The Princess of Wales cut a stylish figure for a sports charity mental health event in England on Thursday alongside Prince William, wearing a statement blazer which drew uncanny parallels with one owned and worn by the late Princess Diana.
Kate has worn a number of fashion looks and accessories that have been aesthetically linked to her mother-in-law over the years, though these are largely unacknowledged by the palace.
The royal couple visited the Bisham Abbey National Sports Centre in Marlow on October 12, to attend a mental fitness workshop run by the charity SportsAid, of which Kate has been a patron since 2013.
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For the engagement, Kate wore a pair of dark-wash jeans and a white blouse showcasing the bright cobalt blue blazer from mid-range brand, Zara, worn overtop.
The princess has worn a number of tailored pieces in recent months, most notably her array of pantsuits and blazers. The visit to Marlow comes at the end of three days of engagements to spotlight mental health charities. For World Mental Health Day on October 10, Kate wore a bright yellow blazer over black pants and a matching blouse.
The cobalt blue blazer worn on Thursday—which was first debuted in 2021 and re-worn in 2022—is aesthetically linked to one worn by Princess Diana in 1995, during one of the most important milestones in the life of the young Prince William—his first day at the prestigious Eton College boarding school.
The event marked a rare occasion that saw Diana and then Prince Charles (now King Charles III) reunited for a public appearance, following their formal separation in 1992.
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The event was widely covered by the mainstream media and has been recreated for a number of royal dramas, including Netflix’s The Crown.
In 2022, the show’s fifth season recreated the royal milestone with Australian actress Elizabeth Debicki outfitted in a perfect replica of Diana’s cobalt blue blazer from one of her favorite fashion designers, Catherine Walker.
In the years since she joined the royal family, Kate has also become a fan of the house of Catherine Walker & Co.’s designs, now being headed by the late Walker’s husband, Said Cyrus.
When Kate has paid style nods to Diana, it has found favor with the general public. In May 2023, an exclusive poll for Newsweek found that 62 percent of a representative sample of 634 U.S. voters surveyed said they either “strongly approve” or “approve” of Kate wearing dresses “that copy the style of Princess Diana.”
Conversely, just 10 percent said that they “disapprove” or “strongly disapprove,” 21 percent said “neither” and 6 percent said they either “don’t know” or “don’t care.”
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On the subject, royal fashion expert, Christine Ross, previously told Newsweek that the “newly-minted Princess of Wales has been keen to pay respect to the previous holder of the title, as Diana was so beloved.”
She went on to add that as time goes on and Kate becomes more comfortable and confident in her new role, the public “may be seeing a new style inspiration for the Princess of Wales, in the form of the former Princess of Wales.”
James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek‘s royal reporter, based in London. You can find him on X (formerly Twitter) at @jrcrawfordsmith and read his stories on Newsweek‘s The Royals Facebook page.
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