Thursday, 11th January 2018—The Duchess of Cambridge (Kate Middleton) attended the Head Start Learning Conference hosted by The Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families (AFNCCF).
The conference, which took place at Amnesty International’s London office, focussed on young people’s mental health. It was titled “Improving young people’s mental resilience and wellbeing: Learning from HeadStart”.
Kensington Palace usually announce the Duchess’s engagements in advance, but they did not tell the public Kate would be attending the conference, so it came as a surprise to fans. Sadly, there are few photos available.
After the conference took place, the palace tweeted:
The Duchess of Cambridge today attended the AFNCCF Conference on Improving Young People’s Mental Resilience and Wellbeing. This reflects her interest in early intervention in children’s mental health to help young people get support at an early age to prevent problems later on.
During the conference, HRH heard keynote speakers from the field of resilience research and met with young people and staff leading the ground-breaking HeadStart programme which focuses on building mental health and resilience in children and young people across the country.
Kate’s outfit:
As we explained above, there are few photographs from the conference, so it is difficult to see Kate’s full outfit. However, it is easy to identify her coat—it’s one she’s worn before. It’s the grey Bettina coat by Tory Burch.
The cotton-wool mix coat contains grey bouclé and metallic yarn woven into horizontal stripes with a hint of shimmer. The medium-length coat features long sleeves, gunmetal-tone buttons and slanted side pockets.
The Duchess first wore the piece during her visit to New York in 2014. Here’s Kate watching an NBA basketball game at the Barclay’s Center:
At the time, the coat could be purchased from a number of retailers, including Lane Crawford, where it last sold for $405 (was $675). It’s sold out now, as you’d expect. Try looking for it on eBay.
We can also see that Kate added a touch of sparkle to her outfit with her white gold and diamond Empress earrings by Mappin and Webb.
Kate wears the earrings regularly. She’s owned them since 2016—she first wore them (in public) at Princess Charlotte’s christening.
Mappin and Webb sell a range of Empress earrings with a variety of diamond weights. They vary in price from £1,500-£3,750—it’s difficult to know exactly which pair Kate wears.
On her feet, it looks like Kate is wearing Aquatalia’s Ruby Dry boots in black suede. The boots feature a large heel, a padded platform and subtle silver hardware. You can just make out the leather heel and silver hardware in the photo below:
Kate’s owns the boots in brown suede too. Here’s a photo of the Duchess wearing them in during her first official royal engagement with Prince William in 2011, shortly before marrying into the family.
The boots are known by a few different style names. Aquatalia’s original style name is ‘Rouge‘. They later re-released the boot with the style name ‘Royal‘ at Nordstrom. They’re now known as the ‘Ruby Dry‘ at Russell and Bromley (where we think Kate may purchase the boots—they’re the main stockist of the boots in the UK and the Duchess has been previously photographed shopping in the store.)
Sadly, Aquatalia no longer sell the shoe. Try looking for your size on eBay.
Comment Policy: Feel free to leave your opinion on Kate's outfit below. However, I do not welcome discussion on Kate's weight. I will not approve overly critical comments about Meghan either. I reserve the right to remove parts of your comment if I do not want to display them on the site! Thanks.