Why Kate’s $4800 dress looks familiar
All eyes were on Kate’s stunning floral dress, but eagle-eyed fans were quick to point out a very interesting detail.
When it comes out fashion, the royals are paragons of commitment. The Queen has been working with her personal wardrobe adviser Angela Kelly, who actually runs up many of Her Majesty’s signature vivid looks, for decades.
She owns more than 200 Lautner handbags, which cost $3037 each. (Which means she has a $607,400 purse collection.) Princess Anne, meanwhile, recently wore a coat to an event she bought in 1980 and has even dusted off the floral number she wore to Charles and Diana’s 1981 wedding for events.
The younger generation of Windsors are no different. Take their unwavering devotion to Erdem, the eponymous label belonging to Canadian and Turkish designer Erdem Moralioglu.
This week Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, donned his Shebah floral cotton-silk midi dress for the Chelsea Flower Show (and to enjoy a symbolic kiss with the Queen). Its price tag? An eye-watering $4800.
And if it looks vaguely familiar, that is for good reason. The Duchess of Kent donned the same frock for Harry and Meghan’s wedding this time last year, though she paired the gown with decidedly on-trend trainers, a massive floral headpiece, a look of boredom and some whooping pearls.
It’s not only duchesses who can’t get enough of Erdem’s four (or five) figure frocks. Princess Eugenie is a card-carrying member of the Erdem fan club and has a shorter version of Kate’s dress that she wore for Ascot and when she accompanied her granny, aka the Queen, to this year’s Maundy Thursday service.
When she announced her engagement to tequila ambassador and smiler par excellence Jack Brooksbank, what did Eugenie wear? Erdem of course.
But wait! There is another duchess who is a huge fan of Erdem’s contemporary yet feminine creations. Way back in 2017, the now Duchess of Sussex wore a red, knee-length dress to welcome a journalist from Vanity Fair into her Toronto home. (“Erdem’s, a designer I’ve been wearing for years,” she said.)
In the lead-up to her 2019 nuptials, there was persistent speculation Meghan might even tap Erdem to design her wedding dress (though that whopping task fell to Givenchy’s Clare Waight Keller). In the 12 months since then, she has repeatedly chosen pieces from the Erdem collection as she started her life as working royal.
Princess Beatrice also has a number of Erdem pieces hanging in her St James palace wardrobe and regularly trots them out for red-carpet events.
So, there you have it. The fastest way to look like a member of the royal family isn’t to buy a 10-bedroom manor in Berkshire or try to wangle membership to the Beaufort Hunt. Just pop along to Net-a-Porter and get shopping for some Erdem.
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