In 2018, the Duchess of Sussex surprised the world when she selected Clare Waight Keller to design her wedding gown under the Givenchy label. Keller was, at the time, Givenchy’s artistic director. Givenchy is famously a French label, but Keller is British. So that’s how Meghan “got away” with wearing Givenchy on her wedding day. Well, the Princess of Wales would NEVER! Kate never wore Givenchy and she never wore Dior, another label worn frequently by Meghan. Kate avoided those two labels for years… until this week, when she wore both on the same day for the French state visit to the UK. Kate wore Dior during the day, then she wore Givenchy for the state banquet. The reason why Kate “gets away” with wearing Givenchy is because Sarah Burton left McQueen in 2023 and moved to Givenchy last year. Obviously, they’re making it all about Meghan! From GB News: “Princess Kate’s Givenchy dress appears to send message to Meghan Markle.”
Princess Kate made a striking return to state banquet duties on Tuesday night, donning a caped red dress by Sarah Burton for Givenchy at Windsor Castle. The choice of Givenchy carried particular significance given the fashion house’s connection to Meghan Markle. Givenchy famously designed the Duchess of Sussex’s wedding gown for her 2018 marriage to Prince Harry at Windsor Castle.
Kate’s decision to wear the French luxury brand represents a notable fashion moment. The Princess of Wales has historically favoured British designers for major royal occasions. The red Givenchy dress potentially sent a subtle message, with Kate choosing to wear the same fashion house that created one of Meghan’s most memorable royal looks.
The timing of this fashion choice, at a high-profile state banquet, added weight to its potential significance within royal circles.
Sarah Burton’s appointment to Givenchy represented a significant shift in the fashion industry landscape. The designer spent close to three decades at Alexander McQueen before departing the British house in September 2024.
Burton was subsequently appointed by Givenchy to replace Matthew M Williams as the French fashion house’s creative director. Her move from Alexander McQueen to Givenchy marked a notable transition between two prestigious luxury brands. The red dress worn by Kate at the state banquet represented the first occasion the Princess of Wales had worn a new Burton design since the designer’s career switch. This marked a continuation of their professional relationship, which previously saw Burton create Kate’s wedding gown in 2011 during her tenure at Alexander McQueen.
I kept waiting to hear what message was supposedly being sent to Meghan? I’m sure “friends of Catherine” will tell the Daily Beast that Kate intended for this to be a “humiliating blow for Meghan,” and that Kate is triumphant in wearing a label famously worn by Meghan! Kate’s friends will do her no favors if that is the talking point. The way for Kate’s camp to play this is “Kate has a long-standing relationship with Sarah Burton, regardless of where Burton works.” Which also happens to be the truth! As in, stop making this about Meghan. We get it. Everyone gets it – Kate is constantly copying Meghan and trying to colonize every single part of Meghan’s life, interests and style.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.
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- WINDSOR, ENGLAND – JULY 08: Prince William, Prince of Wales and Catherine, Princess of Wales attend the State Banquet at Windsor Castle on July 08, 2025 in Windsor, England. President Emmanuel Macron and Mrs Brigitte Macron visit the UK in the first visit State Visit made by France in 17 years. They are staying at Windsor Castle, hosted by King Charles III and Queen Camilla, and a banquet will be held there in their honour. The Macrons will visit Imperial College, and the President will address Parliament during his stay.,Image: 1019898222, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: Chris Jackson/Avalon
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- The Princess of Wales (left) and King Charles III (right) at the State Banquet for President of France Emmanuel Macron (centre) and his wife Brigitte Macron, at Windsor Castle, Berkshire, on day one of the French President’s state visit to the UK. Picture date: Tuesday July 8, 2025.,Image: 1019898485, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: *** NO UK USE FOR 48 HRS ***, Model Release: no, Credit line: Yui Mok/Avalon
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- The Prince and Princess of Wales, followed by the Princess Royal and the Duke of Edinburgh arriving for the State Banquet for President of France Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron, at Windsor Castle, Berkshire, on day one of the French President’s state visit to the UK Featuring: William, Prince of Wales, Catherine, Princess of Wales Where: Windsor, United Kingdom When: 08 Jul 2025 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- The Prince and Princess of Wales, followed by the Princess Royal and theDuke and Duchess of Edinburgh arriving for the State Banquet for President of France Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron, at Windsor Castle, Berkshire, on day one of the French President’s state visit to the UK Featuring: William, Prince of Wales, Catherine, Princess of Wales Where: Windsor, United Kingdom When: 08 Jul 2025 Credit: PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
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- Prince Harry and Meghan Markle leave St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle after their wedding.. Picture date: Saturday May 19, 2018.
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- Prince Harry and Meghan Markle leave St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle after their wedding.. Picture date: Saturday May 19, 2018.
So if this is true keen us applauded for being spiteful and a mean girl.
I’m so tired of everything being about Meghan. Kate wore notable French brands for a French state visit. Neither Meghan nor Kate have exclusive rights to any brand. This is all so stupid.
Is the message in the room with us? Because Kate’s look is a total bore.
I agree. It is just boring and shapeless. As somebody else said here “It is nice” and that what it is just nice. The only thing what speaks for this dress is that this kind of red suits Kate.
Kate wore French brands to a diplomatic event with the French President and his wife.
Black heels with a blood red dress would be okay, except that she is wearing about 5 other colors, too.
It’s not hard for a princess to get matching shoes. Looking good is part of her job. She is such a weirdo.
Christina, Kate’s budget budget probably did not stretch so far that she could afford matching new shoes. I am not sure what this yellow stuff is on her shoulder.
🤣🤣
KKKate is just happy she got to play dress up again, with the big jewelry. Pegs has been limiting her access to the good stuff.
And she got some eye contact! It’s been years since William has truly acknowledged she is next to him. It’s just pathetic.
That’s how you know that their interactions were 100% choreographed. It’s probably why they waited until the very last minute to announce their attendance: they needed extra time to practice to make the smiles and eye contact look as natural as possible in front of the cameras… and still failed.
Nope. Back in January, Kate was like, “Phew, I finally have an excuse to wear some Givenchy and Dior at this French state visit, after years of being a British brand ambassador! Goodie, I’m going to order new french frocks stat. Even though on the day of, I’m still going to titillate everyone with that will-she-won’t-she storyline that I’m too frail to decide until an hour beforehand.”
The British press is exhausting. I get that shoe-horning Meghan into the article guarantees much more interest than Kate alone. But they have no idea how petty and scheming they’re making their darling look.
Since she was seated next to Macron, her attendance was always confirmed. I think Charles and Camilla are so petty and insecure they are the ones who declined to confirm their attendance so all of the focus was on them.
Is the message that she looks like the dress is wearing her? That’s the message I got from that red dress. Her other outfit from Dior was child like so that’s the message I got from her Dior look. Both truly bad messages. I bet Meg doesn’t give a f**k about it.
Meghan is too busy reposting her customers creations of “As Ever” products! 😂
Why does she look so boring? Because she looks like a stock photo image? No dress, hat or jewel makes her interesting
For what it’s worth, I think Kate looked nice on her dress and tiara.
Constantly wanting to show up the ghost of someone who used to be in the royal family seems exhausting.
Duchess of Sussex, minding her business, keeping her peace, hosting her friends, raising her red headed kids, keeping her husband happy and well fed, building her business, making money hand over fist.
BRF- y’all, she’s not thinking about you.
Bless their petty, racist, dumbass hearts.
I wouldn’t call something that resembles a rug pretty. Kate blends in perfectly with the floor :)))
The only messages I’m getting is that the designer doesn’t know Kate’s color palette and she looks washed out. Red looks so much better on Meghan.
She matches with the red and burgundy decor. Seen and not to be heard.
Kate looked ready for a Renaissance Faire in that dress, it’s completely wearing her.
She’d be a plague-suffering peasant then because buxom women with wide child-bearing hips were preferred in Ye Olde Days.
@Christine, now that you’ve said Renaissance Faire I can’t unsee it! If she lost the tiara and let her long hair flow free, it could be her next stop of the evening!
For someone who cab barely mumble a sentence about arly yares (early years), she’s very vocal behind the scenes (allegedly)
What happened to her talk of going back to nay cha
Sounds like the dead queen. Can only speak through the tabloids these days. 😏
😂😂😂 Meghan would have slayed had she attended this state dinner. She’d have practiced her French, cooed over the menu items and charmed the French diplomats she’d have sat next to. All the while Harry would be giving her googly eyes saying how lucky he is.
Meghan knows how to dress since she worked. So the message Lazy is sending is: This is what happens when you spend 10 years waiting for a ring doing nothing with your life!
The color is lovely and it works as a state dinner dress. I like how it matches the red on William. But why am I just whelmed by it?
I’ve seen better dresses at the mall. Also, the black shoes are so wrong for the dress. She really has no taste.
Is the message that a fashion house will design dresses for two very famous women? because I dont think there’s anything earthshattering about that. I also dont think Kate would have gone with givenchy if sarah burton weren’t there.
but lets say this was about “stealing” Meghan’s wedding dress fashion house – how is that a good look for Kate? 7 years after their wedding and Kate has her big GOTCHA moment because she…..wore a dress from the same designer? how much space does Meghan take up in Kate’s head?
I mean we all know she takes up a lot of space, but why put it out there so everyone knows she lives rent free in Kate’s head? why try to make that the story? it just makes kate look small and mean.
Finally, overall Kate looked fine last night. Nice enough, she was fine. Boring – we’ve seen that same look on her a dozen times – but fine.
I think they put this out there because who would click on this article without Meghan’s name attached? The article doesn’t even give a negative or positive motive for Kate wearing the same designer as Meghan. There’s no point at all for bringing her up. It’s a nice dress and Kate looks fine in it but it’s not very memorable and it looks like every other dress she’s worn. Hell, I would even say that this dress makes Givenchy look bad because why are they designing clothes that look like Jenny Packham made it? Givenchy is supposed to be peak French fashion and they made this high school prom dress?
That’s the part that gets me. I’m not sure what it is about a dress that is supposed to make it feel like Givenchy but this does not give me Givenchy. I guess I just think of Audrey Hepburn so I’m not exactly well-informed.
Never liked Burton’s wedding dress boob darts but agree, this is for SEO clicks. The spectacle of the French state dinner isn’t resonating with the public.
Panem et circenses, panem et circenses.
@ Jais it does. It does not like Givenchy at all. When I first saw it, I thought it was Packham because it is the same silhouette as the gold Packham dress that Kate wore to the Bond premiere. Sarah Burton has form though because her tenure at McQueen had the same effect, uninspired, at least when Kate wore it.
Actually, I’m getting her past dresses confused. It does remind me of some of her old Sara Burton Mcqueen dresses more than maybe some of her Jenny Packham dresses. The lavender one with the capped sleeves was McQueen and the waist of that makes me think of this one. But either way, it still does not make me think Givenchy.
@Jais yes this looks like that McQueen but the silhouette is also pretty similar to her Packham looks, especially the red one she wore to the chinese state dinner in 2015 (and yes I googled the year lol, i dont have that kind of thing memorized.) It’s just generally speaking a very Kate silhouette and a very……well, boring look.
I just looked that one up and yes you’re right! It is very much like that one too. I don’t even mind it being boring and a very Kate silhouette, whether it recalls an old Packham or McQueen. I think what gets me is that it’s like every thing else she has worn but this one is special bc its Givenchy. When it just looks like samish.
The color looks nice on Kate. The dress did not fit well and needed to be an A line more fitted to the body. However, we all know that a more fitted fit would illustrate how severely underweight Kate is now.
I don’t understand how wearing Givenchy is a “‘gotcha” in any case. Like you said if Sarah Burton wasn’t there she probably wouldn’t have worn it. The person that designed Meghan’s dress was Clare Waight Keller, and they are still friends. I mean she was literally making cookies at Meghan’s house earlier this year. All this shows is no matter how tenuous the connection Kate is so uninspired, so envious that she wants to co-opt anything Meghan has touched, done, wore or visited.
Kate has wore French labels before, specifically when she went to Paris a few years ago. So wearing a French designer is practically expected when there is a French stage visit.
And I agree this cape dress looked like so many others kate has worn before.
I don’t know. I don’t think Kate’s that… deep. Like, even if she did get up every day thinking “how can I hate on her today” (I mean, she may, but that’s pretty exhausting) – is she really clever enough to make the leap “Keller is to Givenchy as … hmm hmmm… YES! BURTON! Take THAT, Meghan!!”?? Me thinks not.
How can it be a message when the person who you’re supposedly sending it to doesn’t care. Do they realize they make her look idiotic with these kinds of things? Meghan isn’t paying Kate any attention. Take a deep breath and relax.
Colonizers gonna colonize.
Whatever. This has nothing to do with Meghan, who hasn’t worn Givenchy in years. She’s still friends with the former designer Claire Waight Keller. They made cookies together in Meghan’s kitchen this year. Also when Kate was having a meltdown over Meghan’s flower girl dresses, apparently she got her wedding dress designer, Sarah Burton, to look at the dresses and tell her they had to be completely redone. That was incredibly unprofessional and she shouldn’t have shown the dresses to another designer. Kates dress is dated and it looks medieval with those long curtain sleeves.
Yeah, that was the madness of FQ Lazy personified.
Your future SIL asking her wedding designer to completely redesign YOUR flowergirls’ dresses?
Talk about wedding guest from hell! The sense of entitlement – and lack of boundaries – from the racist, lazy one is truly mind-boggling.
In private, the palace completely ignores Kate and her mother, treating them like inferiors, and doesn’t hide it (much like William’s friends, which is why he never takes her to his friends’ weddings). It’s not because of her background; after all, Sophie is the daughter of a tire dealer, and no one persecutes her. Kate and her mother have earned the right to be ignored. We have no idea what Kate does behind closed doors, but since she can repeatedly show off her bare buttocks in public, it’s scary to think what she does off camera. So when Meghan showed up, she decided to humiliate and torment the newcomer and show them that she’s the important one, and Meghan should listen to her because she’s in charge. The foolish one tried to dominate the intelligent one.
I feel like Kate and her entire family are insufferable behind closed doors. Remember the story about the housekeeper at Anmer who went back to Sandringham bc Kate and her mother were too much work??
Did anyone else notice that Brigitte Macron wore a strikingly similar gown, with the long built-in cape, but in royal blue vs scarlet red? I wonder if that was annoying for either of the two ladies—to have such similar looks? Or perhaps they planned to match?
Why does Macron wear so much white? Not that into her style. Everything looks so stiff and structured.
Kate helped William create this monster and it’s going to follow them for the rest of their lives. Meghan and Harry had therapy and took advice and are playing the long game. Kate and William really, really need a new strategy. Imagine being crowned king of England and everything is about your brother.
That dress might have looked good on someone else but it didn’t look good on her. She has no curves, she’s painfully thin and you could have just hung a sheet on her with those jewels and that tiara and she would have looked the same.
Was it weird that Kate and Brigitte wore the same sort of cape gown? I feel like that would be a faux-pas, non?
I wouldn’t have thought it was Givenchy until it was pointed out to me.
She is swimming in that dress. She is so thin the waist band looks like the cheap elastic waistband in a dress you get at WalMart. I don’t think it’s a tailoring problem, necessarily, but it’s definitely a Kate problem
We see these non-stop articles about her “ recovering “ but she still looks gaunt and sick. This woman would rather look sick than put on 10lbs.
I’m still trying to find the message that Kate was sending to Meghan in this piece. This is GB News using Meghan to get clicks on a Kate story because they know people don’t click on stories about Kate.
That dress is blah, and she’s so thin that it just hangs off her.
Meghan really lit a fire under these European royal women with her cape dresses and Aquazzira heels
They’re still wearing those same dresses, which Meghan wore back in 2018 and 2020.
Queen of the Damned.
It’s a weird red for summer, too. Nothing about this works for Kate — or screams revenge against Meghan.
Meghan’s style is so far superior to Kate’s that the comparison just makes Kate look worse.
How long before the Great House of Givenchy feels the “Middleton Effect”?
https://feminegra.com/maternity-brand-worn-by-kate-enters-administration/
Kate. Looks. AWFUL.
Well, since Meghan is always brought into this, nothing Kate has worn trying to copy Meghan in red beats the stunning image of Meghan in the red dress Safiya during Harry’s last appearance as Captain General of the Marines.
This silly article makes Kate look more like a jealous and petty mean girl.
Brigitte Macron’s fashion was on point and she dressed more fashionably than Keener or Camilla could ever manage. The beautiful blue gown she wore to the state dinner was regal and elegant. Brigitte’s gown was structurally somewhat similar to Keener’s, but Keener’s gown highlighted how frail and painfully thin she looks. She looks like a child playing dress up and her looks never come together. Brigitte also wore a neutral number earlier in the visit that ran circles around Keener’s twee Dior look. Keener wore what she wore to compete with Meghan. And. She could not even hold a candle to a 70 something year old lady, let alone Meghan. The red dress was Keener’s callout to the the gorgeous red dress Meghan wore to a Children’s Hospital gala. Her constant copy-keening of Meghan is WEIRD and obsessive. And. She never even comes close.