On the 13th July 2017, the Duchess of Cambridge (Kate Middleton) visited the Natural History Museum in London.
As you may recall, Kate is Royal Patron of the Natural History Museum.
She attended the unveiling of the new whale skeleton named Hope in the Museum’s Hintze Hall.
The hall has been closed for the last six months due to refurbishment. Hope replaces Dippy, the famous 21.3m resin cast of a diplodocus dinosaur skeleton, which is currently on tour around the UK.
Regular readers of this blog will remember that Kate attended a “goodbye” party for Dippy at the museum back in November 2016.
The Natural History Museum hopes that the whale skeleton will remind visitors of the need to protect our oceans.
Sir David Attenborough attended the museum’s opening evening too. The pair toured the new hall’s new ‘Bay of Wonders’ exhibition.
During the evening, Kate met with the museum’s curators and heard about ocean ecology and conservation. Two topics Kate’s very interested in, according to Kensington Palace.
During her visit, Kate gave a speech, explaining that she’s “always been in awe of the sea”.
Like many of you here tonight, I remember visiting the Natural History Museum as a child, and being inspired with a love of nature. And now, as a parent myself, I am experiencing the joy all over again with my own children, who adore coming here, and it is not just to see the T-Rex mind you.
You can read the full speech here.
Kate’s outfit:
Kate debuted a new dress by Preen for tonight’s visit to the museum. It’s the designer’s Everly dress in light blue.
The stretch-crepe dress features a scoop neckline, a gathered waist, cap sleeves, a flared skirt that hits below the knee and softly gathered pleats.
The Everly dress was exclusive to Net-A-Porter.com in pale blue, where it retailed for £637 GBP / $683 USD. It was sold out prior to the event.
It looks like Kate wore the Prada Scalloped Suede Sandals in plum purple (shop similar in black here).
The Italian-made suede shoes feature a 4.5 inch stiletto heel, three precision-cut wavy straps and a zip fastening at the back.
Kate’s purple box clutch is new. It’s the Jem Clutch by Jerome C. Rousseau.
At present, the box clutch can only be purchased in a limited amount of colours from jeromecrousseau.com. I cannot find a photograph of the purple version online. The Jem clutches retail between $595 and $995 USD. The white python version pictured above costs $695.
Anybody who has followed this blog since 2011 will recognise Kate’s earrings. They’re the Temple of Heaven style by Cassandra Goad.
The 9ct yellow gold earrings can be ordered from Cassandragoad.com for £1,685 (that’s around $2,190 USD).
Note: if that’s not within your budget, you can find a pretty good copy on ETSY for £15.98 / $20.
Huge thank you to @followallroyal, @Japanese_Ginger and @regalreplikate for assistance with IDs
Oh, everything about this look was PERFECTION!
The light blue. The shoes, I remember her wearing under a long dress before and so glad to see them completely on display here. And the earrings, the PURPLE in the clutch.
I just loved this. Bravo, Kate!
I love seeing her in Preen. Hope she’ll wear more by them!