Kate Brings Back Green Catherine Walker for Chelsea Flower Show

The Duchess was in her green Catherine Walker coatdress for today’s engagement at the Royal Chelsea Flower Show.

HM wore pieces by Angela Kelly for her 51st visit to the Flower Show.

It’s the first trip to the show for William and Kate.  

William, Kate and Harry at the #RHSChelseaFlowerShow pic.twitter.com/NtUyPiNAEC

— Emily Nash (@emynash) May 23, 2016

Harry has previously attended the event; below you see Kate and her brother-in-law looking at an English rose exhibit. 

There was no shortage of royals at the event. Sophie of Wessex wore a floral print by Alexander McQueen. 

Princesses Eugenie and Beatrice arrived with their boyfriends and close friend Holly Branson. 

Also at the Flower Show this afternoon (but not seen in photos here), the Duke of Kent and Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, and the Gloucesters.  

This year there were many special displays/exhibits/events related to the Queen’s 90th birthday. Below, a profile of HM.

This angle shows the Queen, Royal Patron of the Flower Show, looking at the camera from the other side of the display. 

Emily Nash of Hello! shared this photo of the three royals peering into an exhibit. 

The displays are created by a broad array of exhibitors and vendors.

The trio viewed the new Princess Charlotte Chrysanthemum.  

Perhaps more properly referred to as ’Rossano Charlotte,’ the flower is distinguished by the light green tips you see on the pink petals. 

It was created by Deliflor, the largest breeder of chrysanthemums in the world. Princess Charlotte flowers will help raise funds for EACH (East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices).

Deliflor and Beekenkamp Plants, a sister company, are donating 50% of royalties from plant sales to EACH. The timing is ideal in terms of publicity for EACH, more on this below. If in the UK the plants are available at some Waitrose stores; the company told me customers planning on making a special trip to buy this item should call first in case the store has sold out, the specific product line number at Waitrose is 487743. (Store contact info is here.) Deliflor tells me the mums will be available in the US. If interested in buying the flower you can try contacting your local nursery; Deliflor also said that for specific info, contacting their office in Colombia is a good idea; that email is jl@deliflor.net.   

Another highlight today: the Field of Poppies. 

The tribute features featuring 320,000+ individually crocheted poppies. 

This shot by Something Different shows the scope of the project.

Here you can see the individually crocheted poppies.

Here’s how things looked just a few days ago.

The 5000 Poppies story is remarkable: two Melbourne-area fiber artists started making some poppies with no expectation they would ever be involved in something of this magnitude.

Lynn Berry and Margaret Knight set out to crochet a humble 120 poppies to “plant” at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne Australia for Remembrance Day in 2013 in honour of their fathers Wal Beasley (14/32nd Battalion – Australian Imperial Forces) and Stan Knight (Queen’s Own West Kent Regiment – British Army).

It was this simple tribute of love and honour that sparked a massive community outpouring with an estimated 50,000 plus contributors to the project and hundreds of smaller localised installations throughout Australia, New Zealand and beyond.

The person responsible for creating the exhibit’s look is designer Phillip Johnson, a previous “Best Show Garden” winner. He figured out a way to turn 300,000+ of these….

Into the red carpet and surrounding “flowers” that a group of Chelsea Pensioners visited this morning.

You can see more at the Flower Show site here.

“Waltzing Matilda” #qantas QF09 flew over the same time. The spirit of Australia #RHSChelsea #vicgov #5000poppies pic.twitter.com/NTNDXS9Lk6

— pjlandscapes (@pjlandscapes) May 22, 2016

There are also non-floral intensive exhibitors. Below, the Moloh stand at the shows.

The floral explosion isn’t limited to the actual Flower Show; retailers, restaurants, all manner of entities and organizations get in on the fun. 

In plans timed to coincide with the Flower Show Catherine Walker is showing its collection outside in a series of florally influenced ‘pop-up runways’.  More from People magazine:

May 25, across three locations on King’s Road (a favorite shopping destination of Kate’s and her sister, Pippa Middleton), nine models will parade down the busy high street wearing exquisite evening dresses from the house’s Spring/Summer 2016 collection, teamed with elaborate and unique floral head pieces (made from real flowers!) and theatrical makeup, all inspired by the English country garden. 

Now to what Kate wore for her first visit to the Flower Show. Many recognized the piece right away, the Catherine Walker coat-dress was initially seen at engagements in Canberra during the 2014 royal tour.

The bespoke piece was created with elements from the Evelyn dress and Lara coat, as shown below (from our 2014 post); we refer to these as “new math” fashion equations.

These two photos by Rebecca English show the back of Kate’s coat, as well as offering a glimpse of how her hair was styled.

An oft-raised question here (and in many fashion blogs about celebrities) involves Kate’s handbags: “What does she have in there?”

It looks like one of the things she carried today in her LK Bennett Nina clutch was a tissue or hankie. It’s possible she was dealing with allergies; that’s probably quite a challenge at an event like this one.

While Kate uses the bag as a clutch, it does have a snake chain one can use to carry it; the chain has a 24″ drop.

The Duchess was in what has become her ‘go-to’ shoe style, the Fern by LK Bennett.

She wore her leaf-shaped Lauren earrings by Kiki McDonough.

A closer look at the product.

As well as her Cartier watch.

Many thanks to Emily Nash of Hello! and Rebecca English from The Daily Mail, they generously shared photos and video today allowing us to get this published without an interminable wait for photos.

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As mentioned above, the timing is outstanding for any additional focus on EACH; Children’s Hospice Week officially began today. The Duchess sent a letter in support of Children’s Hospice Week. 

One other newsbyte today, word that NBC will start broadcasting Royal Ascot next year. More from the network’s news release:

NBC’s Sports Network will present live coverage of the mid-June event for five consecutive days (Tuesday-Saturday), for at least 15 hours each year. All coverage will be streamed on NBC Sports Live Extra, NBC Sports Group’s live streaming product for desktops, mobile devices, tablets, and connected TVs.

LINKAGE:

• Visit the Royal Chelsea Flower Show website here; the Facebook page is here and Twitter feed here
• Learn more about Children’s Hospice Week at the Together for Short Lives website here; the organization’s Facebook page is here; Twitter feed is here;
• Visit the 5000 Poppies website here; follow the 5000 Poppies Facebook page here, and/or the Knitting for Victory Chelsea Flower Show Facebook page
• The Telegraph’s 5000 Poppies story is here; The Daily Mail’s story about the poppies is here;
• The Mirror’s coverage of the Flower Show visit is here; The Express coverage of the royal visit to the Flower Show is here; The Daily Mail’s story is here
• PopSugar’s gallery is here; People magazine’s photo gallery is here