Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh Shows Grace with Elegant Deep Curtsy During Overseas Visit

Sophie and Prince Edward missed the state vis­it from U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump as they were prep­ping for a tour

The Duchess of Edin­burgh, 60, dipped into an impres­sive curt­sy when she met the Emper­or of Japan, 65, at the Impe­r­i­al Palace in Tokyo on Sept. 19.

The Duchess of Edin­burgh and her hus­band, Prince Edward, are vis­it­ing Japan from Sept. 18 to Sept. 22 to cel­e­brate the strong bilat­er­al rela­tion­ship between the coun­try and the U.K. A Buck­ing­ham Palace state­ment said that the audi­ence reaf­firmed ties between the house­holds and cel­e­brat­ed the breadth of the rela­tion­ship between the U.K. and Japan. 

Sophie dropped into a deep curt­sy as she and Edward met Emper­or Naruhi­to and his wife, Empress Masako.

Eti­quette expert Myka Meier pre­vi­ous­ly that she is “most impressed” by Sophie’s curt­sy.

“She con­sis­tent­ly has an amaz­ing approx­i­mate 13-inch dip and is always strong and steady on her feet…per­fect time and time again!” she said. “A good curt­sy takes mus­cle and bal­ance!”

The vol­un­tary ges­ture of respect is a cus­tom with­in the British roy­al fam­i­ly when greet­ing oth­ers of a more senior roy­al rank.

“There are no oblig­a­tory codes of behav­iour when meet­ing The Queen or a mem­ber of the Roy­al Fam­i­ly, but many peo­ple wish to observe the tra­di­tion­al forms,” out­lines the roy­al fam­i­ly’s web­site, which has yet to be updat­ed in full fol­low­ing the death of Queen Eliz­a­beth in 2022. 

“For men this is a neck bow (from the head only) whilst women do a small curt­sy,” it says. “Oth­er peo­ple pre­fer sim­ply to shake hands in the usu­al way.”

Sophie’s curt­sy is not the first to catch atten­tion this week.

On Sept. 16, Kate Mid­dle­ton dipped into a quick curt­sy when she said good­bye to King Charles fol­low­ing the funer­al of Katharine, Duchess of Kent at West­min­ster Cathe­dral. Kate is known to curt­sy to her father-in-law in pub­lic as a ges­ture of respect, and she dropped into the curt­sy after giv­ing him a kiss on each cheek.

When the U.S. state vis­it to the U.K. began the fol­low­ing day, some won­dered if first lady Mela­nia Trump broke pro­to­col by not curt­sy­ing to Princess Kate, Prince William, King Charles or Queen Camil­la when she met them.

As the roy­al fam­i­ly’s web­site guides, the first lady of the U.S. was not in the wrong, as there are no req­ui­site codes of behav­ior when greet­ing the British roy­als.