Before she became crown princess of Norway upon her marriage to Prince Haakon two years ago, Mette-Marit Tjessen Hoiby was just a normal jeans and trainers-wearing twenty-something. But the post-engagement Mette-Marit was an entirely different creature, having to shop for clothes fit for a princess. "I need to have a good wardrobe for my new role in life," she said at the time. "I certainly didn't have many ball gowns before I met Haakon."
All that has apparently changed, however, with the Norwegian magazine Se og Hoer reporting that the increasingly stylish princess has racked up more than £85,000 in clothing charges on royal accounts in the last year.
In London, where she's lived and studied since last September, the cool blonde, armed only with her bodyguards and her royal credit card, has apparently converted herself into a VIP client at Harrods. The department store has a special arrangement with the 29-year-old princess, in which she is allowed to shop after hours undisturbed by press or other patrons.
However, the princess doesn't just splurge at Harrods – like any self-respecting bargain-hunter, she also frequents her local boutiques, from Armani to Prada.
"Before, I used to love shopping," said Mette-Marit in the run-up to her Oslo wedding, "but now it's just stressful." No word on if the princess has changed her mind, now that she's had time to get accustomed to queen-sized spending sprees.
Photo: © Alphapress.com
Photo: © Alphapress.com
