Kate Middleton’s cobalt blue ensemble holds a very special message

The Duchess of Cambridge has stepped out in a striking look as the royals embark on a tour but there is more to her outfit than meets the eye.

There are plenty of certainties in royal life: Summer means long stints in Scotland, midge bites and sunshine be damned; the Glorious 12th and the start of the hunting season translates to some macho grouse-related carnage; and Ascot is the most glorious week of the year. For Windsor women that certainty extends to their wardrobe: tiaras are for State Dinners; an appearance at the Highland Games demands a giddy eruption of tartan and green is de rigueur for St Patrick’s Day events.

Kate, Duchess of Cambridge proved to be a quick study and has been a dab hand at this sort of stylish signalling from day dot.

At first glance, given all this, her choice of a blue ensemble for the first day of her and husband Prince William’s tour of Scotland this should have been par for the chic course.

The Duchess of Cambridge took inspiration from her late mother-in-law with this outfit. Picture: Getty Images

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See, the Cambridges (or the Earl and Countess of Strathearn as they are styled there) are north of the border for a series of engagements following William’s red-letter turn as the Lord High Commissioner of the Church of Scotland’s General Assembly. (Royal life is a blast a minute, no?)

Blue and white just happen to be the colours of the nation’s flag and a possible second Scottish independence referendum in the offing, no gesture is too small to try and charm the fractious Scots. For William and Kate, the tour therefore clearly carries with it a diplomatic hue - if the cheery, photogenic duke and duchess just happen to charm a few bagpipe-fanciers away from the secessionist cause, then all the better!

But - oh you just know there is always a ‘but’ - Kate’s outfit was remarkable for another reason that has nothing to do with trying to keep the United Kingdom from fracturing. (There are limits to what degree a politic choice of frock can quell nationalist fervour after all.) Rather, her get-up was nearly identical to an outfit that her mother-in-law Diana, Princess of Wales wore at a particularly significant juncture in her life. Coincidence? Well, let’s just dig a little deeper here.

The cobalt blue blazer and skirt combo was something Diana had worn once before. Picture: Getty Images

In 1992 Diana and husband Prince Charles headed to South Korea for a four-day tour, a trip which would prove to be their final high profile engagement as a couple. Time and again the couple was photographed looking positively miserable, their downcast faces telegraphing to the world the agony of their marriage. Back in London the press nicknamed them ‘The Glums.’

Diana wore this ensemble in 1992 when visiting Korea. Picture: Getty Images

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It perhaps came as not much of a surprise when several weeks later, Prime Minister John Major announced to parliament and the world that the Wales were separating, thus signalling the beginning of the end of the ill-fated union.

The last week has seen Diana thrust back to the fore with the release of the BBC’s Dyson report into how journalist Martin Bashir secured his bombshell Panorama interview with the royal. Writing in the 127-page report, Lord Dyson found that Bashir had engaged in “deceitful behaviour” to get the princess to agree to give what was her first solo TV interview, a conversation which irrevocably fractured things between the princess and the house of Windsor.

William and brother Prince Harry both responded to the report by putting out statements, the elder sibling notably releasing a highly unusual video version. Speaking directly to the camera, the emotion apparent, he reflected on his mother saying that it brought him “indescribable sadness to know that the BBC’s failures contributed significantly to her fear, paranoia and isolation that I remember from those final years with her.”

Prince William released a video statement blasting the “deceitful” BBC. Picture: Twitter

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Elsewhere, Harry has been talking about his mother. Late last week saw the release of his mental health TV series, The Me You Can’t See, in which the 36-year-old opened up about the “helplessness” he felt when the paparazzi hounded his mother when she was alive and his trauma over her death.

Thanks to the confluence of these two events, in only a matter of days, Diana has been thrust back into the public consciousness and onto frontpages, for the umpteenth time her choices, her life and her legacy being picked over and debated.

Prince Harry in The Me You Can't See. Picture: Apple TV

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It is against this backdrop that Kate donned a Zara blazer and a long pleated skirt from a Berkshire-based brand called Hope, a get-up which looked strikingly like a carbon copy of the cobalt two piece Diana wore.

Don’t forget here that the Princess of Wales was a savvy sartorial tactician who regularly used her clothing to wordlessly convey multitudes. Look no further than her truly iconic Christina Strambolian black cocktail number, i.e. the Revenge Dress, she wore to the Serpentine Gallery’s summer party in 1994 on the night Charles admitted to the world he had been unfaithful. Or in 1996, several months after her divorce was finalised, her choice of a sleek John Galliano slip dress for her Met Ball appearance to mark her new glamorous single life.

The famous ‘Revenge Dress’ Princess Diana wore. Picture: Getty Images

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So, what might be going on with Kate here?

Most immediately, let’s start with the fact that in affetionaly mimicking his mother, this reads like a clearcut show of support for William after he so passionately took up the cudgel in his mother’s name last week.

Moreover, Kate’s choice of a nearly identical look could also be interpreted as something of a gesture of solidarity with Diana at a time when her memory and legacy are once again being dissected by the ravening social media and Fleet Street hordes.

Time and again we have seen Kate repeatedly take her fashion cues from Diana, a move that hardly seems to be a coincidence, for example the looks she picked out for her post-baby photo ops after the arrival of both Prince George and Princess Charlotte.

These outings both serve as tender homages and carry with them a hint of something more calculating too. (That’s said with respect here mind you.) Diana is still - in fact will always be - an eternally beloved figure who has been all but deified. For Kate, aligning herself image-wise with the late princess makes excellent strategic sense as the duchess works to burnish her own royal career and legacy.

Every time the world sees Kate wearing something that is a facsimile of a Diana look, the image projects continuity and a certain familial tenderness that was long absent from the royal family’s image.

Diana was, in every regard, a pioneer and trailblazer; Kate, not so much. But what the Duchess of Cambridge lacks in terms of flair and originality she makes up for with her incredibly shrewd, and simultaneously, touching approach. I reckon her mother-in-law would approve.

Daniela Elser is a royal expert and a writer with more than 15 years experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.