Charlotte’s Easter ensemble continues traditionKate Middleton’s symbolic outfit choiceThe significance of royal blue in fashion
Princess Charlotte stepped out with her family for the Easter service at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor, marking the Wales family’s first Easter appearance since 2023. The young royal wore a pastel blue pleated chiffon dress by Self-Portrait, priced at $335, beneath a bespoke Catherine Walker coat. The coat, in oatmeal with chocolate-brown velvet accents, was a rewear from the family’s Christmas Day walkabout. Charlotte completed her look with dark brown Tory Burch cap-toe ballet flats, also a repeat from the same event.
Charlotte’s Easter Ensemble Continues Tradition
Charlotte’s choice of blue connects her to a longstanding royal tradition. The Princess of Wales, Kate Middleton, has often favored blue for Easter, wearing it in 2019, 2022, and 2023. “The family often opts to coordinate in blue because, as fashion historian Rosie Harte notes, it’s a ‘more palatable alternative’ to other traditional royal colors.” The color blue symbolizes peace, stability, and modernity, allowing the royal family to honor tradition while appearing contemporary.
Kate Middleton’s Symbolic Outfit Choice
In contrast to her daughter’s blue attire, Kate Middleton opted for a cream Self-Portrait midi dress, a departure from her usual Easter blue. She accessorized with a Juliette Botterill Oak Leaf Teardrop hat and Queen Elizabeth’s Bahrain pearl drop earrings. Middleton’s choice of cream is seen as a symbol of renewal, following her two-year absence from the service due to cancer treatment and subsequent remission.
The Significance of Royal Blue in Fashion
The color blue holds significant meaning in royal fashion. As Rosie Harte explains in her book “The Royal Wardrobe,” blue is “far less aggressive than red and significantly more conservative than purple.” This choice links Charlotte to a lineage of royal women, including Queen Elizabeth II and the Queen Mother, who also favored pale blues. Royal photographer Chris Jackson described Charlotte as having “great poise” and being a “mini version of Kate,” highlighting her growing presence within the royal family.
Princess Charlotte’s liberty print dresses follow a royal tradition
There was once a time when Princess Charlotte was seen in nothing but little Liberty print dresses. While the middle child of the Prince and Princess of Wales opts for more grown up garments these days—she is, after all, turning 11 month—her royal wardrobe used to consist of varying shades of Liberty florals. If you wanted to replicate Princess Charlotte’s style, all you needed was a ditsy floral and a Peter Pan collar.
Liberty prints have been a British icon for over 150 years. “Shortly after opening on Regent Street London in 1875, Arthur Liberty printed the first Liberty fabrics,” the brand shares on its website. Since then, Liberty’s fabrics have become cultural icons, and their ditsy floral prints have become synonymous with little girl’s summer dresses, especially royal princesses. Alongside Princess Charlotte, younger royal princesses, like Princess Estelle of Sweden and Princess Leonor of Spain were dressed in little floral dresses when they were young.
Princess Charlotte wasn’t a royal fashion trendsetter with these frilly floral frocks. Queen Elizabeth and her sister, Princess Margaret, wore Liberty print and small floral dresses during their childhood, some of which can still be viewed today. “Matching cotton dresses and bloomers, mostly in Liberty prints, were a staple in the princesses’ childhood wardrobe,” said curators at The Royal Collection Trust. Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret’s beloved nanny, Marion Crawford,—affectionately known as ‘Crawfie’—once said that “the children could not have been more simply dressed. They wore cotton frocks mostly blue with a flower pattern.”
The dresses were often made in a pair, with one for the young Princess Elizabeth and another for Princess Margaret Rose. “I think the matching clothes really speak to how close they were as a family. It was iconic for them, and it presented that view [a close family image to the public] at the time.” Matthew Storey, a curator at Historic Royal Palaces, said of the young princesses’ fashion.
Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret’s childhood dresses are on display now at The King’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace. The Royal Collection Trust’s latest exhibit, Queen Elizabeth II: Her Life in Style, showcases these historic examples of little princess fashions.
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