Duchess Sophie makes glasses cool on CBeebie's Bedtime Stories with "Specs for Rex"

Her Royal Highness Sophie, the Duchess of Edinburgh, is known for good taste in how she dresses. She can be admired while using staple pieces at the Edinburgh International Festival or pairing a sunny Beulah London Yahvi Midi Dress with a hat known as "Persephone in Crepe" for the 2024 Trooping the Colour. It is my opinion, however, that she has never looked better than when dressing down a bit for CBeebies Bedtime Stories.

Glasses and superpowers

Wearing a fetching pair of what David Tennant would definitely call "brainy specs," Sophie introduced a small lion wearing an outsized pair of red glasses. "This is Rex," the Duchess said. "He's wearing very snazzy specs. Do you or does anyone in your family wear glasses?" As a 43-year-old who wore a pair of red glasses as a child and did not feel at all snazzy, I was drawn in as she introduced the story of how self-conscious Rex felt in his new glasses.

The book, Specs for Rex by Yasmeen Ismail, details a day in the life of a young lion with an unspecified eyesight problem. All we know at first is that he has new glasses and is desperate to hide them. It was tough for him, as they were "big and round and red." Ismail's charming illustrations draws them in a way that is almost larger than life.

Mummy tells Rex to have a good day at school, but clearly doesn't understand how hard that can be when you have to wear big and round and red specs that can't be hidden by your hair or stowed in your snack until you get hungry or painted over in art class. The tides turn when he is able to render a service to his teacher and earns both a "well spotted!" and a gold star.

Sophie heart-warmingly assesses his big, red, round glasses as "stylish and helpful" and adds that "they are part of you." The take-away encouragement is to tell someone how great they look in their glasses and to dream of the things we might see tomorrow.

As the YouTube channel reminds us, "there are loads more stories on BBC iPlayer," so feel free to browse more. And don't forget to bring your specs.