On January 1, 2010, the then Kate Middleton was nine days shy of her twenty-eighth birthday and was the girlfriend of Prince William. She was in a bit of a holding pattern, knowing that an engagement to her boyfriend of eight years would be imminent – or so she hoped – so her career was stymied, waiting on the inevitable Royal life that awaited her. She was called “Waity Katie” in the press for this exact reason. By the end of 2010 she was engaged after William proposed in October in Kenya; the photo pictured here is at their official engagement announcement on November 16, 2010, Kate wearing a blue wrap dress by Issa that promptly sold out – the beginnings of Kate’s impact on fashion.
Now, at the end of the decade, Kate is now Catherine in an official capacity and has had quite the decade – she married in 2011, and gave birth to George in 2013, Charlotte in 2015, and Louis in 2018. She has had her first of everything Royal – her first Royal tour, her first patronage work, her first Royal speech, her first solo engagement, her first engagement with the Queen, and on and on and on. She is fully, confidently coming into herself, and is ready to take on the 2020s with aplomb and vigor. We have truly watched Kate turn from a young woman into a full-fledged force at 37 years old, dazzling and stunning just like she did here this past February, when she wowed onlookers in go-to designer Alexander McQueen at the British Academy Film Awards (BAFTAs) in London.
On January 1, 2010, the then Meghan Markle, 28, was a former Deal or No Deal model who had two movies coming out that year – Get Him to the Greek and Remember Me, as well a little-known short film, The Candidate. Also in 2010, she had a guest spot on CSI: Miami and the very memorable television movie The Boys & Girls Guide to Getting Down. The next year, in 2011, she would land the role that would make her acting career – that of Rachel Zane on Suits. She had dated actor and producer Trevor Engelson for six years and would marry him in 2011. Though a working actress in Hollywood, her life seems an impossibly long way from where it would end up by the close of the decade, proving that, truly, anything can happen in 10 years’ time.
Now, at the end of the decade, Meghan has married and divorced and met the love of her life, got engaged, married him, and given birth to their first child, Archie. Meghan, now 38, is a working member of the Royal Family, trading in Suits – which she appeared on for seven years – for work as the Duchess of Sussex such as hosting a roundtable on gender equality, as she is about to do in this photo. (This was my favorite look of hers from 2019 – there’s just something about it!) Meghan doesn’t have the same career as she did in 2010, the same husband, nor does she even live on the same continent. She is a well-known former blogger and part-time fashion designer, and still remains, in many ways, the woman she’s always been – an outspoken feminist and proponent of gender equality, even as a member of a very traditional Family.
Kate and Meghan prove that, no matter where you start 2020, transformation is possible – sometimes in ways you never could have imagined.