Edouard Vermeulen, couturier of the royal family celebrates the 25th
anniversary of the house Natan, at the Natan store, on avenue Louise
in the presence of Edouard Vermeulen, Princess Claire and Prince Laurent.
Ah thanks for the pics iceflower.
So Natan´s Eddy celebrated 25 years of creativity, twin dressing and all that jazz, worth to throw a bash indeed.
As for Laurent, my, he is certainly busy with fashion show, premiere and anniversary hopping, no wonder his official agenda is almost empty (=10 activities in 2008 according to the BRF homepage).
Two days ago (20/10) he attended yet another fashion show with Claire. Delphine Boel and her hubby were also present and Laurent went to greet her, introduced Claire and did some small talk in front of tv cameras and microphones. The four also posed for photographers and this stunt actually was the opener of yesterday´s VTM evening tv news since it was the first official contact between a member of the BRF and Delphine. VTM sure knows how to set priorities, but that’s a whole different story. The story also made it´s entry into today´s newspapers and scores the cover of the Belgian Paris Match.
http://www.lalibre.be/free_images/llmune.pdf
Laurent and Claire talking to Delphine certainly can be regarded as token of compassion or something like this and according to Delphine´s hubby his wife and Laurent already met a few times and get along okay. They never turned it into a public stunt by meeting in front of all tv cameras and photogs though. Laurent´s timing is a bit suspicious to say the least and it also can be regarded as attempt to affront his father who cut all ties with his illegitimate daughter - not that Albert wasn´t explicitly asking for situations like this by treating Delphine and Laurent like crap. The VTM camera crew was quite surprised that Laurent allowed them to tape the meeting, usually Laurent carries out a feud with VTM and is banning their cameras out of his orbit (especially when they film his not so environment friendly Hummer car
). This is why the VTM royalty journalist Pauwels is convinced he was so keen on this little meeting to upset his father.
And the “trees for Libya’s deserts” stunt is just another hint in this direction imo. Of all deserts it has to be the one in Libya? And of all ppl it had to be Laurent who plants trees there? Honi soit qui mal y pense. According to Laurent he just goes there with best intentions “All I intend to do there is improving the living conditions. All the others go to Libya for oil, but I go there to help 6 million Libyans. I cannot understand how anybody in Belgium can oppose this.” Ahem, yes. The first person who stood up and said NO was certainly his father when he had gotten wind of it. It´s quite obvious that Albert tried to stop Laurent in order to avoid yet another embarrassing situation. It´s true that Ghaddafi owns Fortis shares but the Belgian-Libyan relationships are still frosty and Laurent surely doesn´t have what it takes to be diplomatic. Alas, Laurent doesn´t listen to his father, so Albert had to ask PM Leterme to convince him to stay at home. That the press got notice of this and politicians started to comment on it surely makes it even more embarrassing. And this time I really have pity with Leterme. The poor guy has other things to do than cleaning up the mess Albert´s complete lack of parental skills created. BTW Laurent already was in Libya for some first contacts though and I dearly hope he was smart enough not to accept anything else then flight tickets and accomodation for free for his work. And if Laurent would be honest with himself and his ambitions he should abandon his allowance imo. Seems he feels more comfortable doing his own business (in many aspects btw) and this doesn’t go together all to well with accepting the taxpayer’s money. It´s also quite sad to witness how much negative impact the complicated relationship with Albert still has on Delphine, Laurent and Philippe´s lives.
Well, will be interesting to watch Albert and Laurent interacting at the autumn concert next week. If they interact at all and if Laurent arrives in time for his 11th official activity this year that is.