Kate Middleton: ‘Faking’ her way onto covers of every glossy

Convince her to strike a pose for your publication and that single issue alone would set the cash registers ringing well over its combined annual circulation.

Such is the power of Kate Middleton, or Prince William’s better half, who is perhaps the only the other British royal able to stand her own in the media glare that was once shone so tragically on Princess Diana.

So imagine the industry coup when South Africa’s ‘Marie Claire’ fashion and lifestyle magazine unveiled its spanking new cover, with highly sought after Kate on the cover, with a hand on her hip and flashing her pearly whites.

Clad in an artful print dress by South African designer Clive Rundle, Kate appears to have managed yet another winner in the fashion stakes with this particular ensemble.

Yet before we could rush out to grab ourselves a copy to view some of the exclusive shots hidden inside the magazine’s glossy pages, the text on the cover gives the glaringly obvious secret away: it’s a fake.

Terming it as ‘fan art tribute’, the lifelike imagery is simply a case of superimposing Rundle’s designer dress onto Kate’s existing picture.

The photoshopped imagery comes with a header that screams: ‘Kate Middleton: Fashion’s New Royal Icon wears SA’s Best Local Designs’.

But of course, an asterisk points to the fine print that states: ‘Of course she doesn’t. But she should’.

“We were so inspired by her fairytale wedding and her life as a modern-day princess, which is why we elected Kate Middleton as our cover star for the August issue,” the magazine’s editor Aspasia Karras told the UK’s ‘Telegraph’.

She added: “The cover is actually a hyper-real illustration of Kate, meant to be a fan art tribute to fashion’s new royal icon.”

While the audience appears to be divided by this fake photoshoot – some loving it while many calling it a fake or creepy – it is not the first time a magazine has used Kate on the cover, with American rag ‘The New Republic’ creating uproar amongst the royal’s most loyal fans when the 30-year-old was shown with rotting teeth to depict the dismal state of the UK economy.

Earlier, British tabloid ‘Grazia’ also confessed to giving a nip/tuck to Kate’s tiny waist in a wedding photo of her with Prince William.

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