Even people with the most impeccable style sometimes suffer from fashion regrets—including the Princess of Wales.
Kate Middleton’s style is so renowned that there’s literally a name for the impact it has on the British economy. The Kate Middleton Effect has been valued at £1 billion (the equivalent more than $1.2 billion in 2024 dollars) for the U.K. fashion industry and it’s driven by royal fans who clamor to buy items she’s seen wearing in public.
Few people would ever question Kate’s fashion choices, but that doesn’t mean the royal doesn’t sometimes question them herself, like in December 2019, when wore a Christmas outfit that she came to regret.
From the outside, the look was flawless—a gray Catherine Walker coat, accessorized with a hat, clutch, and shoes in matching shades of rich, forest green. To be fair though, Kate’s issue with the outfit wasn’t necessarily about aesthetics.
Kate Middleton in a gray Catherine Walker coat on Christmas Day 2019.
Kate was photographed in the outfit when she joined the rest of the royal family for the Christmas Day church service at the Church of St Mary Magdalene on the Sandringham estate in 2019, but the weather that day was “unseasonably warm,” according to The Mirror.
Kate Middleton in a gray Catherine Walker coat on Christmas Day 2019.
The outlet reports that, during a quick chat with a 19-year-old royal fan named Rachel Anvil, the then-Duchess of Cambridge (Kate’s former royal title before she and her husband, Prince William, were named the Prince and Princess of Wales in 2022) admitted that she wasn’t very comfortable in the the heavy Catherine Walker coat.
Kate Middleton in a gray Catherine Walker coat on Christmas Day 2019.
“Kate was talking to my daughter about clothes and how she was feeling too hot, she said ‘I really shouldn’t have worn this,'” Rachel’s mom, Karen, told Metro at the time. “I’m there talking to Charlotte about dolls and my daughter’s talking about fashion with Kate. It wasn’t fake it was a genuine discussion, it was about a minute but it was tailored to my daughter, it was like speaking to a friend.”
While the royal put on a smile for most of the day, some pictures did capture glimpses of the discomfort Kate told Anvil about.
Kate Middleton in a gray Catherine Walker coat on Christmas Day 2019.
Kate Middleton in a gray Catherine Walker coat on Christmas Day 2019.
Karen Anvil and her daughter, Rachel, are such dedicated royal fans that they’ve reportedly made the trip to Sandringham to see the royals leave church on Christmas day multiple times, and Karen is an amateur photographer who gained notoriety for taking one of the first pictures of the royal “Fab Four” (the collective nickname for Prince William, Kate Middleton, Prince Harry, and Meghan Markle at the time).
Karen also opened up about her interactions Kate’s kids at the time, after gifting Princess Charlotte a doll during the royal meet and greet moment.
