Kate Middleton’s Boston Tour Wardrobe Was an Ode to Fine British Tailoring
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Britain continues to reign supreme in the world of bespoke suiting. Perhaps Savile Row—the revered London street with shops like Huntsman and Ede & Ravenscroft, which have outfitted royals in suiting for hundreds of years—is enough to prove this. It is no wonder that Kate Middleton, Princess of Wales, decided it would be best to dress accordingly for her recent three-day Boston tour.
The hallmarks of fine British tailoring point to an accentuated physique and an evocation of authority. Waists are often suppressed and close-fitting; shoulders are padded and strong; and heavy canvassing is not just a want, but a need. During her visit, the Princess checked all of these boxes with a sartorial ease from the very moment she stepped off of their commercial flight from London in a navy Alexander McQueen jacket.
Pinned sharply at the waist with shoulder turned upward in a very slight pagoda fashion, the leaf crepe jacket felt fitting for not just a British Princess, but a Queen-to-be. She wore the savile-row-trained designer twice more throughout her time in the New England capital. During the welcome ceremony with Mayor Michelle Wu, Kate wore a forest green bespoke McQueen coat over a Burberry tartan dress.
"The Burberry tartan dress roots the couple in Scotland," English socialite Henry Conway, tells Town and Country. "She might be the Princess of Wales, but she knows how to hold the union together in a single dress." To combat the frigid temperatures in East Boston later on during the trip, the Princess donned a bespoke brown Alexander McQueen coat over an orange Gabriela Hearst cashmere sweater. “Note how she uses color to pop and stand out without being overwhelming,” Conway says. “It’s not a screaming wardrobe. It’s a glamorous whispered voice, and all the more powerful.”
And McQueen was not the only English designer seen on Kate. During her visit to Harvard University, the Princess opted for a houndstooth georgette midi dress by the UK-based designer Emilia Wickstead, who is no stranger to dressing royal women. (Might you recall the lovely emerald green dress Meghan Markle wore years ago on Commonwealth Day?) Middleton has had many other memorable moments in Wickstead's designs, including the most recent Platinum Jubilee. Though Wickstead was not trained on Savile Row, the beautifully fitting dress worn during the Boston trip proves that sometimes all it takes is a sharp eye and years of training to achieve the high marks of British tailoring.
But, the Princess’s Boston wardrobe was not exclusively British. She wore Chanel to a Celtics basketball game, and a burgundy 70s suit by French-designer Roland Mouret to visit Roca, a non-profit organization. Yet, despite the garments originating from elsewhere, the desire to wear clothing that appears to fit uniquely and perfectly remained. “The Chanel jacket was a classic working wardrobe piece that shows that she means business,” Conway says. “Stealth chic and power dressing; the structure her late mother in law understood.”
Suiting and tailoring have been synonymous with British fashion for centuries. It’s what brings all the dandies from around the world to the country. While some anticipated, maybe even hoped, that Kate Middleton would don an American designer, perhaps the most ideal fashion statement that the future Queen of England could make in America is one rooted in the country that she’s meant to represent.
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