A Svelte ‘Fergie’ Sheds Image as Frump : Royalty: The Duchess of York is working on a slim-line look, combining designer elegance with a hint of sex appeal.

A new woman has appeared on Britain’s royal circuit--a well-groomed, 31-year-old redhead with a trim figure and a wardrobe fit for a princess.

The Duchess of York is trying hard to cast off her image as a full-figured “fashion frump,” and is working on a slim-line look, combining designer elegance with a hint of sex appeal.

Sarah Ferguson’s flame-red hair, which her husband Prince Andrew once called her crowning glory, has been cropped into a shoulder-length bob.

Her rounded figure, which drew dozens of media taunts when it was clad in lavish creations and square-shouldered suits, is at least a size smaller now and is shown to its advantage in waist-nipping dresses and skimpy gowns.

Newspapers and fashion writers have mostly approved of the transformation, but some commentators are not entirely happy with what has happened to fun-loving, fresh-faced “Fergie.”

“Elegant, but is it me?” asked London’s local daily Evening Standard in a full-page analysis of the duchess’s new look, exemplified by a silk cocktail dress cut just above the knee with a chiffon scarf thrown across bare shoulders.

The Evening Standard decided that the duchess was trying too hard to win public favor and wished that she had held out against the notion that royal ladies come in only one size--slim.

“It is time for Fergie to start throwing her weight around against those who want the Royal Family to be stereotyped and uniformed,” the newspaper said.

Fat or thin, it seems the duchess cannot please the media and the masses who follow every move the Royal Family makes.

But the vivacious, free-spirited woman who made a pre-wedding vow to never diet to please the British public gave in after all.

The bride-to-be was once adamant about retaining her individuality and not succumbing to image-makers. “I’m not going to get thin. I’m not going to change a lot,” she declared in an interview before her wedding in London’s Westminster Abbey in July, 1986.

“I’m just going to be me,” she said.

Her Edwardian-style wedding dress was a sensation. Cut to flatter an hour-glass figure, it had style writers predicting that “The Fergie Form” would bring curves back into fashion.

But in the end, Fergie ended up dieting and exercising herself into a shape more like the modern ideal of female beauty.

Why?

In the five years since her marriage, the Duchess of York has gone from being a royal darling feted by the media to the most criticized female member of the Royal Family--an unenviable position once held by Princess Anne, Queen Elizabeth’s straight-talking daughter, and before that by the queen’s sister, Princess Margaret.

Her exuberance, which went down well in the United States during a visit with her sailor husband, seems to jar with the tradition-bound British, who expect decorum from their royals.

Now that her clothes give less cause for complaint, the duchess has been lambasted for expensive tastes, the design of her ranch-style “Palace Dallas” home, and for being friendly with show business personalities.

Her attempts to continue an independent career got her into trouble when it emerged that she could be pocketing some of the profits from a set of children’s books she had written.

She was called a bad mother when she left her baby daughter Beatrice at home while she went on a royal business trip. But when she spent more time at home with Beatrice and her second daughter Eugenie, the duchess was accused of being work-shy.

Princess Anne, who has a son and a daughter, once admitted that she didn’t like children at all. She got away with it because she is considered hard-working and devoted to duty.

Ingrid Seward, royal biographer and editor of Britain’s Majesty magazine, says the duchess has been deeply hurt by the criticism, especially the charges that she spends too much time enjoying herself and is forever on vacation.

“Up until the queen’s generation, royal ladies did very little. Nor were they expected to. Apart from the occasional charity engagement, they lived a life of leisure befitting their position,” Seward wrote in a book on the duchess.

“Because Sarah is an achiever, she is not content just to be the wife of the Duke of York,” Seward said. “Sarah’s ambition is to find a niche for herself within the working scope available to members of the Royal Family.”