Kate Wears Patchwork Alexander McQueen for Remembrance Sunday, UPDATED With Hat ID

NOTE: I took some poetic license in the length of today’s piece, with significant focus on the veterans. If you want to bypass that portion of the post, just scroll madly and you will find our usual level of coverage of what Kate wore. More than 10,000 veterans marched in central London today as part of Remembrance Sunday.

Watching the ceremony from the balcony of the Foreign Office: Vice-Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence (Princess Anne’s husband), the Duchess, and Sophie, Countess of Wessex. Queen Maxima of the Netherlands is second from the right; King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands was invited to lay a wreath this year to commemorate the 70th Anniversary of the liberation of the Netherlands after the end of World War II.

Skies were overcast as the veterans gathered at Horse Guards Parade. These are veterans from the Royal Military Police.

I believe these gentlemen are veterans of the King’s African Rifles.

Blind veterans and their guide dogs.

On the way to the Cenotaph.

These are vets from the Reconnaissance Corp, clearly WWII era. They are speaking with a Grenadier Guard. 

HM, Prince Philip, King Willem-Alexander and Princess Anne arriving.

HM at the Cenotaph.

Singing the national anthem.

From The Mirror’s coverage:

Following the two minutes silence Buglers of the Royal Marines played the haunting sound of the Last Post before the Queen laid the first wreath followed by husband Philip. This year marks a number of other significant anniversaries in the UK’s military history, including the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain.

Princes William, Harry and Andrew laid wreaths at the memorial.

Prime Minister David Cameron. 

King Willem-Alexander. The Netherlands had the highest per-capita rate of death for Nazi-occupied countries in western Europe.

The wreath laid by the King, and its card. The card reads: ‘In remembrance of the British men and women who gave their lives for our freedom. The Kingdom of the Netherlands will be forever grateful for the British role in its liberation’.

Chelsea Pensioners laying their wreath.

How the event looked to someone on the ground taking part in the ceremony.

And the view from a higher perspective.

This year’s ceremony was shorter than in previous years, in recognition of the age of many veterans and HM; the idea was to minimize the length of time when standing is required.

A veteran taking part in the parade and the view from above.

Prince William ‘took the salute” as part of today’s program.

That essentially means watching and recognizing troops as they pass by.

There were services throughout the UK, including at the National Memorial Arboretum, where more than 5000 gathered for that service. (Some may recall Prince William has been Patron of the Arboretum’s fundraising appeal.)

In the Middle East the Royal Air Force led a service that included coalition forces.

The Duchess, Queen and Countess seemed to enjoy chatting with each other before the morning’s commemoration.

Moving now to what Kate wore for today’s ceremony, we’ve a new Fun With Math graphic, showing the origins of most of the elements in Kate’s coat.

Above left we show the Alexander McQueen Double-Breasted Patchwork Compact Felt Coat at Lane Crawford, then the McQueen Velvet Trim Double Breasted Compact Wool Felt Coat. “Compact wool felt” refers to the type of wool used for the pieces; a denser, compacted wool that would be warmer than most standard woolens. Here is a better shot of Kate’s bodice side-by-side with the Patchwork Jacket.

Kate’s coat features patchwork velvet pieces, double-breasted styling, a fitted bodice, notched lapels, padded shoulders, and a buttoned tab at the back waist. I’m guessing it also has a single back vent and slanted front pockets, not the flap pockets seen on the coats below. (I might be wrong here, but that’s my best guess.) 

The majority of Kate’s design details are from the jacket seen above right. Below, color treated images better showing the velvet on the black coat. Kate’s coat has almost none of the design elements in this piece, it is shown primarily to offer a look at the velvet.  On the right we show the Patchwork Military Coat from the pre-autumn 2015 collection to offer a better vision of how that velvet band Kate’s coat has near the waist might look in a full-length view. That’s not to say Kate’s has the precise same amount of detail as the coat, but my guess is that it is very similar, if not identical.

And a look at Kate’s ‘patches’ of velvet. The Duchess also wore a new hat for today’s commemoration. I haven’t yet hunted for the designer. 

UPDATED NOV 10: As suggested on Sunday by Anna of My Small Obsessions, the hat turns out to be a Sylvia Fletcher for Lock & Co. piece.  Monique Jessen of People magazine received confirmation that the hat was a bespoke creation by Ms. Fletcher for the Duchess.

It looked like Kate’s hat did feature a butterfly, though there’s not yet been any info as to whether there is special significance to that motif.

Here we can see the hat almost straight-on.

We had a comment from Lili noting that the netting on the hat is of two sizes, this photo better demonstrates that.

Kate wore three poppies, I am presuming they are for Prince William, her grandfather who served in the military, and her grandmother, who was a codebreaker at Bletchley Park.

She also wore her Kiki McDonough Diamond Hoops with Annoushka Pearl Drops. It looked like Kate carried her Mulberry clutch.

We wrap up with a moment of levity from this morning.

And one more look at Kate and Queen Maxima.

One cautionary note: while we have not had any issues recently, a gentle reminder that we want to remain polite/civil in commenting about what Kate wore, and responding to what others think of what Kate wore. There’s been no problem here, but things became a little snarky on the Facebook page.   LINKAGE:

• The Daily Mail’s photo-laden story is here, The Mirror’s story is here, The Telegraph’s slide show is here, The Express story is here
• There is a 4-minute video of today’s events here
• To see a video of events at the National Memorial Arboretum click here