Last week Kate Middleton paid tribute to Prince Philip at a Christmas carols concert, by wearing the same outfit she wore to his funeral, but in red.
Whilst touching, her wardrobe choice wasn’t exactly surprising, since she has been known to buy a dress in two colours before. In fact, she does this with all her favourite buys, from dresses to coats.
For example, during her royal tour of Canada with Princess William in 2016, the Duchess donned a red Preen dress for a reconciliation ceremony with Canadian First Nations groups. She bought that same dress in black and wore it two months later to an evening ceremony in London, though this time she accessorised with a belt instead of a diamond brooch.
In 2018, she wore a lovely Emilia Wickstead A-line dress in lilac, which she wore to the Global Ministerial Mental Health Summit in London (she previously donned it for a trip to Germany in 2017). The following year, she wore the same dress in moss green, to the opening of a centre for children.
In 2017, the Duchess loved an Alexander McQueen dress so much she bought it in two different shades of pink, one for Trooping the Colour, and the other for Princess Eugenie’s wedding a year later. She even wore the same chandelier diamond earrings on both occasions.
Kate is adept at buying the same outfit twice, but waiting a year or so before wearing it in a different hue, thus keeping her wardrobe fresh and letting the public forget about the first one.
Case in point, the Catherine Walker coat she wore in red to the Order of the Garter ceremony in 2016, and in blue during her tour of Germany in 2017, to visit a holocaust memorial.
