Thailand’s Queen Mother Sirikit, influential style icon, dies at 93

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BANGKOK: Thailand’s Queen Mother Serekity, who brought glamor and beauty to the country’s post-war revival of the monarchy and who, in later years, occasionally dabbled in politics, has died at the age of 93, the Thai Royal Household Bureau said on Saturday.

After suffering a stroke in 2012, Sirkeit was out of the public eye.

She had been hospitalized for several ailments since 2019 and had developed a bloodstream infection on October 17 before she died late on Friday, the palace said.

A one-year mourning period has been announced for the royal family and household members.

The government said public offices would fly flags at half-mast for a month and asked government officials to observe mourning for a year. Entertainment places were asked to suspend activities for a month.

Thai Prime Minister Anutan Charnweerkul canceled next week’s ASEAN summit in Kuala Lumpur and the APEC summit in South Korea due to the Queen Mother’s death. He told reporters he would travel to Malaysia to sign a ceasefire agreement with Cambodia on Sunday but would return to Thailand afterwards.

A style icon who delighted the world

Serakit’s husband, King Bhumibol Adulyadej, was Thailand’s longest-serving monarch, with 70 years on the throne after 1946. She was in most of his works, winning hearts at home with her charity work.

When she traveled abroad, she also delighted the world’s media with her beauty and fashion sense.

During a 1960 visit, including a state dinner at the White House, Time magazine called her “svelte” and an “archfeminist.” French daily L’Oror described it as “disgusting”.

Born in 1932, the year Thailand transitioned from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy, Seriket Katiyakara was the daughter of the Thai ambassador to France and lived a life of wealth and privilege.

While studying music and language in Paris, he met Bhumibol, who had spent parts of his childhood in Switzerland.

“It was hate at first sight,” he said in a BBC documentary. “Then it was love.”

The couple spent time together in Paris and were engaged in 1949. They married a year later in Thailand, when she was 17.

Always stylish, Sirkit collaborated with French couturier Pierre Balmain on eye-catching outfits made from Thai silk. By supporting the preservation of traditional methods of traditional weaving, he is credited with helping to revive Thailand’s silk industry.

Combat rural development

For more than four decades, she often traveled with the king to remote villages, promoting development projects for the rural poor.

She was regent briefly in 1956, when her husband spent two weeks at a temple, studying to become a Buddhist monk in the Ordinary Rite of Passage in Thailand.

In 1976, her birthday, August 12, became Mother’s Day and a national holiday in Thailand.

His only son, now King Maha Vajiralongkorn, also known as Rama X, succeeded Bhumibol after his death in 2016, and after his coronation in 2019, Serekity became the official title of Queen Mother.

Officially, the monarchy is above politics in Thailand, whose modern history has been dominated by coups and unstable governments. Although, at this point, royals including Sirkeit have either interfered or considered political.

In 1998, he used his birthday address to urge unity behind then-Prime Minister Chuan Lekpai, who dealt an absurd blow to the opposition’s plan to hold a no-confidence debate in the hope of forcing new elections.

Later, she became associated with a political movement, the Royalist People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD), whose protests led to governments headed by or associated with Thaksin Shinawatra, a populist former telecom tycoon.

In 2008, Sirkeit attended the funerals of PAD protesters killed in clashes with police, signifying royal backing for a campaign that helped oust the pro-Thaksin government a year earlier.

For many Thais, she will be remembered as a symbol of her philanthropic work and maternal virtue. His death will be treated with reverence in the country where any criticism is held by strictly enforced les majeste laws, which suggest a possible prison sentence.

President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif expressed their deep grief over Sirkit’s death.

“On behalf of the Government and people of Pakistan, the President expresses his heartfelt condolences to His Majesty King Maha Vajiralongkorn, the Royal Family, and the people of Thailand,” the President’s Secretariat Press Wing said in a press statement.

The President said that the people of Pakistan share the grief of the Thai nation and stand with them at this time of loss.

Prime Minister Shehbaz, in a post on X, said, “Deeply saddened by the passing away of Her Majesty Queen Serkeet, the beloved Queen Mother of Thailand.

He said that the people and the government of Pakistan join him in expressing their deepest condolences to the royal family, the royal family, and the people of Thailand.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with them at this time of national grief,” he added.