Here are some photos from Saturday’s Trooping the Colour, the British monarch’s annual (faux) birthday parade. This post is for the Princess of Wales and her children, who rode in a carriage and then stood on a balcony. It’s notable to me how little Kate has done in the past month – one event at a hospital, one appearance at a family wedding, and then Trooping. That’s the sum total of her public appearances for one month.
Kate wore a new-to-us Catherine Walker coatdress in a baby-blue with white trimming. Her Philip Treacy hat matched in blue-and-white. My complicated opinion is that Kate looks fine for the event but she looks not-great overall, in the grand scheme of things. I think the hat is messing up her look, honestly. Kate has a face for hats – she can pull off most styles of hats. But this kind of hat hits her at the wrong place on her head, and it makes her forehead look enormous. The baby-blue drains her too – she looks much better in warmer, autumnal colors, not pastels and icy blues. Obviously, this whole look was a Diana copy-keen. That’s the thing, though – Diana had much different coloring and she could actually rock a baby blue shade.
Jewelry notes: Kate’s earrings are by Cassandra Goad, and I’m sure she’s worn those before. Surprised that she didn’t get to borrow some Royal Collection earrings, but Queen Camilla is very petty about that kind of thing. Kate’s brooch features the Irish Guards insignia.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
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- Catherine – The Princess of Wales and children Prince Louis, Princess Charlotte attend The King’s Birthday Parade known as Trooping The Colour at Horse Guards Parade, London, England, UK on Saturday 13 June, 2026.,Image: 1109921372, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Please credit photographer and agency when publishing as Justin Ng/UPPA/Avalon., Model Release: no , Credit line: Justin Ng/Avalon
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- 13/06/2026. London, UK. The Prince and Princess of Wales along with other members of The Royal Family attend Trooping the Colour at Buckingham Palace. The Sovereign’s official birthday is celebrated with the ceremony of the King’s Birthday Parade. The impressive display of pageantry is performed by His Majesty The King’s personal troops of the Household Division on Horse Guards Parade.,Image: 1109890505, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: © Kensington Palace. This image may only be used for news or editorial reporting purposes. This image must NOT be used for any commercial or other use, save for news or editorial reporting and cannot be altered or amended in any manner or form whatsoever., Model Release: no , Credit line: Andrew Parsons / Kensington Palace/Avalon
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- London, UK, 13 June 2026. Princess Catherine, Princess Charlotte, Prince George and Prince Louis leave Buckingham Palace for the King’s Birthday Parade, Trooping The Colour Buckingham Palace, London, UK.,Image: 1109899420, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no , Credit line: Lee Floyd/Avalon
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- London, UK, 13 June 2026. The Royal Family on the balcony of Buckingham Palace following the King’s Birthday Parade, Trooping The Colour Buckingham Palace, London, UK.,Image: 1109905858, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no , Credit line: Lee Floyd/Avalon
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- London, UK, 13 June 2026. The Royal Family on the balcony of Buckingham Palace following the King’s Birthday Parade, Trooping The Colour Buckingham Palace, London, UK.,Image: 1109908220, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no , Credit line: Lee Floyd/Avalon
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- London, UK, 13 June 2026. Princess Catherine, Princess Charlotte, Prince George and Prince Louis return to Buckingham Palace after the King’s Birthday Parade, Trooping The Colour Buckingham Palace, London, UK.,Image: 1109908515, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: , Model Release: no , Credit line: Lee Floyd/Avalon
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- Catherine – The Princess of Wales and children Prince Louis, Princess Charlotte attend The King’s Birthday Parade known as Trooping The Colour at Horse Guards Parade, London, England, UK on Saturday 13 June, 2026.,Image: 1109921381, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Please credit photographer and agency when publishing as Justin Ng/UPPA/Avalon., Model Release: no , Credit line: Justin Ng/Avalon
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- Catherine – The Princess of Wales and son Prince Louis attend The King’s Birthday Parade known as Trooping The Colour at Horse Guards Parade, London, England, UK on Saturday 13 June, 2026.,Image: 1109921407, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Please credit photographer and agency when publishing as Justin Ng/UPPA/Avalon., Model Release: no , Credit line: Justin Ng/Avalon
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- Princess Charlotte and Prince George attend The King’s Birthday Parade known as Trooping The Colour at Horse Guards Parade, London, England, UK on Saturday 13 June, 2026.,Image: 1109921438, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: Please credit photographer and agency when publishing as Justin Ng/UPPA/Avalon., Model Release: no , Credit line: Justin Ng/Avalon
This event has fallen so far since the sussexes left and especially now that Queen Elizabeth is gone.
The stripped down balcony is crazy. It’s like a glaring announcement that the BRF is wasting away. It screams this is a family that has been riddled with scandal and here’s what remains.
It’s wild compared to what it looked like just a few years ago when the Queen allowed all of her cousins, etc. there and the photographers needed a wide lens to capture everyone. This just looks so…pathetic.
Charlotte is dressed like alice in wonderland. She needs more contemporary style. Again. Keen is paying a loving tribute to Diana since she’s wearing light blue.according to media
When I went online yesterday the very first headline I saw was, “Kate’s Sweet Nod to Diana at Trooping” and I rolled my eyes before I even saw what she was wearing. They can’t come up with a new phrase to describe this creepy copying of her dead MIL? I’m so tired of hearing about “sweet nods” and “subtle tributes” and all of the other ridiculous ways they describe this SWFing.
Same. I mean… Diana died almost 30 years ago. They never met. Diana usually wore dresses or skirt suits in various bright colours or prints.
Kate’s thing is a coat dress in solid colour blocks with some pale trim. Like, ok, but I don’t recall Diana being associated with coat dresses. It is tedious to see the media scraping the barrel on this one.
There’s a picture of Diana in a very similar Catherine Walker coatdress for an Easter service in the 80s – not exact, but way too similar for this to be a coincidence.
Diana started out wearing more stodgy outfits but she did find her own unique style. Keen just copies
Catherine Walker has been dead since 2010 and her husband just uses copies of previous designs. So from the start Kate was using derivative designs in her obsession to copy Diana. (Carole’s obsession too)
British fashion is dire if they are going to rely on Kate because she brings nothing to the table.
My first thought when I saw pictures was that Charlotte looked like a royal daughter circa 1910. I get that finding the right balance for dressy kids clothes is difficult but these look so old fashioned and out of date.
Is it really so difficult? I mean, Leticia has managed: i loved the way the Spanish princesses were dressed in a modern and affordable manner. Victoria as well has managed for her daughter Estelle…and others as well. I think that she purposefully dresses her children (as well as herself) in such conservative manner you maintain the illusion of the perfect English aristocratic family from the past.
As old fashioned as Char’s dress was, it wouldn’t be half as bad without that *stupid* **GIGANTIC** bow on the back of her head. She’s 11, not a toddler FFS. The boys’ clothes don’t infantilize them, why do they do it to Char? But she and Mummykeen *did* break protocol: NO “TIGHTS”!! 😱😱😱
I read an article the other day, which I am certain was AI generated, but it points out that the royals dress like it is the 1950’s in order to pretend that the royals are still living in the time of Elizabeth’s youth, when the monarchy was at the height of its popularity.
I assumed that it was because they didn’t want their fashions to look clownish when dated, or because they wanted the royals to look like a conservative nuclear family fresh off a 50’s billboard, but clinging to their glory days does make sense.
@Monlette, ITA with your theory. They’re trying to recreate the BRF’s “glory days” (which, with this dull bunch, will simply never happen).
Kate is dressing the kids and she simply has bad taste as evidenced by her own outfit. Charlotte gets the added issues of being dressed more juvenile than her age since Kate has no style or imagination.
As mentioned by others Letizia has managed to have two daughters who attend more formal affairs and don’t look trapped in time. The Dutch girls also manage to pull it off.
Until Charlotte can escape the shackles of Kate’s need to control everything for a bizarrely old fashioned curated family image, she will be stuck wearing things that are from another era and a younger person.
Kate herself often wears the long ringlets and a bow in her hair, so I’m sure she doesn’t think she infantilizes Charlotte.
To me, it always looks like charlottes clothes and coats are about one size too small for her. The sash on this dress is riding up because the dress isn’t long enough for her. Her coats she wears to the Christmas carol service always look short and tight, too. She’s a slim girl, why is Kate forcing her into too-small clothes?
Or is this like what Kate does: buy a bunch of clothes, stick them in her closet, and then pull them out gradually over the course of a few years? Because that doesn’t work with growing children.
So the hair bow cost over $200 – for a hair bow! The shoes were also over $200 and I cannot imagine she will wear them again – it is summer now, no more official outings, and by the autumn she will have grown. I appreciate money means little to them, but nearly $500 for a bow and shoes! The dress is bespoke so goodness knows what that costs. She is a pretty girl and seems to enjoy the public facing role which will be good because George clearly doesn’t. She will be his Anne! The big gaping gap is that Willi has no one by his side to be his wing man and he has only himself to blame for that.
I thought the same thing about the hat- she usually wears hats & fascinators very well but this hat & her hair line made her forehead look odd. And that goblin (Edward) and his fake uniform (I think he dropped out of military training) looks ridiculous.
Seeing the Wales children paraded around like show ponies for the peasants to look at is grotesque.
The size of that hat just serves the highlight her frame in a way that is unflattering, and in a manner that they probably don’t want people looking too closely into. I’m happy someone else pointed out that she has not done any real ” work” in a while.
In fact since coming back from Italy, which was her first ” work event ” after an extended vacation around Easter, she’s done pretty much nothing. If she has done 25 actual appearances this year, not engagements that they are counting getting out the car walking into the building and sitting down as 3, I would be shocked. And she had the nerve to look upset that they were booed yesterday.
So true! She has only gone to two cancer related events (the one either Charles and the next day to a hospital) more than 2 weeks ago and before that she was on vacation for more than 3 weeks. And since when attending a family wedding is part of work? They’re drumming up her every appearance!
Are they seriously counting attending their cousin’s wedding as a “work” event? Why am I even surprised.
At least she has her hair in an updo. Small mercies. The dress is a copy of Diana’s. The same goes for the size of the hat. Well, she loves this style and her shoulder pads, she looked good. Not stylish or fashionable, just Kate cosplaying Diana as in all the Trooping before.
The balcony is ridiculous. When they had all the family (and friends as the van Cutsems and their children) on the balcony it was slightly overcrowded but fun to watch and to guess who is who. Now we have the leftovers and can take bets who will be missing next year (The Dukes of Kent and Gloucester look very frail).
The children look miserable, especially George. I never saw him smile when paraded to the public. Typically for Kate, everyone looks up at the flyover, she looks straight into the camera with her fake smile. Boring.
They put the protesters away from the Mall behind black screens, still you could hear them boo. Loudly. Even Kate’s smile froze for a second.
Kate wore her hair up, What a big girl she is!
I don’t if that’s just George’s resting face or if he’s actively surly and frowning, but he often looks either sad or weirdly aloof—like George III
she dresses so old that by the time she dresses old we wont know the difference
She looks decades older than she is here anyway. Might as well dress the part.
She really does look old. Old and haggard.
This is how I’d expect an octogenarian ‘cousin’ to dress back when the whole family was invited to this event.
So much squinting in the sun. I know they can’t wear sunglasses but I want to give those kids sunglasses.
Anyways, yeah, it’s a clear Diana knock-off. The royalists will call it an homage while slamming Meghan for wanting to be Diana…… for wearing a denim shirt with jeans. Suuure. Kate is the one cosplaying diana here and also still rocking the stewardess vibes. But yeah, it’s fine. She looks fine.
I noticed that also, drives me crazy when parents don’t protect their children’s eyes from sunlight and blue screens.. both cause very real damage.
And honestly it just makes so many of the photos look uncomfortable. A bunch of kids, albeit cute, just squinting for their lives lol.
She goes for the Diana copykeen looks because that’s the only way she gets attention anymore. For example, I could not begin to tell you what she wore last year for Trooping. I have the vaguest memory of what she wore two years ago after her “not out of the woods yet” post. She’s gotten more headlines for “paying tribute to Diana” than for anything work related she’s done so far this year. So that’s why she does it.
yeah her numbers after her Italy trip are really embarrassing – the cancer reception, the hospital visit……is that it? Her team is trying to cover it up by overposting for events like this – multiple reels and multiple posts – but she really is just flat out not working. William seems to be making the tiniest bit of an effort to at least pretend to work.
The men steal valor with their unearned uniforms. Copying Diana is Kate’s version of that.
Kate can usually rock a hat.
But that hat, particularly the duck-bill bow that sticks out from under the rim, pulls focus from her face and is distracting.
And the curves of the bow fight with the angular collar, lapel (especially because the angles at the lapel are emphasized by the thick white border, and the angular pin – seriously, curvy above the chin, angled below … so uncohesive – why?)
It looks like tentacles coming out of her head like those zombie creatures from The last of Us.
Part of the issue is that kate is shrinking and using clothing to hide isn’t working anymore.
Kate doesn’t have the colouring for this suit, but she loves to “channel” Diana; and compare poor Charlotte to Gabriella of Monaco who is around her age but dresses in age appropriate clothes. From what I’ve read, however, many English women think Kate is the height of glamour and sophistication. I don’t know, maybe there are cultural factors at play.
Do they though? Or is that the media artificially inflating her to be some sort of fashionista? Or is the target demographic women in their 80s?
Serious questions.
@startup spouse. I’m British and don’t know anyone who dresses like her. Many women in the 80s and 90s dressed like Diana and had her haircut. That is your answer…
Good questions and I’m basing my comment on living in England (as an American with very different style aesthetics) and hearing what English women say to me but also from reading threads on Mumsnet. We all know that the DM will build her up (and then tear her down lol) so I don’t even read the nonsense they write.
Aristocrats don’t dress like her though.
Contrary to popular opinion, i like the colour of the coat dress in Kate as well as the hat but I’m sick and tired of the same pattern of every single coat dress she has worn recently! I think she must have at least four similar coat dresses in different colours! Doesn’t she have any imagination at all?
Yeah, I think she looks fine. Like Diana. Like an 80’s flight attendant. But that’s her schtick. Do I find it interesting? No.
Kate looks fine, for a pathologically thin, obviously unhappy woman.
If she ever did anything at all of note, we’d have something to talk about other than her boring, lackluster fashion and her sadly exploited “family.”
The color is not the best on her. The hat is too big and looks like a lampshade. I can’t imagine what she might be trying to hide with it. Treacy usually does better.
Coat is very Diana. Aka William’s mum. I know he’s always angry about something and usually half in the bag, but that’s got to be weird.
Camilla and all the rest of them look ridiculous in their military cosplay. As usual. Sophie does look good!
So did Charles make it to the funeral for Lady Pamela?
Also Kate looks very tanned! Hmm…
I’m convinced they have already built a pool at forest lodge. And if not, one is planned. But no one would ever know…bc they land-grabbed 150 acres of public park land and set up privacy hedges or whatever.
The booing that happened when they were in carriages was the loudest I’ve ever heard directly around Kate and boy did she not look pleased. The kids also looked already confused/scared which isn’t good. They really should do more to protect their kids.
I don’t know that the kids look confused. Even if it was Tye loudest, they were heavily booed last year as well so it’s not the first time it’s happened. But did the smiles and waves drop? Yes. I’d be curious to know what type of conversations they have had with the kids about the no king protests. And iirc, after last year’s trooping booing, that was when Kate pulled out at the last minute for one of those ascot appearances.
She pays homage to Diana’s style in the 80s, never to the more modern and sophisticated style of Diana in the 90s.And I think this shows her psychological state regarding the monarchy. The 80s were the decade when Diana was still submissive and trying to conform to the absurd rules of the Windsors. Whereas the 90s were the decade of emancipation and liberation; she dared not only in her wardrobe but also in her charitable commitments. So Kate isn’t really paying homage to Diana; rather, she’s sending the message that, unlike Diana, she values order and hierarchy and won’t see anything changing. She will be the perfect white princess, that is to say, obedient and silent in the face of abuse.
I don’t mind the colour. It’s the Diana cosplay and the fact this is about the 3rd or 4th time that Kate has worn a coat in this silhouette and style. Her fashion is very predictable and boring. I’m also surprised that Catherine Walker didn’t point out to Kate that this coat is similar to one that they made for Diana just in case she wanted to avoid the comparisons. Heck maybe they did tell her and she said yes please. As soon as I saw the coat I remembered Diana’s outfit.
The ozempic balcony, lol. This is exactly what Charles, William and Kate wanted ( all the attention). They certainly have it now.
Keen can dress up like Diana but it just makes it obvious that she is not in the same league as diana
Kate isn’t wearing a coat dress. She’s wearing a coat with a white dress underneath.
These photos honestly make my eyes water. Why don’t they have the kids wearing sunglasses or at least a hat on Charlotte? No wonder the adults are all so full of Botox — that sun was bright and no eye protection isn’t good for the eyes or the wrinkles, and yet they do it for everything.
This coat is basically a boring version of the coa5 Kate wore last year. The royal event to pay attention to was definitely the one in Sweden, some lovely formal day looks and stunning evening dresses
This would have been a lovely outfit to wear to a wedding. Instead of you know….white.
Bespoke to me means made to measure – the last few appearances of Kate in bespoke are therefore a worry. I am no fan of hers, far from it, but if this was measured say 2 months in advance has she lost more weight since then ? It is far too big for her. Her fans say she has always been slim, which of course she has, but there is slim and there is ill. I am not , stress NOT, body shaming, I am concerned about why no one who loves her is helping her.
Kate looks so peeved in that first photo, it is as though she knew she was waving to a bunch of celebitchies!