Luxarazzi 101: Royal Recycling and Clothes Sharing Vol. 13

Oops, they did it again... Welcome to Luxarazzi 101: Royal Recycling and Clothes Sharing Vol. 13! Previously on how the lovely ladies of Luxembourg and Liechtenstein basically share one walk-in closet...

Firstly and frankly, I know it's a sign that I have been following the Grand Ducal Family for far too long and far too closely that my first thought when I saw Princess Astrid at last weekend's noble wedding in Germany was "I know that dress!" And sure enough, it's the same dress/tunic worn by Astrid's mother Princess Margaretha 15 years ago for the wedding of Prince Laurent and Princess Claire of Belgium. 

Her mother isn't the only family member Princess Astrid shares clothes with though. This Valentino gown has been worn publicly on more occasions than I can count on one hand and maybe a few fingers more by both Princess Astrid and older sister Princess Anunciata.

And now from Liechtenstein onto Luxembourg: The return dinner of this year's Dutch state visit to Luxembourg saw Hereditary Grand Duchess Stéphanie giving one of her mother-in-law's old Elie Saab gowns another spin. I know opinions are divided but I preferred Stéphanie's take on it. You can't ever go wrong with a rivière of honking diamonds.

On the first day of the state visit we also saw another clothes sharing moment though with much less success with an awkward-looking alteration attempt in the midsection to make up for the height difference of the Grand Duchess and Hereditary Grand Duchess. Usually I'm a fan of making use of expensive gowns by sharing the love but this attempt shall better not see a repeat.

Arco-Zinneberg/McKenzie Wedding

Photo: PNP

On Saturday, Countess Anna of Arco-Zinneberg married Colin McKenzie in Niederalteich in Bavaria. The bride is the daughter of Count Riprand of Arco-Zinneberg and Archduchess Maria Beatrice of Austria-Este. As both Anna and her parents have attended a number of weddings of the Luxembourg and Liechtenstein weddings, it's no surprise that there were a lot of grand ducal and princely guests in return. 

Photo: PNP

In the pictures by the local press I could spy Grand Duchess Maria Teresa, Hereditary Grand Duke Guillaume and Hereditary Grand Duchess Stéphanie, Archduchess Marie-Christine and husband Count Rodolphe de Limburg-Stirum as well as Princess Margaretha and Prince Nikolaus with Prince Josef. I may have also seen Prince Guillaume. Let's keep our fingers crossed for more pictures to come up as I'm sure that there were more Luxo-Liechtenstein guests. Hopefully more on this in our weekly roundup post!

Weekly Roundup: Inaugurations, Anniversaries and More

September 22 to September 28, 2018

Welcome to our very first weekly roundup of the latest news and events of the Luxembourg and Liechtenstein families. Read here what it is all about - and then, without much further ado, let's delve deep into a busy week.

Our first bit of news actually dates back to Friday of last week, which would have been September 21, but as we haven't covered yet, here we go: Hereditary Prince Alois received a UNICEF delegation and representatives of the municipality of Ruggell as the latter was honoured as a child friendly place by UNICEF. More information here.

Photo: Collège médical / Vincent Flamion

Also on Friday night, the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess attended an event celebrating the 200th anniversary of the founding of the Collège médical. More photos at the cour.

Photo: Cour grand-ducale / Sophie Margue

On Saturday, Grand Duke Henri and Grand Duchess Maria Teresa looking très chic attended the award ceremony of the Luxembourgish film award and even got to hand out some of the awards. More pictures at Wort and the cour.

Photo: Cour grand-ducale / Sophie Margue

On Monday, the Grand Duchess inaugurated the Centre pour le Développement des Apprentissages «Grande-Duchesse Maria Teresa». The learning centre was started by the Fondation du Grand-Duc et de la Grand-Duchesse for children with learning disabilities. More pictures and information at the cour.

Photo: Cour grand-ducale / Marion Dessard

Monday turned out to be the day of inaugurations as Madame la Grand-Duchesse was joined by her husband the Grand Duke for a second inauguration, this time of the Maison de Livre (House of Books) in Esch-sur-Alzette's City of Science. The cour has more visuals.

Photo: IKR

Meanwhile in Liechtenstein, Hereditary Princess Sophie attended an academic session organised by her own foundation on the topic of prevention for families in stressful life situations. A lot more information at Vaterland.

Photo: Cour grand-ducale / Sophie Margue

On Wednesday, the Grand Duchess was among the guests for an academic session organised on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of association "ALAN - Maladies Rares Luxembourg" for people with rare diseases. More at the cour.

Photo: Cour grand-ducale

Thursday saw Grand Duke Henri receiving several new ambassadors to the Grand Duchy for the presentation of the letters of credence. All the details of who and where from at the cour.

Photo: LGT

Prince Philipp in his capacity of Chairman of the Foundation Board of the LGT, together with the LGT Group's jubilarians of the second half of the year visited watch manufacturer Huber on Thursday. More information at LGT.

Fashion Focus: Summer Edition

Fashion Focus is back! I know it's been a long time and I'm really sorry about it. First the Lux Ladies were on holidays and when they came back, it was me who had trouble identifying their outfits hence why Fashion Focus is coming back so late.

On June 25th, Grand Duchess Maria Teresa took part in the #NotATarget campaign. She wore her trusty Armani white blazer.

Photo: © Croix-Rouge Luxembourgeoise

Photo: Lyst

On the same day, Grand Duke Henri and Grand Duchess Maria Teresa received the Swiss President and his wife for a private lunch. Maria Teresa wore a matching pink jacket and dress by Paule Ka.

Photo: © Cour Grand-Ducale/LuxPress/tous droits réservés

Photo: Paule Ka

Photo: Paule Ka

On June 26th, the Grand Ducal couple and the Hereditary Grand Ducal couple attended the first Garden Party at Château de Berg. Grand Duchess Maria Teresa wore her blue satin Escada jumpsuit and her Philippe Farrandis statement necklace that she debuted during the State Visit to France.

Photo: © Cour grand-ducale / Claude Piscitelli / tous droits réservés 

Photo: Escada

Photo: Philippe Farrandis

Hereditary Grand Duchess Stéphanie wore her Paule Ka pink dress and matching Paule Ka pink shoes.

Photo: ©Roland Miny/RTL.lu

Photo: Paule Ka

Photo: Paule Ka

At the beginning of July, Hereditary Grand Duke Guillaume and Hereditary Grand Duchess Stéphanie were in Arles, France to attend "Les Rencontres de la Photographie, Arles". Stéphanie wore a white and black printed dress by Gucci. (Fun story: I found this dress on the Instagram account of a Danish secondhand store, this is probably my weirdest find for the Lux Ladies)

Photo: © letzarles / David Nivère

Photo: @GitaGunhild

On July 19th, Grand Duke Henri and Grand Duchess Maria Teresa were at Buckingham Palace in London to watch Prince Sébastien taking part in the Changing of the Guard. Maria Teresa wore a yellow printed dress by Georges Rech.

Photo: © Cour Grand-Ducale/Collection Privée

Photo: Georges Rech

At the end of August, Archduke Imre and Archduchess Kathleen were in Galway, Ireland to participate in an event honoring Blessed Emperor Karl and Empress Zita. Kathleen wore a lovely blue dress by Séraphine Maternity.

Photo: Edward

Photo: Séraphine Maternity

On the first day of the Meeting of German-Speaking Head of States on September 5th, Grand Duchess Maria-Teresa wore a new dress that I haven't identified and a Dior lavender bag.

Photo: © Luxpress / Cour grand-ducale

Photo: Dior

For the dinner, both Maria Teresa and Hereditary Princess Sophie carried the same Bottega Veneta black clutch.

Photo: © Luxpress / Cour grand-ducale

Photo: Bottega Veneta

I believe Maria Teresa wore a Max Mara jacket for the second day.

Photo: © Luxpress / Cour grand-ducale

Photo: Max Mara

On September 7th, Hereditary Prince Alois and Hereditary Princess Sophie visited a fair. She carried a brown Gucci bamboo handle bag.

Photo: Daniel Schwendener

Photo: Fashionphile

On September 12th, Grand Duchess Maria Teresa became a guide for one day at the Grand Ducal Palace. She wore a new Armani jacket and an Armani top.

Photo: © Cour grand-ducale / Sophie Margue / tous droits réservés

Photo: Lyst

Photo: Lyst

On September 21st, Zeno Willms - the son of Princess Marie-Gabrielle and Antonius Willms- was baptized at Château de Berg. Marie-Gabrielle wore a lovely white dress with pink Aquazzura shoes. These are the same shoes she wore for her civil wedding in May 2017. Maria-Teresa wore the Yves Dooms custom outfit she debuted for the Closing of the Octave earlier this year.

Photo: © Cour grand-ducale / Claude Piscitelli / tous droits réservés

Photo: MyTheresa

Another outfit for Princess Marie-Gabrielle : a Dolce & Gabbana gown worn recently at the wedding of Johannes Willms - her brother in law - and Sofia Elisa Grivet.

Photo: Bunte.de

Photo: MatchesFashion

What do you think of these outfits? There has been more new outfits this summer that I haven't been able to identify but as always, don't hesitate to share your finds if you have any and if I manage to find anything, I'll add them in the next Fashion Focus post in two weeks!

Luxarazzi 2.0 - A Few Changes Around Here

Luxarazzi has been around for a long time, next year we will actually celebrate our tenth anniversary as we published the first posts in September of 2009. Ten years are a long time not just for this little place on the world wide web but also our offline lives. To accommodate blogging with our increasingly busy schedules, we have decided that we will introduce a Weekly Roundup post covering most news and events of the Grand Ducal Family of Luxembourg and the Princely Family of Liechtenstein that happened during a week.

We plan on publishing this post every Friday bringing you everything that happened during the week. Don't worry though, major news and events will still merit their own posts but frankly covering audiences and obscure company anniversaries for the umptieth time isn't the most fun anymore for us and so we thought that we would conveniently group them together in one article. Not going on the hunt for the latest news every day will also give us a bit of a breather to continue Luxarazzi well into the future.

We have come a long way in the past ten years with lots of bigger and smaller changes over the years, so this may not be "Luxarazzi 2.0" but "5.3" but it's the first big change to the daily format of the blog. We hope you will enjoy it and stay with us. 

For all the latest updates, simply follow us on Facebook or Twitter.

Wedding Season

Photo: Bunte

Johannes Willms, older brother of Princess Marie-Gabrielle's husband Antonius, recently got married to Sofia Elisa Grivet Brancot in the gardens of Castello di Pralormo in Italy. Naturally, Princess Marie-Gabrielle, niece of Grand Duke Henri, her husband Antonius Willms and their baby son Zeno were among the guests. Last week's edition of German magazine Bunte has a lengthy report about the wedding if you happen to want to grab one.

Also in wedding news... Duchess Sophie of Württemberg and Maximilien d'Andigné celebrated their civil wedding last Saturday, September 15, at Schloss Altshausen in southern Germany. The bride is the niece of Hereditary Princess Sophie - and presumably named for her - so it is no surprise that the Hereditary Princess and Hereditary Prince Alois were among the guests for the nuptials. The religious wedding will take place at Schloss Tegernsee in Bavaria on October 20. We can surely expect a bigger Liechtenstein turnout for the big bash. A few visuals though none of Sophie and Alois can be found at Bunte.

Celebrating Liechtenstein-Hungarian Relationships

Photo: IKR

Already on Tuesday, Hereditary Prince Alois received Hungary's Minister of Justice László Trócsányi at Schloss Vaduz. The minister's visit to Liechtenstein marked the 25th anniversary of diplomatic relationships between the Principality and Hungary. 

A lot more information available at Volksblatt.

Alois Receives Graduates

Photo: ZVG / Roland Korner

On Wednesday, Hereditary Prince Alois received graduates of the Berufsmaturitätsschule at Schloss Vaduz. The school systems of German- and English-speaking countries vastly differ but here's a quick run-down: In the German-speaking countries including Liechtenstein the secondary education sector includes various types of schools with only passing one, the Gymnasium, allowing you entry into university afterwards. Instead, a big emphasis is put on practical apprenticeship. The Berufsmaturitätsschule is a school where apprentices go in addition to their apprenticeship to meet the necessary requirements to enroll at a University of Applied Sciences.

More pictures at Volksblatt.

Grand Duchess Launches #StandSpeakRiseUp

Photo: Cour grand-ducale / Dominique Jacovides, Bestimage

This week, Grand Duchess Maria Teresa participated in a work meeting for #StandSpeakRiseUp with Dr. Denis Mukwege of the Dr. Denis Mukwege Foundation, more on him here, and Céline Bardet  of We are not Weapons of War. Together with the Fondation du Grand-Duc et de la Grande-Duchesse they will organise a conference in March of next year titled "Stand Speak Rise Up" to end sexual violence in conflict areas.

More information and pictures at the cour.