The Princess Wears Roland Mouret for First Early Childhood Workforce Summit

The Princess of Wales chose a Roland Mouret suit for the first Future Workforce Summit in London.

The summit is an initiative organised by The Royal Foundation Business Taskforce for Early Childhood. Below, the Princess and Christian Guy (center), executive director of the Centre for Early Childhood, and Sir Ron Kalifa (right), a Royal Foundation Trustee.

Emily Ferguson of The Daily Express shared a quick video of the Princess as she arrived. 

The Princess of Wales has greeted Sir Gareth Southgate as she arrives for The Future Workforce Summit in London.

The event is bringing together the UK’s most influential business leaders to drive further action and investment in the early years. pic.twitter.com/cMoJ7D4iPW

— Emily Ferguson (@emilyinpalace) November 18, 2025

Below, the Princess as organizers and participants greeted her.

In this image, you see Sir Gareth Southgate, former manager of England’s football team. 

He addressed those attending the event. We learn more from The Telegraph’s story by Victoria Ward. 

Sir Gareth said he was “very fortunate” to have grown up in an environment built on trust and love, where he could fail and get things wrong.

But he discovered when working with footballers who did not have such a secure family background that it was “much harder” to build trust with them.

“With my players, I wanted to create an environment where they could fail,” he said. “We would reflect and review why, but they felt supported.

Sir Gareth is a supporter of the Royal Foundation’s Heads Together campaign and has previously spoken of the need to generate open and honest conversation about mental health and wellbeing.

More from the BBC’s coverage. 

At an event in the City of London, Catherine called on 80 top business leaders to play their part in ensuring employees can have healthy family lives, including caring responsibilities. 

The event was part of Catherine’s campaign to raise awareness about the importance of children’s early years and building healthy family relationships.

This was Catherine’s first speech since November 2023 and the first since her cancer diagnosis, which was revealed in March 2024.

Here is a portion of the Princess’s remarks. 

Love is the first and most essential bond. But it is also the invisible thread, woven with time, attention and tenderness, through consistent, nurturing relationships which creates the grounded and meaningful environments around a child.

It is this texture, the weave of love, which forms a child’s emotional world and becomes the foundation, the very fabric of resilience and belonging.

The home should be the space where love, safety and rhythm enable a child to thrive.

More from The Daily Mail’s story by Rebecca English. 

Her decision to address the large gathering of around 80 of the UK’s most influential business leaders today was said to underline the importance she places on her work on early childhood, the description given to the formative developmental age between birth and five.

Catherine unexpectedly stayed on several hours later than planned. A source said she ‘feels passionately about the work the Business Taskforce is doing to place early childhood at the heart of the business community’. ‘She stayed on this afternoon to hear more about how current taskforce members are inspiring some of the biggest businesses in the UK to make change too,’ they added. 

She had originally planned to leave after the morning session but opted to stay for the rest of the summit to hear how taskforce members were inspiring change.

Among those she met were rapper Professor Green, who was raised by his grandmother and collaborated with the Princess on her Shaping Us campaign, launched in 2023 to highlight the crucial first five years of a child’s life.

Now, for our look at what Kate wore for today’s summit.

The Princess wore what appears to be another Roland Mouret suit, very similar to the Single-Breasted Stretch Cady Blazer and wide-leg Stretch-Cady Trouser she has worn in other colors. As noted previously, the jacket features a single-breasted silhouette, angled flap pockets, peaked lapels, and a self-covered button. The trousers showcase a wide-leg silhouette and vertical pockets. Thank you to Middleton Maven for identifying these pieces. Here you see the off-the-rack versions of the separates, no longer available for purchase.   

The Princess now owns the styles in three colorways: the maroon, first worn in Boston in 2022; the sand color, worn in September 2023; and today’s light grey.  

Underneath the jacket, the Princess wore her Cascade Ruffle Blouse ($595) in 100% sandwashed silk satin by Knatchbull. The blouse was first worn in May with a Victoria Beckham suit at the British Fashion Council awards, and seen again at a September rugby match. 

The Princess accessorized with her Smythson East West Tote Bag ($850). The tote measures roughly 14″ x 11″ x 6″ and has an internal slip pocket as well as an external pocket. 

We saw the return of the Russell and Bromley 100 Point Blade Heel Court Leather Shoe (£245, no longer available).

The Princess wore her Empress Earrings (£3750, roughly $4900 at today’s exchange rates) in 18K white gold and diamonds by Mappin and Webb.

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Also today, for those who may not have seen the Princess’s “Autumn” video, here is that clip, the third in her seasonal videos looking at the seasons and nature. 

In the video, it looks like the Princess wears her Barbour Defence Jacket, chocolate brown jeans, and her See by Chloé Liege boots.  

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I will see you tomorrow when the Prince and Princess attend the Royal Variety Performance. Here is a refresher on her past looks at the event. 

For 2014’s performance, the Princess opted for the ‘Zarita’ lace evening gown by Diane von Furstenberg; at the 2017 performance, we saw an icy blue Jenny Packham gown with illusion tulle covered in sequins and crystals; in 2019, the Duchess chose a black lace Alexander McQueen design; in 2021, the Princess brought back a Jenny Packham gown first worn in Pakistan; and in 2023, she wore Safiyaa’s ‘Destiny’ gown in a color called Posedon Blue. 

VIDEOS: 

Here is the entire speech by the Princess, about three minutes long. 

 
The Royal Family Channel’s coverage of the event.