'Tis the season for royal parliament business, and Norway took their turn last week. The King opened parliament with the Queen and the Crown Prince in attendance. This is the standard group for this event, by the way; this is one that Mette-Marit does not attend.
Queen Sonja often favors colors that go with the surroundings, and this year's red peplum jacket, black skirt, and black hat with cut outs on the brim were no exception. She did wave her Norwegian fashion flag in an outfit from Peter Dundas, who is the current designer for Emilio Pucci, and jewelry from Gine Sommerfelt (per
Kjell Arne Totland). I'm not particularly fond of that close-fitting hat style, but Sonja sure seems to like it.
As for the gentlemen, they both wore the collar of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav together with the blue riband of the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit.
Norway falls somewhere in the middle on the spectrum of fanciness in these royal parliament openings: not as sparkly as Britain's crowned affair and without the carriages and court dress of the Dutch Prinsjesdag, but still with a throne and uniforms. (The Danish version happens today, and we'll hopefully be covering that on its own later.) I think it's a happy medium. I don't always cover the Norwegian event here, but sometimes a little bit of pomp just hits the spot.
If you'd like to see this event on video, click here.Photos: Sverre Chr. Jarild/Stortinget and Terje Heiestad/Stortinget, Bilder fra Stortinget via Flickr/Creative Commons
