Prince Charles to Try Hand at Fashion

By Stephen M. Silverman

08/12/2002 at 10:45 AM EDT

Prince Charles is about to enter an arena currently inhabited by such nobility as Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein: fashion. The heir to the British throne, 53, is launching his own line of country clothing to help revive a rural economy nearly devastated by foot-and-mouth disease, Britain's Sunday Times reports. As a result, he will only use woolen materials supplied by his homeland's sheep farmers and manufacture the goods in English workshops, says the paper, which goes on to report that Charles also intends to market a new line of garden furniture made from oak purchased from British farmers. As for the Charles look, The Times called it more tweedy than cutting edge (he favors a traditional hunting look that Ralph Lauren long ago successfully emulated), but the influence of young princes William and Harry could surface in the Charles line. London clothier Jeremy Hackett told the paper, "If (Charles) put the princes in Windsor polo shirts, the sales would be so great that he could give up the day job."