Six Years Ago, Princess Beatrice Became Only the Second Member of the British Royal Family to Ever Attend the Met Gala

Her appearance was less than two weeks before Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s royal wedding.

Princess Beatrice at the Met
(Image credit: Getty Images)
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It’s a bit shocking how few members of the British royal family have attended the Met Gala—only two, actually. Princess Diana, as connected to fashion and culture as she was, only attended once, in 1996; her niece, Princess Beatrice, attended in 2018, 22 years later. And that’s it.

Princess Diana at the Met

Diana only attended one Met Gala, in 1996, just eight months before her untimely death.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

For her first (and so far only) Met six years ago, Beatrice wore purple, the color perhaps most associated with royalty. The 2018 Met was held on Monday, May 7—less than two weeks out from her cousin Prince Harry’s wedding to Meghan Markle that May 19. Beatrice, per Newsweek, was working in New York City at the time; she would later return to her native U.K. and married her husband, Edoardo Mapelli-Mozzi, in 2020. Tatler called Bea’s lone Met appearance “a welcome sight on the NYC fashion circuit,” and for her Met debut wore a floor-length chiffon Alberta Ferretti gown “with an impressive nod to the Tudors,” the outlet wrote. “High-neck, embellishment, and an Anne Boleyn-style headpiece.” 

Princess Beatrice at the Met

Beatrice was only the second British royal to attend the Met; she attended in 2018, 22 years after her Aunt Diana did.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

The gown featured billowing sleeves and embellishments along the neck, “a nod to the night’s Catholic-inspired theme,” People reported. (The 2018 gala’s theme was “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination.") Beatrice’s gown was described by outlets as regal, Grecian, and, as People wrote, “relatively simple,” especially when compared to the night’s other attendees. To accessorize, she wore gold sandals and carried a black clutch.

Princess Beatrice at the Met

Bea wore vivid purple Alberta Ferretti to the gala.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

Princess Beatrice at the Met

She was living in New York City at the time, so it was likely much easier to attend than if she had lived in the U.K., as she does now.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

If the Met’s chair Anna Wintour could see anyone ascend the steps at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the first Monday in May, who would it be? Well, it’d be royalty, actually—a double dose of it. In 2019, she told Today host Jenna Bush Hager that her dream Met guests would be Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle, sans their respective husbands Prince William and Prince Harry.

Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle

We second Wintour's dream.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

“I would love to have the Duchess of Sussex and the Duchess of Cambridge [Kate’s title at the time—she’s now the Princess of Wales] together,” Wintour said. “That would be my dream couple. They could leave their husbands at home. It’s the two of them I want.”

Rachel Burchfield
Rachel Burchfield
Senior Celebrity and Royals Editor

Rachel Burchfield is a writer, editor, and podcaster whose primary interests are fashion and beauty, society and culture, and, most especially, the British Royal Family and other royal families around the world. She serves as Marie Claire’s Senior Celebrity and Royals Editor and has also contributed to publications like Allure, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle, People, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and W, among others. Before taking on her current role with Marie Claire, Rachel served as its Weekend Editor and later Royals Editor. She is the cohost of Podcast Royal, a show that was named a top five royal podcast by The New York Times. A voracious reader and lover of books, Rachel also hosts I’d Rather Be Reading, which spotlights the best current nonfiction books hitting the market and interviews the authors of them. Rachel frequently appears as a media commentator, and she or her work has appeared on outlets like NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s Good Morning America, CNN, and more.