The most stylish mother-daughter dressing is usually entirely inadvertent and bred from years of sharing the same house and often having the same body type. It doesn’t (thankfully) mean choosing identical dresses for Christmas lunch, but instead means naturally turning to similar colours, fabrics and cuts.
Carole Middleton and the Duchess of Cambridge exemplify mother-daughter dressing at its best. While Kate has to turn up the glamour a lot more often than your average person, she also seems happiest outside of London in well-cut jeans and a jumper. And it is clear where she gets this country-chic aesthetic from… This week, to promote the importance of keeping our beaches clean, Carole put up an image on the Party Pieces Instagram account of herself in a Fjällräven all-weather jacket, jeans, Blundstone ankle boots and a striped Zara top. The entire outfit was Kate down to a (Breton) T.
Over their shared years in the spotlight, the two women have passed hats, dresses and even shoes between Bucklebury Manor and Kensington Palace – but I’d wager that most of the time their similar outfits are pure coincidence. Both on and off-duty, their aesthetic is remarkably similar and while Kate is taller and now a bit narrower than her mother (in an interview with the Telegraph in 2018, Carole explained that her changing shape had made her rethink some of her favourite dress shapes) their bodies and complexions also suit the same cuts and colours.
Although one thing the Middletons rarely do is wear matching outfits on the same day – thankfully, really, as the result can be somewhat ridiculous. I learned this the hard way when my mother and I met one morning at a cafe in Paris wearing identical bright red ballet shoes with very similar tweed jackets, white shirts and jeans. It looked like we had dressed that way on purpose and Parisians were openly laughing at us. On the bright side, my mother offered to buy me a new pair of shoes on the spot.
