During a special event at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday, the Queen was delighted to receive her own version of a Barbie doll, reuniting with a familiar royal face.
Camilla, aged 75, was accompanied by the Duchess of Gloucester and Queen Mathilde of Belgium as she hosted a Women of the World reception. Previously, the Belgian queen consort had joined Camilla at a palace reception in 2022 to commemorate the UN’s 16 days of activism against gender-based violence.
Joining Camilla on board the WOW Girls Festival Bus, sponsored by Barbie manufacturer Mattel, Mathilde wore a fitting bright pink outfit. Queen Camilla expressed her joy upon being presented with a Barbie doll resembling herself, adorned in a similar royal blue Fiona Clare dress and a caped Amanda Wakeley coat.
“You’ve taken about 50 years off my life – we should all have a Barbie,” she quipped.
The converted bus, which features a recording studio and a library, has been touring the country to promote gender equality among young people at schools and community groups.
In a speech Camilla recounted the story of two suffragettes who broke palace windows with stones in May 1914 and how the objects were kept, on the orders of Queen Mary, wife of King George V.
After holding up the stones, Her Majesty said: “In 1914, I believe, they represented hope to the women who threw them, hope that, in the future, they would not be victims of their history, nor of the social and economic forces that were ranged against gender equality.
“Above all, they represented the hope that it was possible, as Christabel Pankhurst (daughter of Emmeline Pankhurst) said, ‘to make this world a better place for women’.
“Today, 110 years later, you have been invited into Buckingham Palace because you too represent hope for women in the present and in the future.”
Attending the palace reception were notable figures such as Dame Helen Mirren, Baroness Doreen Lawrence, Spice Girl Mel B, and Dame Kelly Holmes, as well as schoolgirls and individuals who have made significant contributions to advancing the rights and opportunities of women and girls.
