Boot camp primes wannabe princesses
Source: Agencies |
April 3, 2011, Sunday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
A scene from "My Fair Lady" is playing out in a posh London hotel ahead of this month's royal wedding - a princess boot camp.
Pint-size wannabe princesses were gathering yesterday to learn how to walk straight, what to do with their forks and how to act if they meet the queen. Never mind that it's doubtful any of them will come within spitting distance of the royals attending the April 29 wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.
But if they did, they wouldn't spit.
The crash course in decorum involves walking with books on one's head and learning the graceful art of being polite - not unlike when Audrey Hepburn learns how to shed her working-class Cockney accent and manners in the 1964 film classic.
Jerramy Fine, the American founder of Princess Prep, says she wanted to offer the free one-day tutorial as a preview to the wedding.
The course will be followed by three week-long summer camps in London for eight to 11-year-old girls. The camps, which cost more than US$4,000, teach girls about modern and historic princesses, royal history, phone etiquette, how to take compliments and how to curtsy.
The girls also volunteer at charities - all while being waited on by a butler called "Jeeves."
"I wanted to create a different sort of summer camp - unlike the ones that I grew up with in America, where you slept in wooden cabins and had to play sports," said Fine, a 33-year-old who now lives in London with her non-titled, non-blueblood British husband. "My hippie parents are horrified, as they thought I would grow out of it."
Europe has long been known as the place to go to meet royalty and aristocrats. Some American girls and young women spend small fortunes each year to do "the season," which begins in the spring and features key aristocracy calendar events such as Wimbledon, the Henley Regatta and the Royal Ascot - tennis, rowing and horse racing events that have drawn members of Britain's high society since the 17th and 18th centuries.
Fine's royal obsession began in Colorado with a schoolgirl crush on Peter Phillips - Queen Elizabeth II's eldest grandchild.
But she says her Princess Prep program is less about teaching young girls how to bag a prince when they grow up and more about how to behave like a lady.
"It's all about how to bring out your inner princess and how to maintain self control," Fine says. "These are skills they will carry on with them no matter what they do."
Pint-size wannabe princesses were gathering yesterday to learn how to walk straight, what to do with their forks and how to act if they meet the queen. Never mind that it's doubtful any of them will come within spitting distance of the royals attending the April 29 wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton.
But if they did, they wouldn't spit.
The crash course in decorum involves walking with books on one's head and learning the graceful art of being polite - not unlike when Audrey Hepburn learns how to shed her working-class Cockney accent and manners in the 1964 film classic.
Jerramy Fine, the American founder of Princess Prep, says she wanted to offer the free one-day tutorial as a preview to the wedding.
The course will be followed by three week-long summer camps in London for eight to 11-year-old girls. The camps, which cost more than US$4,000, teach girls about modern and historic princesses, royal history, phone etiquette, how to take compliments and how to curtsy.
The girls also volunteer at charities - all while being waited on by a butler called "Jeeves."
"I wanted to create a different sort of summer camp - unlike the ones that I grew up with in America, where you slept in wooden cabins and had to play sports," said Fine, a 33-year-old who now lives in London with her non-titled, non-blueblood British husband. "My hippie parents are horrified, as they thought I would grow out of it."
Europe has long been known as the place to go to meet royalty and aristocrats. Some American girls and young women spend small fortunes each year to do "the season," which begins in the spring and features key aristocracy calendar events such as Wimbledon, the Henley Regatta and the Royal Ascot - tennis, rowing and horse racing events that have drawn members of Britain's high society since the 17th and 18th centuries.
Fine's royal obsession began in Colorado with a schoolgirl crush on Peter Phillips - Queen Elizabeth II's eldest grandchild.
But she says her Princess Prep program is less about teaching young girls how to bag a prince when they grow up and more about how to behave like a lady.
"It's all about how to bring out your inner princess and how to maintain self control," Fine says. "These are skills they will carry on with them no matter what they do."
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