As Queen Margrethe of Denmark Announces Her Surprise Abdication, a Look Back at Her Eccentric Royal Style

They made a vivacious pair. “Royals are often partial to color, but Queen Margrethe’s take on royal style is very bold,” says Brøgger. “Because she’s an artist, she has a totally different understanding of color. She’s a tall woman of a different stature than most other queens, so she’s able to carry more dramatic shapes. She’s a bit sprightlier than her royal peers, perhaps, but she’s also queen of a completely different monarchy than England, for instance,” she continues, acknowledging the diminished scrutiny that comes with life on the throne in a small kingdom like Denmark.

Denis says his love of the Danish Queen, who spends summers at Cayx, her French château and vineyard in Cahors, is rooted in a “Francophile” disposition connected to her late husband. “She speaks the most wonderful French, with this beyond chic accent that only royals have,” he notes. “More than the Grimaldi in Monaco or even the French-speaking Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in Belgium, Queen Margrethe is the epitome of the queen we would love to have. Her Majesty seems very French to the French in her unpretentious, very sophisticated style and ways.”

Case in point: on her birthday in 2019, the Danish court released a picture of staff serenading their monarch with birthday songs from the banqueting hall of her summer palace, the Queen distanced on a ballroom balcony in a huge Victorian nightgown, her hair let down from its signature chignon. “She has the most perfect instinct for appropriate clothes, whether spectacular—for example, her official portraits in long evening gowns for state dinner and balls—or more low-key, like her cotton dresses for going to the local markets in France; her favorite check ensembles, her flat shoes,” Denis says. “This art of mastering the proper clothing with the proper occasion, and yet adding to it a personal touch, makes her unique amongst royalty, whose choices can be challenging in both fields.” Brøgger says the secret to Queen Margrethe’s popularity lies in her understanding of her position. “She gives us more than just duty. She shows us a full life.”