More Tour Updates & Kate’s Fondness for Beulah London

We are back with more updates on the tour and a look at Kate’s love for Beulah London. We begin with the latest tour headlines:

• Most importantly, we have timings for all events. You can see the info on our detailed schedule page from our dedicated Royal Tour section of the site.
• We will live blog tomorrow’s arrival on this site. We’ll be up and running somewhere between 2-3pm PDT / 5-6pm EDT with all the goings-on at the airport and downtown. (With apologies to those who asked about also having a live blog on the WKKW site, your trusty scribe is not enough of a multi-tasker to be able to accomplish that without some sort of catastrophic event happening, gaaah!)
• Today the Prime Minister’s office announced that he and his wife, Mrs. Sophie Grégoire Trudeau will be part of Saturday’s welcome events at Legislative Assembly.
• The PM’s office also announced that Mr. Trudeau and Mrs. Grégoire Trudeau will join William and Kate on almost all of Sunday’s engagements (detailed schedule here), with the exception of the Sheway visit. 
• For our friends anywhere near the tour locations, the CBC has put together a list of all of the public engagements on the itinerary, the events where you can see William & Kate. Click here to read the story.
• We now have information on live television programming tomorrow (Saturday) during the arrival and welcome ceremonies.
  • SAT SEP 24 A Royal Tour: Will, Kate & the Kids in Canada 
    • CBC National News 3:30 – 6pm PDT / 6:30pm – 9pm EDT
    • NOTE: I do not know how, or even if, this can be watched outside of Canada.
  • SAT SEP 24 The Royal Visit – Live Special
    • CTV Vancouver/CTV Vancouver Island 5pm – 6pm PDT / 8pm – 9pm EDT
    • “CTV Vancouver will also be streaming live events from the royal visit on our website vancouver.ctvnews.ca throughout the week.”

News coverage about the tour continues, with stories being published almost faster than they can be read. Here are tidbits from a few of the more interesting pieces.

From The Mirror: 5 Ways Kate’s 2011 Tour outfits cemented her as a style icon. Here is a snippet:

She showed us how versatile her style is, mixing up high end and high street, while still respecting royal etiquette – something that has become a constant with every tour the couple have been on.

Everyone owns that in-case-of-emergency-break-glass item in their wardrobe, the one thing you’ve for years you wear or use over and over again. While Kate appears to have retired her nude shoes as of late, her trusty LK Bennett Natalie clutch is her go-to accessory.

Maclean’s has a piece from Patricia Treble asking Does Kate deserve her reputation as a fashion recycler?  (Full disclosure: this one includes input from yours truly.)

“Is it time for Kate Middleton to stop recycling clothes?” screamed E! News earlier this year. “78 times Kate Middleton rewore her clothes,” stated a Cosmo headline.

The Telegraph has an interesting feature: When Diana dressed as the flag and Kate wore maple leaves: revisiting the best Canadian royal fashion moments.

It’s not often that you see the royals in fancy dress but Prince Charles and Princess Diana were excellent sports in 1983, donning full period costume for a historical reenactment barbeque in Edmonton. Diana’s dress took some careful planning. Months before the trip, she enlisted the services of costume designer John Bright, who went on win Oscars for his work on A Room with A View and Sense and Sensibility. He sent a selection of options to Kensington Palace and Diana handpicked this pale pink, ruched design. (Click here for article and photo showing Diana in the dress.)

In a barometer of how intense media interest is in Charlotte and George’s participation in the tour, here’s one from Vogue: 5 Things We Know About Princess Charlotte’s Upcoming Royal Tour of Canada. From that story:

Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau and his wife, Sophie, have reportedly arranged a custom children’s menu for Charlotte and George, “including a recipe for Prince George’s favorite, spaghetti Bolognese,” according to the Mirror.

It looks like the much-anticipated get together of the Cambridge and Trudeau children will happen at the children’s party next Thursday, the 29th. From the International Business Times:

A nursery has been installed in Canada’s Government House, complete with toys and soft playroom for the young princess and her brother George. She and Prince George will have playmates in the Trudeau’s three children, Xavier, eight, Ella-Grace, seven, and two-year-old Hadrien and will join a children’s party in the city of Victoria.

Our friend Max Foster of CNN has penned a piece about Four Things the Royals will be showing off in Canada. Here is a bit from that piece:

It may not be by choice but there will inevitably be all sorts of coverage around what the Cambridges wear, and that applies to the children as much as to their mother.

Royal fashion bloggers are braced to source each and every outfit right down to the hair clip and where to buy it.

The Duchess will be analyzed for who she wears and whether it works in the setting

And finally, a few fun facts from a Daily Mail story:

• During their five-and-a-half years together as man and wife, William and Kate have clocked up 71,196 miles on foreign trips and spent 44 days abroad
• Their longest journey overall was to Australia and New Zealand in April 2014 when the pair were away for 18 days, covering 23,701 miles.
  

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This brings us to our second part of the post, a look at Kate’s history with one of her favorite brands, Beulah London. It’s somewhat of a timely topic, as many of the designs by the brand we’ve seen the Duchess wear debuted during royal tours. A little background on the brand from The Daily Mail:

In 2009, Natasha and her childhood friend Lavinia Brennan travelled to India for a stint teaching needlework and English to victims of sex trafficking.

Natasha, who has a history of art degree from Oxford Brookes University, spent two months at a workshop teaching vulnerable girls who had been rescued from brothels and slums.

It was there that Beulah London was conceived. Natasha and Lavinia’s idea was to create an ethical fashion label that would pay a living wage to rescued women and save them from the economic necessity of returning to the streets.

In case anyone missed Kate in these two Beulah designs from yesterday, we show her wearing the Juliet gown at a reception in Bhutan during the April tour; on the right we see the ‘Sarai’ dress, worn to the 100 Women in Hedge Funds Dinner in October of 2011. It was the first time we saw Kate wearing Beulah.

Kate chose the Sabitri dress for a visit to a mosque in Malaysia, her frock showcasing that icy blue color she is partial to. The knee-length dress was made of a light, floaty silk chiffon with a keyhole opening at the neckline above a buttoned bodice, sheer sleeves and full skirt.

The Sabitri was very similar to another Beulah style Kate has worn, the Blossom dress, noted at a 2012 wedding. In fact, the Sabitri was described by Beulah as “the bespoke version of our Blossom dress.” Hopefully the photos below are large enough to show some of the common traits.   

A personal favorite: the Chiara coat worn to a 2015 Service of Commemoration at St. Paul’s Cathedral.  The trapeze coat was done in a navy wool, showcasing “a nipped-in waist with soft folds at the hem.”

When visiting New York last December Kate wore the brand’s Amara Lace dress from the spring 2015 collection.  The frock featured the fit and flare silhouette we see so frequently on Kate, with elaborate lace in a scroll pattern.

Kate hasn’t limited herself to just dresses from Beulah; she was seen wearing the ‘Delaney‘ sweater in January, 2015.  The garment is a wool/cashmere blend that featured a heart print, part of the a/w 2014 collection.

The Duchess is also fond of Beulah’s scarves.  Here you see her wearing the Shibani scarf in the Blue Hearts design, a piece that is still available today. This was almost precisely one year ago at the Rugby World Cup opening ceremony when she paired her scarf with the Emile Sharply Tailored coat from Reiss. Beulah donates 10% of the proceeds from the scarf to the United Nations Blue Heart campaign against human trafficking.

When leaving London on the way to Anmer Hall after Charlotte’s birth Kate wore Beulah’s Brisa shawl, a rayon/cashmere piece in a whimsical blue lips motif.

Another design the Duchess has worn, the Eden scarf in a lightweight modal/cashmere blend, seen when she attended a Sydney rugby match during the 2014 tour.

Looking at Beulah’s current styles there are several pieces that hold appeal. Perhaps my favorites are the Grace jacket and Isa skirt, crafted from navy boucle, a textured, nubby fabric ideal for suiting and dresses.

The jacket features a v-neck and peplum with a single button closure, while the pencil skirt features slant pockets at the hip. Below, photos I digitally lightened to better show the detail.

There is a third piece in the fabric, the Bluebell. It hits above the knee, has a fitted bodice and full skirt. You can see where fabric has been inserted near the hem of the dress to provide the fullness in the skirt.

There is an updated Sabitri style called the Gardenia, we show it in the Lamorran print.  It is done in a silk satin that features the same billowy sleeves, it is more of a midi length than the Blossom and Sabitri.

There are still some lovely pieces from this summer’s collection available. The Iris dress is offered in a Hydrangea print as well as a Fern design, made from silk crepe de chine. There is another element related to these pieces, for the fabric they are made of has been hand-printed in India by women who were victims of human trafficking; the women were rescued and reintegrated into society.

(You may want to remember the Hydrangea print frock, you’ll see someone wearing it for a special occasion in just a minute.)

Styles in a color palette perfect for fall include the Georgia (L) and the Hana wool crepe tulip dress.

There are some splendid bargains to be had in Beulah’s sale section. We show the Leiela in Dusky Pink, along with the Senna Jacket in mint and Isa Skirt in Ice Blue.

The retailer is also offering some nifty scarves. Below you see the Sophia in Blue as well as in Oyster; they can be personalized with up to three initials.

We showed Kate’s Shibani Blue Hearts scarf above, there are several other Beulah Heart products. Among them, the Beulah Canvas Tote, £30.

From the product description:

Made by Freeset, a charity in Kolkata, India, dedicated to helping trafficked women and women who are regarded as high risk of ending up in the sex trade, by providing them with a steady income and a chance to build a new life free from abuse.

Lady Natasha Rufus-Isaacs also wore bespoke Beulah for her wedding in 2013. More about her gown from a Hello! story:

The strapless gown was fitted at the midrift to show off Natasha’s slender waist, and French lace was appliquéd onto the body and skirt of the dress.

“I found some beautiful lace while designing Beulah’s winter collection and ordered it especially from France,” she said. “It arrived three weeks before the wedding which was a slight nightmare for the lady making the dress.”

Why are we spending so much time on this topic? Because there is news about Beulah and wedding gowns. Back to The Mail’s story:

Beulah will launch a wedding dress range in 2017, after designing a gown for presenter Natalie Pinkham and co-founder Lady Natasha Rufus-Isaacs.

There’s no word on when the new collection will launch, but you know we will be sure to share the information when we have it.

One of the reasons we love having Beulah as a sponsor of the site is their willingness to offer special discounts to readers,. They’ve done just that, giving What Kate Wore readers 10% off their purchases when using promo code WKWB10. Enjoy!

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We leave you with this image from a CBC story about tour preps at Government House, with a focus on the volunteer gardeners working on the property. There’s also a picture of something special for George and Charlotte: rubber duckies have been placed in the fountain just for them.

We’ll see you tomorrow!