Business Support Manager, Brela, Mr Bosco Gadi said the arrangement for
all officers to offer services together at an open space is meant to
bring transparency. “We want to be exemplary in service delivery,” he
said.
On
her part, a TRA official stationed at Brela to offer TIN number
services, Irene Cidosa said the authority want to simplify issuance of
TIN services to as many Tanzanians as possible.
“It
will now be simple for people with their business name licences to get
their TIN number... this is instant and free of charge service,” Ms
Cidosa who is also TRA’s Information Officer explained. Brela is about
to introduce an online business name registration system where it will
take just few hours for someone to get a certified business name from
the Agency.
The
system, according to experts, will help formalize many businesses. It
is important to note here that business name registration is a key
component that reflects a level of easiness to start a business in a
country.
As
Tanzania works hard to make sure that she improves business environment
to attract investors from within and outside the country, the measures
run by BRELA should be taken seriously and supported.
Various
research findings point poor business environment in third world
countries, Tanzania included, as some factors that hinder development.
Brela
is striving to make that happen and relevant authorities should do
whatever in their capacity to encourage and support the agency. As a
country, we need conducive business environment to grow, for, this is
what will attract more businesses and investments for our growth and
prosperity.
But
we should bear in mind that businesses and investments grow where
capital flows and for this to happen there must be favourable atmosphere
in terms of easiness to start and run a business at a particular
country.
Those
who have prospered today have managed to keep their houses in order and
we have no option on that. Brela is showing the way, other agencies and
institutions, both public and private should emulate.
The following is an excerpt, "Finding Barack Obama in South Sudan," from the book Tomorrow's Battlefield: US Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa:
Juba, South Sudan. The camp is a mess of orange muck and open earthen
sewers. A single wood plank provides passage over a roughhewn trench.
Children peek out from tarp-tents. Older men and women sit in homes of
mud-speckled plastic sheeting that become saunas in the midday heat.
Young women pick their way through refuse, some with large yellow jerry
cans of water balanced atop their heads, others carry their homes in
similar fashion - a mess of wooden poles and a folded tarp - as they set
out for another camp hoping for better to come.
ternal
exiles, I suddenly see his smiling face, the one I'd know anywhere.
Here, in Juba, the capital of South Sudan amid tens of thousands of
people crammed into a fetid encampment visibly thrown together in haste,
out of fear and necessity; here, as huge water tanker trucks rumble
past and men in camouflage fatigues, toting automatic weapons, stride
by; here, in the unlikeliest of places in the heat and swirling dust and
charcoal smoke, the air heavy with the scent of squalor, is a face I've
seen a thousand, or ten thousand, or a million times before. Here in a
camp where hopelessness is endemic and despair reigns, is a face that,
for so many, was once synonymous with hope itself. It's a sight that
stops me in my tracks. Here, 7,000 miles from my home, Barack Obama is
smiling his familiar smile amid the results of a decades-long American
project in Africa.
"It was George Bush and the Christian fundamentalists who heard the
cry of South Sudan," Taban Lo Liyong, a South Sudanese writer and
literature professor at the University of Juba, told the Los Angeles
Times a day after his country's independence in 2011. "Today is Barack
Obama's day. We don't know what he is going to do."
Only three years ago, the future seemed wide open and hope was the
operative word. In fact, all the nation could do then was hope - and
dream of better to come.
Dreams and Nightmares
"My dream," Giel says when I ask about his red T-shirt, which sports a
picture of President Obama's smiling face in front of an American flag.
Indeed, the shirt reads: "Obama: My Dream."
Just what that dream is, however, couldn't, at this point, be murkier.
When I run into Giel in this squalid United Nations camp, he's
already been living here for more than six months. After fighting broke
out in December 2013, he tells me, Dinka soldiers from South Sudan's
army killed his uncle. Neighbors died, too. Indeed, hundreds of men from
his tribe, the Nuers, were killed in his Juba neighborhood, while Dinka
civilians suffered the price of payback elsewhere in the country. "It's
not safe to go home," says the fourteen-year-old. "I fear we will be
killed." And so he sits, day after day, for eight to ten hours, at a
little stand - a white plastic table under a blue umbrella - on the
camp's main drag, selling bags of bread.
Home for the nine members of Giel's family sheltering in this camp is
a plastic tent. There's never enough food, he tells me, there are
hardly any jobs, and it's stiflingly hot. When it rains, the camp turns
into a sea of mud, you can't sleep, you can't do much at all. It's a
metaphor for his country - not that South Sudan needs any metaphors,
given the reality at hand. It's been paralyzed for a year by simmering
conflict. "South Sudan has very big problems because of the war," he
says matter of factly.
Deeper into the camp, making my way through a warren of makeshift
shanties, tents, and other kinds of homes constructed from tarps and
blankets, I call upon Nyadoang. Her cheeks are sunken and her long legs
are rail thin. She might be in her twenties, but appears older, weary,
world-worn. She doesn't know her own age. Her twins are four years old.
The naked baby boy that she's alternately breast-feeding and gently
jiggling in her hands as if he were a hot potato, was born just a few
months before in the dirt floor hovel that is now their home, a tangle
of hanging fabric and wooden support poles encased in plastic tarps.
Nyadoang wears a blouse of radiant pink and orange that catches the
eye in this bleak setting, but she looks defeated. And with good reason.
She fled to the camp when the fighting started and has been stranded
here ever since, separated from her husband. Her fractured family seems
emblematic of so much in this fractured "nation." Her twins were born in
Sudan in 2010, became South Sudanese the next year, and now find
themselves trapped in a camp for internal exiles in a country trapped in
a civil war limbo. Her newborn son has never known any other life. A
local woman, an employee of the International Rescue Committee, a
nongovernmental organization working in the camp, caught the mood of the
moment perfectly when she told me, "We were born refugees.
Some of our children are now born refugees. It's really traumatizing. We need a permanent solution."
But solutions to even basic problems here seem to be in short supply.
Nyadoang says she can't get baby formula and her new- born has a cough,
fever, and diarrhea. There are no jobs in the camp and even if there
were, who would watch the baby? There's no money to be had and no end in
sight. Trust between the Nuer and Dinka has broken down. Even personal
friendships have snapped under the weight of the crisis, she tells me.
"How can we live a normal life while the war goes on?"
What does she want for her children, what type of future does she
hope for in South Sudan? "We can't go back home if there's no peace,"
she tells me. "Maybe there is no future."
This is the legacy of America's nation-building project in Africa,
and of the policies of a president born of an African father, a
president whose name was once synonymous with hope for the future.
Over the course of the Obama presidency, American efforts on the
continent have become ever more militarized in terms of troops and
bases, missions and money. And yet from Libya to the Gulf of Guinea,
Mali to this camp in South Sudan, the results have been dismal.
Countless military exercises, counterterrorism operations, humanitarian
projects, and training missions, backed by billions of dollars of
taxpayer money, have all evaporated in the face of coups, civil wars,
human rights abuses, terror attacks, and poorly coordinated aid efforts.
The human toll is incalculable. And there appears to be no end in
sight.
A Calendar with No Tomorrows
Inside a United Nations office elsewhere in South Sudan, I see a box
of almost untouched 2014 calendars. I pick one up and casually flip
through it. January offers a photo of two statuesque women modeling
locally made clothing and jewelry. February showcases the "first batch
of South Sudan National Police Service immigration officers." There's a
photo of a woman with a big, warm smile at the Jebel Market in Juba
(April) and men working on building a new passenger boat in Malakal
(August). The photo for December 2014 shows a young girl skipping rope.
The caption reads: "Child enjoying peace in Nyeel, Unity State."
It's quickly clear why the calendars were never put into circulation.
In fact, the front cover has this caption: "Building on Peace," while
the next page has a grimly farcical quality to it. "Peace and stability
in South Sudan," it says, "have allowed Africa's newest nation to turn
its attention to development." In the same light, here in South Sudan
and across significant parts of the continent, AFRICOM's mission
statement reads like satire from the Onion. The command, it says in
part, promotes "regional security, stability, and prosperity."
Certainly, there's precious little security, stability, or prosperity
in Giel's life. Nor does there appear to be any on the horizon for
Nyadoang's newborn. The same could be said for so many youths in
Ebola-ravaged neighborhoods of Sierra Leone or Liberia, the war-torn
Central African Republic, militia-ridden Libya, fragile Somalia,
increasingly unstable Kenya, insurgency-racked Mali, or Boko Haram–terrorized Nigeria to name a few of the nations that have received
abundant US military attention over the past decade.
As a species, we do a horrible job of predicting the future. But if
the past is any guide, US operations will increase in Africa in the
years ahead alongside increased insecurity, instability, and strife.
Odds are, much of the former will occur below the radar and much of the
latter will go unnoticed by most Americans. But make no mistake, for
America in the years ahead, Africa will continue to be tomorrow's
battlefield.
Copyright (2015) by Nick Turse. Not to be reposted without permission of the publisher, Haymarket Books.
By Saumu Mwalimu and Henry Mwangonde, THE CITIZEN.
Posted Saturday, May 30 2015 at 10:03
IN SUMMARY
It
said that nothing has been learnt from the financial year 2014/15 which
saw revenue shortfalls because the spending as per plans did not match
with what was actually disbursed thus affecting various development
projects.
Dar
es Salaam. Policy Forum Tanzania has described the 2015/16 national
budget, currently being discussed in Parliament, as unrealistic.
It
said that nothing has been learnt from the financial year 2014/15 which
saw revenue shortfalls because the spending as per plans did not match
with what was actually disbursed thus affecting various development
projects.
According
to the pre-budget proposal by Finance minister Saada Mkuya, the budget
has been raised from Sh19.8 trillion in the current fiscal year to
Sh22.48 trillion for the next one.
Although
the Forum commended the move to increase the budget ceiling, it still
doubts whether the government will actually be able to collect enough
money to finance it effectively. According to available estimates, the
government plans to raise Sh14.82 trillion from its own sources.
The
proposal indicates that, Tanzania Revenue Authority is expected to
collect Sh13.35 trillion, non-tax revenue will bring in Sh949.2 billion
while local authorities are expected to collect Sh521.9 billion.
In
a press release on the Budget 2015/16 position published in this paper
yesterday, Policy Forum said that the implementation of the previous
budget did not provide reassurance that the forthcoming one would be
executed effectively.
“For
example until March 2015 only 38 per cent of the development budget had
been disbursed, this literally means that more than 50 percent of the
earmarked development project have not been implemented to the full with
less than three months before the financial year ends.
“One
would therefore doubt the increase in budget without a clear statement
as to how the funds will be raised,” reads the press release.
The
Policy Forum is also calling on the need to improve transparency in the
budget making process noting that the recently released Controller
Auditor General (CAG) report indicates there are huge problems in how
public monies are handed and spent.
“As
CSOs we have learnt that during the preparation of the budget estimates
the Parliamentary Budget Committee was not involved, this raises
questions about the integrity of the whole budget process as the
committee is mandated to oversee and advise the government on different
options for raising revenue as well as allocating these resources hence
it has to be consulted,” reads part of the the statement.
Focus on Education
Policy
Forum said the government should clear the long standing challenges
facing education sector which include inadequate capitation grants,
unimplemented policy and unresolved stakeholder’s grievances.
Regardless
of the amount allocated to the sector, Policy Forum insists that due
consideration should be given in explaining the fee-free education
narrative that the government has decided to embark on. The government
should clearly state how it plans to ensure the policy is implemented as
it has already begun to cause some tensions between parents and school
officials over school contributions.
At
a breakfast debate organised yesterday over the same issue participants
were of the view that the government must use to the maximum the
available resources to education.
They
said the fact that the education sector’s proposed spending for 2015/16
financial year is Sh3.9 trillion about 80 per cent of the said money is
proposed for recurrent expenditure and only 16 per cent is earmarked
for development expenditure.
The
debate was organised by Policy Forum and was aimed at discussing how
the government is using its available resources towards health and
education sectors.
According
to them, this was the reason why the Prime Minister’s Office Regional
Administration and Local Government (PMO-RALG) fails to deliver during
implementation of planned projects like providing capitation grants,
building new classrooms, toilets and teaching and learning materials.
A
programme and research analyst with HakiElimu, Mr Makumba Mwemezi, said
it is high time the government gave priority to the education sector
above others only in terms of budget figures and not actual
expenditures.
Modern humans evolved in Africa about 200,000 years ago, and
began moving out of the continent into Eurasia and beyond about 60,000 years
ago.
Referred
to as the “Out of Africa theory”, migration is understood to have happened by
the movement of small bands of people away from Africa, as populations break
away, the number of mating partners available is smaller, and so genetic
diversity narrows.
It
explains why the further away from Africa you go, the less genetically diverse
populations are; it means that two Africans might have less in
common – genetically – than an African and a European.
Although
the word “mutation” conjures up the image of a freakish, perhaps even grotesque
abnormality, the word is neutral in science-speak, simply denoting a
permanent change in the genetic sequence of an individual.
Mutations
are often harmful, even deadly, but sometimes, they confer special evolutionary
advantages in a particular environment; the mutant organism is
better able to withstand particular environmental stresses, and so the mutation
eventually becomes common in the population through natural selection.
Here
are ten genetic mutations found in Africans that have persisted due to the
beneficial traits they confer, as well as some surprising down sides:
1. Malaria
resistant, but HIV susceptible…
95%
of black Africans are resistant to two strains of malaria called Plasmodium
vivax and Plasmodium knowlesi, by a genetic mutation that makes their red blood
cells lack a receptor called the Duffy antigen.
Without
the receptor, the malarial parasite cannot bind onto the red blood cells, and
so most black Africans are naturally resistant to these strains of malaria;
just 3-5% of Caucasians are Duffy-negative.
But
a recent study revealed the dark side of malaria resistance – the Duffy
mutation makes people more prone to HIV infection. Although the researchers are
not quite sure how exactly this happens, they reckon that up to 11% of
HIV infections in Africa could be down to this single mutation alone.
It
offers a possible explanation as to why HIV Aids has had such a dramatic impact
in Africa compared to other continents.
2. ...but you live longer
Still,
the Duffy mutation causes those infected with HIV to live two years longer on
average than those without the mutation, a counter-intuitive finding that
researchers are hoping to exploit in the search for a cure - most other risk
factors that enhance HIV infection are also associated with faster, not slower,
development of the disease.
3. Sickle
cell but malaria resistant
Even
deadlier than P. vivax and P. knowlesi is Plasmodium falciparum, which causes a
more debilitating form of malaria with a much higher mortality rate.
Somewhere
in
Africa, genetic mutation in which the red blood cells adopt a curved
“sickle” shape – as opposed to the normal circular shape – emerged; the
sickle
mutation caused anaemia and premature death, but also made it much more difficult for P. falciparum to bind onto the red blood cells. The
sickle trait is common where P. falciparum is endemic in Africa, with 10-40% of the
population carrying this trait. Employees
at a textile mill manufacture durable mosquito nets for distribution to
high-risk areas for malaria. (Photo: Flickr/ Gates Foundation)
Ordinarily,
people who have two copies of the mutation (one from their mother and the other
from their father) suffer from sickle cell anaemia, but if you have just one
copy of the mutation, you don’t have anaemia but are highly protected against
P. falciparum malaria.
It
speaks to the huge toll that malaria has on Africa, that evolutionarily
speaking, you are better off risking anaemia and an early death just to escape
malaria.
4. Can’t drink milk
In
most mammal populations, children lose the ability to digest milk at the end of
infancy, in order to allow the mother to bear more young without the older
offspring competing for the mother’s milk.
Without
lactase – the enzyme that digests milk sugar, or lactose – drinking milk causes
stomach cramps and potentially life-threatening diarrhea, which is a good
evolutionary trick to ensure that milk is left to the babies in the family.
Predominantly
agricultural societies in Africa have a high level of lactose intolerance
— up to 90%,according to a study published in research journal Nature Genetics.
But
lactase persistence is common in some pastoralist communities, where the
ability to digest milk can be the difference between life and death – milk is a
highly nutrient-dense food that keeps you going in arid environments, and
importantly, a source of water during droughts.
The
study showed that lactose persistence co-evolved with cattle domestication in
Africa and around the world, only 10-12% of the Tutsi of central Africa and the
Beja of Sudan are lactose intolerant, while its over 80% for the traditionally
hunter-gatherer Sandawe of Tanzania.
5. Can
eat vegetables…
A recent study published in the Public Library of Science (PLOS) journal
suggested that early humans were able to move out of Africa after a single
genetic mutation allowed them to become vegetarians.
The
especially complex brains of humans require a fatty acid called DHA
(Docosahexanioc acid) to grow and develop. Early humans who evolved in Africa
lived around water because their primary source of DHA was fish and shellfish.
But
a genetic mutation allowed some to convert plant-based fatty acids into DHA,
which allowed them spread out and to live further away from water, eating
domesticated grains and vegetables.
6. ...but will get hypertension, stroke, diabetes
Researchers
found that people of African descent have a significantly higher frequency of
the gene that allows conversion of plant-based fatty acids into food for human
brains, but that the gene also causes inflammation, which may be why they have
higher rates of hypertension, type 2 diabetes, stroke, coronary heart disease
and certain types of cancer.
7. Scooping all the medals
The
majority of Kenyan top middle and long-distance runners come from the Kalenjin
community, who make up just 0.06% of the world’s population, but have won about
70% of all the elite races since they began competing in them.
Their
complete dominance in the sport has confounded sports scientists for decades,
with various theories thrown in – the high altitude in their Rift Valley homeland
primes them for better oxygen utilisation, their slender, lanky build makes
them resist fatigue longer, a simple, wholesome maize based diet is the key or
that they had simply spent their childhood running to and from school. Kenyan
runners at the London marathon in 2012. Kenyans dominate all the top
middle and long distance races. (Photo/ Sue Kellerman).
Many
of these theories have been debunked, but one theory threw some light:
there are two types of skeletal muscle fibres, type I, or slow-twitch muscles,
and type II, fast-twitch muscles. Endurance runners like the Kenyans have more
type I fibres, which allows them to take up more oxygen and keep running for
longer.
But
Kenyan pioneering marathoner Kip Keino dislikes these “natural advantages” theories, condemning them as racist and arguing running just takes hard work
and mental discipline.
8. Lightning bolts
Whereas
East Africans dominate long-distance running, athletes of primarily West
African descent have surged to the fore in short-distance events.
Jon Entine in
his book “Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We’re Afraid
to Talk About It” says that athletes of primarily West African
descent—which includes the majority of U.S. blacks—hold all but six of the 500
best times in the 100-metre race, “the purest measure of running
speed,” says Entine, whose book set off a fiery debate on the subject.
Sprinters,
as opposed to marathoners, have mostly type II fibers, which hold lots of sugar
as well as enzymes that burn fuel in the absence of oxygen, meaning they can
perform anaerobically at very high power output. But the jury is still out on Africans’
evolutionary advantages for sport, and for good reason.
9. Super-dense bones in Afrikaners
As
people grow old, their bones lose density in what is called osteoporosis, which
is what causes elderly people to stoop over and makes them susceptible to
fractures.
Like
in sickle cell, if a person inherits two copies of the mutated gene, the
resulting condition is serious and life threatening- the bone disorder here is
called sclerosteosis, which leads to severe bone overgrowth, gigantism, facial
distortion, deafness, and early death.
However, if they only inherit one copy
of the gene, they don’t get sclerosteosis and simply have especially dense
bones throughout their lives. Researchers are studying the DNA of Afrikaners in
the hope that they can get some clues on how to reverse osteoporosis and other
skeletal disorders.
10. Don’t
marry a second wife, hoping for a son
In
all societies around the world, more boys than girls are born; the sex ratio is
102 to 108 male for every 100 female live births. Because baby boys are more
fragile than girls, have less developed immune systems than girls and are more
likely to die in infancy, it’s evolution’s way of compensating for the
“anticipated” loss.
But
research has shown that women in sub-Saharan Africago against the trend and give birth to more girls than
non-Black women in all other parts of the world, at about 99 boys for every 100
girls.
There
are several possible reasons for this: first, African women (and men) tend to
have many babies, and the more children a woman has, the more likely that each
additional child will be a girl; older men are also likely to father girls as
opposed to boys. Each
year in the parent’s age decreases the odds of having a son as the first child
by 1%.
The
question is, why? One article in Psychology Today suggests a simple, economic
reason – sons’ reproductive success largely hinges on the status and resources
that they inherit from their parents, particularly, their fathers.
In
sharp contrast, daughters’ future reproductive success is largely determined by
their youth and physical attractiveness. Once they are conceived with
particular genes
that influence their physical attractiveness, there is very little that parents
can do to increase their daughters’ future reproductive success, beyond keeping
them alive and healthy.
The
problem with older parents, of course, is that they are more likely to die
sooner. If the parents die before the children reach sexual maturity, it
will have a greater negative impact on sons’ future reproductive success than
on daughters’.
(Photo: Flickr/ DFID).
It suggests parents
may be evolutionarily designed to have more daughters when they are older, so
that, when they die, they are less likely to leave sons who have not sexually
matured. Being orphaned young is bad both for boys and girls, but it’s
much worse for boys than for girls, the article concludes.
Princess Charlotte exists, so it’s only a few years until we can begin scrutinizing her wardrobe choices.
British princesses dress differently than you
and I, and not just, to paraphrase Hemingway, because they have more
money. They, in fact, dress very differently than their fellow
celebrities who have much more money. Most celebrities, especially
female ones, dress to hold the public’s attention. There are a lot of
ways to do that. You can wear a dress held together with safety pins like Elizabeth Hurley, or $18 million Oscar outfits like Cate Blanchett, or opera gloves and pearls and nothing else like Kim Kardashian.
Royals can’t do any of that. They have to dress not in a way that
merits attention, but rather their countrymen’s approval—or, at least,
doesn't merit their countrymen's disapproval. Because that’s
kind of the whole point of being in the English monarchy, if we are to
believe Queen Elizabeth II who, at 21, explained her role like this: "It
is simple. I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be
long or short, shall be devoted to your service."
Queen Elizabeth II, age 21, alongside her corgi. Photo: Getty Images
Since monarchs are always supposed to be pleasing their
subjects, they can’t wear opera gloves and nothing else, even if they
wanted to. They have to dress how you would if you were meeting your
significant other’s parents or going to an office party. They are role
models for dressing for situations where you will be judged.
They must adhere to what society deems acceptable, and for much of
history, what society wanted was women whose clothing played up either
the fact that they were virgins or eternally devoted to one man.
Queen Elizabeth the First wore tons of pearls because they
represented chastity. She also wore her coronation ring on her left ring
finger because, according to Allison Weir in The Life Of Elizabeth I, it symbolically wedded her to her people. Queen Victoria wore black mourning attire
for decades after the death of her husband Albert. In both of their
lifetimes, a woman showing her sexuality would be shamed, and Elizabeth
and Victoria found interesting means to avoid that.
Elizabeth I wore lots and lots of pearls, while Queen Victoria wore black for decades. Photos: Getty Images
The first female royal who managed to adopt an openly sexy
style was Princess Diana. When she and Prince Charles married in 1981,
Diana was supposed to be as much a virgin bride as any other royal, and
for a long time she dressed to reflect that. When you think of early
Diana, you think of pearl necklaces (they still symbolize chastity!) and
schoolgirlish Peter Pan collars.
Princess Diana in her "revenge dress." Photo: Getty Images
For years she avoided dressing at all provocatively; when Christina
Stambolian designed a dress for her in 1991, she refused to wear it
because it was too sexy. However, she did wear it three years
later in 1994, on the same day Charles admitted to an affair with
Camilla Parker Bowles. It became known as the "revenge dress" and people
loved it.
Kerry
Taylor, who auctioned off many of Diana’s clothes in 2013 said, "Her
influence meant that royals didn’t have to be dowdy. You didn’t have to
wear pastel colors, a massive handbag, and hat. You could love fashion
and look good." That view was very much in keeping with the times. Sex and the City would debut a mere four years after.
But there are other British royals for whom being deliberately
unstylish was just as important. In the 1930s, Wallis Simpson—Prince
Edward’s divorcee mistress for whom he abdicated the throne, claiming he
could not fulfill his duties as king without the support of the woman
he loved—was probably the most well-dressed woman in the world. She
swanned around in Schiaparelli evening gowns with prints personally
designed by Salvador Dali. It was bananas how good she looked. Just spend a minute Googling her outfits, they’re pretty much all great.
Wallis Simpson's style was particularly admired. Photo: Getty Images
But, cool fact, she and Edward were also horrible people. In spite of what Madonna’s W.E. movie tries to tell you, they were almost certainly Nazi sympathizers. Wallis supposedly had an affair with von Ribbentrop.
She and her husband would have traded away England for a well-made
martini. Winston Churchill once said that a statue of Wallis should be
erected in every town in England because she saved the country from
Edward.
After Edward stepped down, George VI became king and his wife
Elizabeth became queen. She very pointedly dressed in what would be
considered '40s normcore. She was deliberately dowdy. People who loved
Wallis Simpson criticized her for this endlessly, but no one, then or
today, would be able to compete with Wallis on the style front.
By dressing in fairly shapeless dresses and frumpy hats, she reminded
the people that the monarchy wasn’t really about looking great, it was
about service to the people. Plus, when she went to visit citizens who
had been bombed in the Blitz, it would have been incredibly insensitive
to show up in a Schiaparelli evening gown. That’s not to say she dressed
poorly—her clothes could be described as generally serviceable and
appropriate—but no one would describe her as fashion-forward. This
actually made her more likeable.
Kate Middleton likes matching suits and hats, just like her mother-in-law. Photo: Getty Images
This is also a legacy that extended onward to her daughter Queen
Elizabeth II, who dresses not all that differently from her mother,
though she’s added some brighter, peppier colors, like the bright pink
she wore after the birth of baby Charlotte was announced.
Kate Middleton seems like she’s managed to land somewhere in between
dressing in the practical manner of the Queen and Queen Mother and
Diana’s bombshell style. It appears to be working out pretty well, too;
as of 2013, confidence in the British monarchy was at an all-time high.
And her daughter? Princess Charlotte was last seen wearing
an admirable white cap and white blanket, which no one can disapprove of
just yet.
Princess Charlotte, all in white. Photo: Getty Images
Jennifer Wright is the author of It Ended Badly: The 13 Worst Break-Ups in History, due out fall 2015. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
I hated that house 400yrs ago and I still hate England some 400yrs later.
That is simply another vice in life, that serves no purpose and to which there is no solution to it or the problems it causes.
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Show speed reading tips and settingsThat is simply another vice in life, that serves no purpose and to which there is no solution to it or the problems it causes.
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