The 24 Worst High Heels Ever Worn By The Royal Family

The women of the royal family have a long history of shoe blunders. Of course, we all do. It's completely normal to look back on footwear choices with regret. The only difference is that the British royals get followed by paparazzi constantly, and so their unfortunate choices live on eternally in photos on the internet. There's a whole range of family members who've made strange decisions in regard to heels. The late Queen Elizabeth II had her own mishaps, as did Princess Diana. More contemporary members have made more contemporary heel mistakes. From Catherine, Princess of Wales, to Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, and even Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice, no one is spared.

The worst heel blunders can look different for all of these women. For some, their shoe choices pushed up uncomfortably against royal protocol. After all, there's a lot to know about the royal family's dress code. Heck, there are even pregnancy dress codes that the royals have to follow, as well as wardrobe rules for royals at garden parties, so it's safe to assume that most aspects of their sartorial lives are being scrutinized. But heel blunders amongst the royals can occur for other reasons, too. The heels were the wrong choice for the occasion, in some cases. In still other situations, the heels were so outrageous that they distracted from the event at hand. There can be any number of reasons, but there's a long archive of royal ladies who got carried away with their pumps. 

There was one type of shoe that Kate Middleton never wore around the late Queen Elizabeth II, and these were wedges. Of all of the heels that Catherine, Princess of Wales, wore, these were one style that the late monarch couldn't stand. "The Queen isn't a fan of wedged shoes," a palace source told Vanity Fair in 2014. "She really doesn't like them and it's well known among the women in the family," the insider added. So, Catherine rarely wore the controversial shoes around the queen, opting instead for her heels.

Meghan Markle, Duchess of Sussex, repeatedly shocked and amazed audiences by wearing sky-high stilettos during her pregnancy with her and the Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex's first child, Archie Mountbatten-Windsor. In fact, on an episode of her podcast, "Confessions of a Female Founder with Meghan," the Duchess admitted to wearing five-inch heels when she was eight months pregnant. It was an impressive feat, since heels aren't comfortable for many, even without being pregnant. For many pregnant women, heels become prohibitive due to swelling in the feet and lower legs. Balance also becomes a bigger issue, and so it was surprising that Meghan frequently opted for stilettos at this chapter in her life. 

Catherine, Princess of Wales isn't known for breaking the rules, so it was that much more surprising when she broke rules during a visit to the V&A East Storehouse and Museum in London on June 10, 2025. The museum is designed with metal grid flooring, so their website specifically advises visitors against wearing "stilettos or kitten heels." Instead, the museum urges guests to wear sensible clothing and flat shoes. Catherine went rogue, arriving in a blue suit and black Gianvito Rossi heels. She looked great, but the royal clearly didn't respect the prestigious museum's guidelines.

Queen Elizabeth II might have been onto something with her disdain for wedged shoes of all sorts. While visiting South Africa in 2019 with Prince Harry, Meghan Markle wore a blue shirt dress by Veronica Beard and styled the dress with black wedges that featured thick, black ankle laces. The look was called out on several worst-dressed sites, with complaints targeted largely at her choice of shoes. The thick ankle laces cut off the visual length of her legs and looked heavy and clunky with the breezier dress style. 

When Princess Diana of Wales was married to the then-Prince Charles III, she was mindful of the height of her shoes and never wore high heels. The real reason behind this was that Diana was quite tall — 5'10" — and she didn't want to appear taller than Charles, who was the same height. Biographer Eloise Moran wrote in "The Lady Di Look Book" that Diana insisted her heels never reach higher than 2 inches to spare Charles' feelings. Even Diana's wedding shoes featured a very low heel because Diana was worried about looking taller than her new husband. Once they separated, she fully embraced high heels.

Catherine, Princess of Wales, served a serious heel blunder on May 8, 2025 when she arrived for the Service of Thanksgiving held at Westminster Abbey in London to celebrate the 80th anniversary of VE day. The shoe mistake in question concerned the color rather than heel height. Catherine wore a black and white polkadot dress by Alessandra Rich, along with a black fascinator. However, when it came to other accessories, Catherine opted for nude, with camel-toned heels and a beige handbag. However, black shoes would have created a more coordinated outfit. 

Queen Elizabeth II rarely, if ever, experimented with her shoes. The late monarch consistently opted for a low block heel. While we can cut an old lady some slack for wanting shoes that were stable and sturdy, the queen did one weird thing with her shoes. She actually had someone else break them in for her. The queen's dressmaker, Angela Kelly, admitted in her book, "The Other Side of the Coin: The Queen, the Dresser, and the Wardrobe," that she wore the queen's new shoes first to prevent the queen's discomfort. It seemed like a real diva move. 

For the coronation ceremony of King Charles III on May 6, 2023 at Westminster Abbey, a heavily pregnant Princess Eugenie wore what many considered to be daring and distracting heels. Her navy leather and gold wedge shoes were designed by Fendi, as was the rest of her ensemble, and the shoes alone cost over $1600 U.S. dollars. They featured an upside down "F" shape in a contemporary design. While Eugenie's coordinated dress and jacket — gorgeous and very tasteful — were applauded by fans, the shoes were deemed slightly too daring for such a solemn, traditional occasion.

Princess Diana embraced her inner candy striper when she visited Lambeth in South London in 1991. The young royal wore red and white striped heels that coordinated perfectly with her striped skirt. By contemporary standards, the look might be deemed out of date, considering that it's very matchy-matchy. However, Diana, always the style icon, has proven that her tastes have staying power. As such, her very dazzling heel and skirt combo has its charms. But it's safe to say that there was nothing subtle about this look. 

Despite the access that comes with being a royal, Princess Eugenie has worn a lot of outdated looks and doesn't always get it quite right with her styling choices. This was painfully evident in 2009 when she attended the premiere of "The Young Victoria" in Leicester Square with her mother, Sarah Ferguson, and her sister, Princess Beatrice. For the occasion, Eugenie wore strappy black heels that shortened her legs and drew the eye away from the rest of her outfit. The heels were busy and chaotic, lacking the simple elegance we expect from royal women. 

In September 2019, while still working as a senior royal, Meghan Markle debuted her line of women's workwear pieces with the British charity Smart Works to help unemployed women get job interviews. While a charity of this sort is something we can easily get behind, Meghan needed to fix part of her own workwear attire. Her brown suede heels were clearly much too big for her. It's common knowledge that celebrities will wear a larger size to avoid blisters, but these were whopping on her and simply looked off. 

Princess Beatrice got bold on Christmas Day in 2003 when she attended the Christmas Day service at the church of St. Mary Magdalene at Sandringham. To be fair, the Christmas service is famously a chance for the royals to dress up and put on their most festive attire, so Beatrice's sequinned boots, featuring flowers and sun-shaped embroidery, were suitable. Thought, these divisive calf-length boots were certainly a standout choice, one that's gone down in sartorial history as one of the snazziest heels worn at a royal event.

Sophie Wessex, the Duchess of Edinburgh, cut the red ribbon in June 2023 for the new opening of the Charfleet Book Bindery in Canvey Island, a town in southern England. Sophie looked very pretty in a green wrap dress with a white T-shirt and tonal handbag. While everything from her hair to her outfit was great, Sophie's choice in heels threw us off. Obviously, she jumped on the nude heel style that royal women love so much, but her caramel-toned pumps were too dark for her outfit and had no coordinating power with anything else that she was wearing. 

There's a reason that Queen Camilla doesn't make many appearances on this list, and that's because she literally wears the same pair of shoes over and over again. So the knock against her footwear is that there is, quite literally, absolutely no variation whatsoever. To be fair, the shoe repeat could be an issue of comfort or foot health issues, so we don't want to push too hard. It's just remarkable that Camilla has worn the same pair of Sole Bliss pumps over 80 times, a brand representative told Page Six. Her particular favorite are the Ingrid heels, which sell for $299. Camilla wears them in several different colors. 

In an impressive stunt of pregnancy fashion, Catherine, Princess of Wales, wore nude platform heels by L.K. Bennett while pregnant with her and Prince William's first child, Prince George. Catherine wore the sky-high pumps in April 2013, when she was six months pregnant, during a visit to a children's hospice center. She also donned a peach coat by Tara Jarmon and a beige-pink dress, adding subtle accessories like a nude clutch and the tonal heels. Those can't have been too comfortable.

It's understandable to make a mistake once in wearing a certain pair of heels. However, Sophie Wessex, the Duchess of Edinburgh, re-wore a pair of very unpopular Jimmy Choo wedge sandal heels over and over again while on royal tours throughout Cyprus and the Caribbean. The dreaded footwear is none other than Jimmy Choo's Dovina Leather Espadrille Wedges. The shoes were unpopular among royal fans because they looked so thick and clunky on the duchess, and they proved to be an unflattering choice. Unfortunately, we all saw them numerous times, too, so our minds are definitely made up about the Choos.  

When Princess Eugenie got married to Jack Brooksbank in October 2018, Princess Beatrice arrived in what was, overall, a lovely wedding outfit. She wore a royal blue skirt with a matching peplum-style top by Ralph & Russo. The suit was rich in one tone of color, so it was strange that Beatrice paired the polished look with a purple hat and dove grey heels. The shoes matched her small bag, but both accessory pieces didn't make a lot of sense in relation to her outfit, and the heels simply didn't coordinate with everything else. 

For her engagement photo call with Prince Harry in November 2017, Meghan Markle arrived in Aquazzura's "Matilde" heels. The nude-toned heels featured ankle ties, and they were a miss for a few reasons. For one, Meghan was again wearing a size too big for her, so the shoes appeared wobbly and ill-fitted. Secondly, even though the ankle ties were a nude color, they still shortened the visual length of Meghan's legs. Added to this was the fact that Meghan's jacket was too boxy for her frame, making the whole look appear out of proportion.

On day nine of Wimbledon in 2022, Catherine, Princess of Wales, arrived in one of her favorite designers: Alessandra Rich. She wore a blue and white polkadot dress by the designer with a perfectly coordinated handbag. It was her shoes — arguably, a very sexy pair of heels — that went awry. 

Kate's wearing another pair of Alessandra Rich pumps. This time in black and white. She first wore the tan/black. This new style is available here: https://t.co/ci9OqWEAXU https://t.co/O9XlhzSB9b pic.twitter.com/asv7toEd7i

— MiddletonMaven (@MiddletonMaven) July 5, 2022

The black and white pumps by the same designer were an odd choice, considering there were no other black tones anywhere in her outfit. One X user noted the mismatch: "Strange colours with [a] bright blue dress." It certainly was a rare miss for the princess. 

Meghan Markle wore a daring pair of heels when she visited the St. Charles Hospital in West London in January 2019, back when she was a working royal. Markle was there to support the charity Smart Works, which focuses on providing clothing and employment support for women in need. Not only did Meghan arrive in a prohibitively expensive outfit — a $2,990 Oscar de la Renta coat and a $2,710 Victoria Beckham handbag — she also showed up in Gianvito Rossi heels. The $795 heels featured cow print on the heels and toes, with PVC paneling along the sides — an odd choice for the occasion.

Princess Diana mixed things up by pairing a lavender Versace skirt suit with a pearl necklace and monochrome heels when she visited Washington on June 17, 1997. The shoes were a unique choice, considering that the rest of the outfit was pastel and traditional. But Diana was actually playing on menswear fashion in her choice of footwear, specifically with the two-toned Spectator shoe, which was popular among men in England in the 1930s. So, Diana's daring and feminized reimagining of this shoe was boldly paired with the more muted suit.

Princesses Eugenie stole the spotlight for the worst outfit at the wedding of Princess Catherine and Prince William of Sussex in April 2011, and her choice of heels for the day didn't help the situation. Eugenie wore a busy, blue skirt suit by Vivienne Westwood paired with an even busier blue fascinator by Philip Treacy. To polish it off, she wore deep gold platform pumps that had no correlation to the rest of her overly colorful look. "The shoes didn't really go with the rest of the outfit and felt like a last minute addition," fashion expert Miranda Holder told Daily Mail. Overall, it was a big miss. 

In October 2019, Meghan Markle donned a dress with mismatched shoes at the One Young World ceremony in London. She chose a purple Aritzia Babaton Maxwell Dress and paired it with navy suede heels. While each piece was perfectly nice on its own, as a combo, the shoes and dress didn't make sense together. The outfit felt somewhat uninspired, and the ill-fitting frock actually landed on our list of unflattering looks that simply didn't work on Meghan.

Princess Eugenie caused a bit of a scandal with her short dress and knee-high heeled boots ensemble. She was attending the Commonwealth Youth Forum in 2018 and arrived in a pair of black Isabel Marant boots with a short, floral dress by Whistles. While she looked pretty, many online felt that the dress was too short and the boots were too sexy of a footwear accessory.

"Whoa!! One little breeze and ... HELLO!!" one X user wrote of the dress' short hemline. Other comments pointed out that the overall outfit was not appropriate for the setting. Eugenie's flirty dress and knee-high boots combo would have been fine had it been a more casual occasion.