A minor controversy erupted when the Sunday Times revealed that Kensington Palace would no longer be providing the media with details about Kate Middleton’s outfits. “There is an absolute feeling that [the public work] is not about what the princess is wearing,” an unnamed source said last month. “She wants the focus to be on the really important issues, the people and the causes she is spotlighting.” The article sparked so much concern—the Princess of Wales’s outfits have a significant impact on British fashion—that the palace later walked back its statement in People magazine: “The comments that were reported should not be directly attributed to The Princess of Wales,” it clarified. “There has been no change in our approach to sharing information about Her Royal Highness’s clothing.”
And yet, there has been a noticeable shift in the Princess’s relationship with clothing since then—one that relies less on newness and more on pre-existing favourites. Kate has always repeated her outfits, of course, but the frequency with which she has been returning to certain pieces has increased. For example: she this afternoon recycled a letter-box red Catherine Walker dress for the annual Commonwealth Day Service—her first since announcing she was in remission from cancer—which she previously wore to the Together At Christmas Carol Service at Westminster Abbey in December 2021 and again for the South Korean President’s state visit in November 2023. This message has been communicated also in the reappearance of an $100 Zara dress, a double-breasted Alexander McQueen coat, and a Ralph Lauren jacket that was first seen at the Cheltenham Races in 2007.
The Princess completed this afternoon’s ensemble with a coordinating Gina Foster pillbox hat, a pair of Collingwood pearl earrings that first belonged to Princess Diana, and one of Queen Elizabeth II’s most well-documented Garrard necklaces. The late Queen commissioned the royal jeweller to create the four-strand choker using pearls gifted to her while on a state visit to Japan in 1975. Princess Diana was loaned the piece for a state banquet in honour of Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands in 1982, while the current Princess of Wales has worn the necklace on several occasions before, including for Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip’s 70th wedding anniversary in 2017 and Her Majesty’s funeral in 2022. If the Windsors have long been custodians of a vast archive of heirloom pieces, then Kate seems to be committed to continuing this tradition with her own carefully curated collection of rewears.
