After beginning their day on an ice rink, it was all faux fur and cobblestones for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge as they carried on in Stockholm with the Swedish Royal Family. The couple were met by Crown Princess Victoria and her husband, Prince Daniel, as they moved to the Royal Palace for a luncheon and then two museum stops.
Kate opted for a clothing change, first showing off a new green maternity dress by Catherine Walker as she posed for photos with Victoria, Daniel, King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia before sitting down to a luncheon. The dress is a silhouette we’ve become familiar with in Kate’s maternity style – she generally favors looser cuts and shorter hemlines. Tbh, I first thought this was yet another Goat piece when I first saw photos.
For those less familiar with the Swedish Royal Family, you can catch up on the main players here. Suffice to say, though Victoria and Daniel are peers with the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall in terms of their place in the succession, by age they are William and Kate’s contemporaries. Victoria and Daniel were guests at the Cambridges’ 2011 wedding, however they reportedly don’t know each other well. Indeed, one objective of this tour is to forge closer relationships with their fellow European royals, ties which will no doubt come in handy over the years.
After luncheon, Victoria and Daniel escorted the Cambridges to Stortorget Square where they undertook a walkabout to greet crowds gathered to welcome them. As you can see from photos, Kate opted to switch from heels to boots as they made their way down cobbled streets, and she added a forest green Catherine Walker coat to her outfit, trimmed in a faux fur collar and cuffs by Troy London. Her black faux fur hat appears to be the same one she wore for the Christmas walkabout at Sandringham. Her handbag is by Mulberry. All in all, this was a decidedly more British look than the nods to Swedish fashion Kate showed off earlier.
From there the couples headed to the Nobel Museum where William and Kate learned more about the history of the prizes.
And last on the agenda was a stop at Ark Des to highlight the unique aesthetic of Swedish architecture and design. It is from this stop that we learned that Kate is a fan of IKEA and their models have made their way into Kensington Palace via the bedrooms of Prince George and Princess Charlotte. Royals, they’re just like us, except not at all.
As for some color, I thought it was clear from photos that the two couple got along well, particularly Victoria and Kate. The Swedish royals are an extremely popular family and no doubt the two woman have a fair bit in common from the challenges of raising a young family to maintaining one’s sanity in the spotlight. We’ll see more of these four tomorrow, as well as at this evening’s event which is underway now and will be covered here shortly!
I love that we’ve gotten so much (faux) fur from Kate this trip – it was the aesthetic I had in mind when I was envisioning her tour wardrobe, so in that regard I’m a fan of what we’ve seen so far. That said, I do dock points when Kate debuts a piece overly similar to other items in her closet and this coat is extremely reminiscent of the green Catherine Walker she wore to arrive in Paris last year, as well as a Hobbs she’s shown off over the years. Granted, this is a maternity version, but as someone without a single green wool coat I find myself wondering how one needs multiple…
Nevertheless, let’s turn towards the evening and a rather eye-catching floral number that’s popping up in my feed. In the meantime, here’s the photo of the day (h/t Chris Jackson):