From fashionista to caring mother, Thailand mourns Queen Sirikit

The year-long funeral ceremony of Thailand’s former Queen Sirikit started on Sunday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her remains to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace.

The royal family is venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semidivine figures and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide.

Former Queen Sirikit, the mother of the current King Vajiralongkorn and wife of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93.

Digital advertising billboards in the Thai capital are displaying towering black tributes to the royal matriarch, while citizens have been asked to wear dark tones and curtail celebratory public events.

The former queen’s body is due late on Sunday afternoon to make the short trip from Chulalongkorn Hospital to the seat of the Thai royalty, where she will lie in state for one year before cremation.

Throughout her 66-year marriage to King Bhumibol Adulyadej, Sirikit carved a dual reputation as a glittering fashionista and the nation’s caring mother figure.