The Princess of Wales is a fashion icon but Kensington Palace will no longer issue information about where her cothes come from to avoid overshadowing her work

An image of Kate Middleton at Wimbledon
The Princess of Wales is a fashion icon (Image: Daily Express)

Kate Middleton has become a fashion icon and every time she wears a garment, its designer can expect a major boost in sales. So it has come as a shock to the industry that Kensington Palace will no longer give out information on where her clothes from.

Sources close to the Princess of Wales say she does not want what she wears to detract from her charity work after she became frustrated about the focus on what she was wearing. Royal expert Ingrid Seward believes it was a situation that woud drive Princess Diana “mad” with people more interested in her clothes as opposed to the message she was looking to promote.

She told the Mail on Sunday: “It used to drive Diana mad. She would be doing something she considered really important, and all everyone talked about was the length of her dress or who made it.” It is thought the ‘Kate effect’ was responsible for a £1 billion boost to the fashion industry after her 2011 wedding to Prince William.

And designers have reported a major increase in sales after she is photographed sporting their designs. A Kensington Palace source told the Sunday Times: “There is an absolute feeling that it [the public work] is not about what the princess is wearing.

“She wants the focus to be on the really important issues, the people and the causes she is spotlighting. There will always be an appreciation of what the princess is wearing from some of the public and she gets that. But do we need to be officially always saying what she is wearing? No. The style is there but it’s about the substance.”

Diana

Princess Diana became increasingly frustrated at the focus on what she wore (Image: Getty)

Antonia Valentin-Jacob, owner of Lacorine, called the decision “very, very sad”. The company received a major boost in 2017 when Kate, 43, wore one of its Alpaca hat on Christmas Day. She added: “Kate wearing our hat put us on the map and brought us to the next level worldwide.”