Kate at Cheltenham & Another Engagement on the Calendar

As rumored, Kate and William attended Cheltenham this afternoon.

Today is the final day of racing at the annual Festival, Kate has been attending for years.

For those unfamiliar with Cheltenham, it is a hugely popular horse racing event. Other royals have been at the races all week, including Princess Anne and her daughter Zara Phillips, they attended Ladies’ Day together yesterday and today Zara was also able to watch her husband’s horse compete in the Gold Cup Steeple Chase. Kate’s sister Pippa attended yesterday, you can read more about that here.

Kate debuted new earrings by Kiki McDonough.

They are the ‘Eternal’ Citrine Cushion & Diamond Earrings.

The earring description:

Sophisticated and chic, these beautiful yellow gold drop earrings dazzle with vibrant citrine and diamonds, and are equally stunning worn casually during the day or to add drama to an evening look.

They run £1,200, about $1800 at today’s exchange rates. The earrings are also available in blue topaz, amethyst and green amethyst. The Duchess does like her citrines, many know of her fondness for the Citrine Drop earrings, also by Kiki McDonough.

For those who are interested in Kate’s other jewelry today, she is still wearing the band set with rubies and/or garnets on her right hand. Once again the Duchess was wearing a watch, it is the same worn in Switzerland, My Small Obsessions has more information on what style it might be.

Everything else Kate wore has been seen before. The big mystery was Kate’s coat, many of us knew we had seen it previously.

It turns out the piece is by Joseph, another brand the Duchess wears with some regularity. In a frugal move the buttons were moved to make the coat a little larger, the indentation from the original button placement is obvious in many of today’s photos.

The piece dates back to at least 2007, it was seen again in 2008 when Kate wore it to Carole Middleton’s 53rd birthday. (You can see photos here.) Perthz Fashion shared this image of the coat on Pinterest.

That image allows a good view of the detailing on the front. It looks like the material has a herringbone weave, the coat is double-breasted, vertical besom pockets, an oversized collar (today Kate had it buttoned), front on-seam pockets and tab detailing on the cuffs.

There is quite a debate about what dress Kate wore underneath the coat. Many think it is the MaxMara Studio leopard print worn in Cambridge and for the wedding in Switzerland, others think it is an entirely different frock. From the photos I have seen I’m not comfortable saying it is one or the other, hopefully we’ll be able to resolve this in the not-too-distant future.

Kate brought back the ‘Betty Boop’ hat by John Lock & Co., most recently worn to a wedding in Switzerland.

Our friends at Cornelia James let us know Kate is wearing another pair of their Wool Gloves with Side Bow again, this time in Chocolate Brown.

We also saw the Stuart Weitzman ‘Zipkin’ boots again.

The boots are made of suede with a leather lining, the heels are about 3.75″ tall when factoring in the platform. We also saw the Natasha bag by Emmy Shoes in chocolate brown.

Kate was in tights with a diamond pattern, there’s some thought they may be the same as those worn Christmas Day of last year. (Today’s shown on the left, those worn on Christmas are seen to the right.)

To be honest they don’t look quite the same to me, but they are very similar.

Kate looked lovely today, the chocolate brown accessories worked very well with the Joseph coat. As far as the fabric showing the previous button placement, that is to be expected when dealing with garments 8 years old, it is almost impossible to erase all previous signs of indentation. It seems Kate is being very frugal with her maternity wardrobe, we may see similar tailoring moves in the next few weeks.

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As mentioned in the title, another engagement has been added to Kate’s Calendar. A week from today (the 22nd) Kate will be volunteering at the Great Tower Scout Camp with the Scouts. The Camp is in northwest England in a National Park. More from the news release:

The Duchess will attend the event together with around 20 other adult volunteers, learning new skills that will support her in her role as an occasional helper at her local Scout Group.

We’ll see you back here on Sunday.

LINKAGE:

• Learn more about UK Scouts by clicking here, to read about Tower Camp click here, or visit the Camp’s Facebook page,
• The Daily Mail story on Cheltenham is here
• The Express story about the races is here
• See Grazia’s story and photo gallery by clicking here