Another day, another surprise engagement for the Duchess of Cambridge. I’d say this was almost becoming the standard for Kensington Palace, but earlier this week they announced a new engagement for both Cambridges next Thursday. Granted this has really become more of a practice for Kate’s solo engagements, so it’s unclear if this is a thing or partly coincidental.
Regardless, Kate’s public engagements have been relatively light so far in September…so much so that it’s sparked pregnancy rumors. That, and Kate debuted a haircut when she was pictured dropping Princess Charlotte off at school two weeks ago, which she has a habit of doing right around the time a pregnancy is announced. While I would love to see a fourth Cambridge kid, I’m not inclined to think that’s what’s going on. Thanks to Kate’s HG there’s a pretty established pattern for how her pregnancies work, so it would definitely be a marked change in pattern if her schedule was altered to hide the first trimester.
The other consideration is of course the upcoming Pakistan trip, the details of which are still forthcoming. It’s possible that we won’t actually receive those ahead of time given security concerns so that may well be a “surprise” tour akin to what we saw when the Cambridges visited Northern Ireland earlier this year.
I would also add that Kate has been working quite a bit behind-the-scenes. The Court Circular shows that she’s attended a handful of meetings for The Royal Foundation with William, so I would imagine between that, prepping for Pakistan, and the start of the school term, she’s been plenty busy even if we haven’t seen as much of her as we usually do this time of year.
Anywho! Back to today: Kate visited the Evelina London Sunshine House to meet with families participating in the Southwark Family Nurse Partnership (FNP). KP announced the visit as in line with her research for the Early Years program, while FNP provides support for first-time parents under the age of 24. Given Kate’s focus on maternal mental health and early intervention – as well as her more recent patronage of nursing programs – this engagement is very much on-brand 🙂
On the fashion front, Kate debuted two new pieces today – a silk polka-dot blouse by Equipment and a new pair of trousers by Zara. While Kate has been slowly but surely incorporating trousers into her professional uniform, it still manages to catch me by surprise! Particularly now that she’s really been embracing the trend for looser silhouettes.
As for the blouse, the polka-dots are obviously very Kate, but I think Equipment may be a brand debut for her (I haven’t fact-checked that, though). Regardless, Equipment is pretty famous for making perfectly fitting silk blouses – those who stumble upon them, tend to end up buying bulk! I’ve toyed with it over the years, but have never quite pulled the trigger, though you can definitely find them for relatively reasonable prices.
As for site logistics here, we are in the midst of our Richard III series. There was a new post published this morning and another two scheduled for tomorrow and Saturday. We’ll break for the week to cover the Sussexes’ South Africa tour Monday through Thursday, and then pick up again with history next weekend. There’s a chance that we’ll see some paparazzi shots of Harry and Meghan tomorrow – they’re expected to attended Misha Nonoo’s wedding in Italy . Depending on the quality of the photos (assuming we get them at all) I’ll write up a post, but I may just publish some to the Instagram page. TBD! (And if you don’t have Instagram, you can also follow along on Facebook – I’ll make sure the photos are posted there as well.)
In the meantime, Happy Thursday 🙂