Author: Sarah Grossbart / Source: E! Online
For years, Kate Middleton was arguably the most beloved member of the royal family. Sure, Prince William was great, Queen Elizabeth II had her devoted disciples and people were always going to be interested in what Prince Harry was getting up to, particularly if that involved squiring around a new prospective princess.
But in terms of undisputed star power, no one garnered more notice than Kate.The Duchess of Cambridge upstaged her Duke at nearly every photo op and pretty much all royal news could be boiled down to one of three categories: Who designed Kate’s look—and is it an outfit she’s recycled from before? Is she testing out a new hairstyle—could bangs be next? And, wait, could that possibly be the hint of a baby bump?!
Then a funny thing happened. Harry decided to settle down.
Every bit as charismatic as Kate, and media trained to boot, Meghan Markle was poised and warm, had a slew of causes she was already passionate about and was a shiny new character sending royal watchers aflutter. That her official coming out party—her and Harry’s breathlessly viewed May nuptials—coincided with Kate’s six-month maternity leave Prince Louis only made Meghan’s star shine brighter and soon it became easy to forget that there was another princess bride with a perfectly bouncy blowout and a knack for pairing designer fashions with affordable wares.
That all changed Oct. 23. At her sixth official event back, a state dinner in honor of the Netherlands King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima, Kate topped her ice blue Alexander McQueen gown with the diamond-and-pearl Lover’s Knot tiara (a favorite of Princess Diana‘s) and the Royal Family Order brooch, reminding everyone she was the original style queen.
It’s not so much that there’s any sort of inherent competition between the two duchesses, with insiders swearing they’re each happy to cede center stage at any one given time, but for all of her seemingly shy tendencies, the 36-year-old is deeply committed to moving the needle on pet causes such as mental health, underprivileged youth and the importance of the arts and she’s fully aware that her influence is only set to grow as William inches close to the throne. “A couple of years ago, you might have seen her being a little bit timid,” Susan E. Kelley, owner and editor of the fashion cataloguing site What Kate Wore, opined to Vanity Fair. “Now, she seems like she’s in a more take-charge position. I’m beginning to see the person who’s going to be queen emerging.”
The first hints came Oct. 2 when Kate returned to her roots, both figuratively and literally helping a group of gradeschoolers at Sayers Croft Trust Forest School and Wildlife Garden make leaf crowns, dig for “minibeasts” and water plants. In her element—and her trusty Zara jeans and 14-year-old Penelope Chilvers boots—the mother of Prince George, 5, Princess Charlotte, 3, and nearly 7-month-old Louis doled out cups of juice, helped fill up a water jugs at an outdoor sink and regaled the group with tales of how she’s helped her eldest two hunt for spiders in the gardens of their Kensington Palace home. And much like Meghan had done days earlier, she closed her own car door on the way in.
A week later, the former art history major confidently added her brush stroke to Dairo Vargas’ “Someone To Turn To” painting at the inaugural Global Ministerial Mental Health Summit, joking he was “very brave” to allow her and William to contribute.
And while it was Meghan’s suspiciously voluminous Givenchy coat that pulled focus at Princess Eugenie‘s Oct. 12 wedding, the normally PDA-shy Kate (in McQueen, the same label she wore for her own vows) drew notice for brazenly resting her hand on William’s upper thigh.
And if those actions didn’t appropriately convey that she had returned to duty, her statement-making ensemble at the Buckingham Palace state dinner got the point across quite nicely. In addition to the tiara, first crafted in 1914 for Queen Mary, she draped herself in Queen Alexandra‘s pearl-and-diamond wedding necklace and a diamond-encrusted brooch featuring a painting of the Queen, and gifted to Kate by the monarch herself.
The greatest honor bestowed upon a female family member, the Royal Family Order was presented to Kate last year. “Catherine is enormously proud to be have been given the brooch,” a family friend told Vanity Fair. “She…
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