Kate Middleton Is Rethinking Her Style for 2025
A new year, a new wardrobe for Kate Middleton. Fashion commentators say the Princess of Wales, 43, is poised to “reevaluate” her style as 2025 gets underway. Why? After all, Kate’s royal fashion often sees her make best-dressed lists. Because her “sartorial choices” are “important” when it comes to her “relationship with the public.”
Kate Middleton is tapped to review her wardrobe for 2025
It’s a new year and Kate just might be looking at her clothing with an analytical eye. According to Christine Ross, a royal expert and author, and What Kate Wore blogger Susan Kelley, 2024 may have emphasized the importance of clothes for Kate.
“In the past year, the Princess of Wales demonstrated how well she understood the power of her fashion choices,” Ross told Marie Claire.“During a time when she needed to appeal to public sympathies and relate to others going through [cancer] treatment, we saw her in casual, accessible outfits. When she needed to assure us that she was well as she returned to public duties, she returned to formal dresses that were familiar and reassuring.”
Kate wore a striped shirt to announce her cancer diagnosis in March 2024. For Trooping the Colour in June 2024, her first big public appearance since her diagnosis, Kate tweaked a previously seen dress. Later, in December 2024, Kate stuck to bold outerwear, one of her signatures, at her annual Christmas carol concert.
“I think the past year taught her how important her sartorial choices are for her relationship with the public,” the author of The Princess Project newsletter added. “And I suspect she will reevaluate her royal wardrobe for next year.”
Middleton may promote royal work through her clothes and do more wardrobe ‘repeats’
So, what’s in store for Kate sartorially in 2025? While she and her longtime stylist, Natasha Archer, likely have the specifics, Ross and What Kate Wore blogger Susan Kelley are forecasting what’s in store.
Ross, for her part, suggested Kate could promote the royal family’s work by way of her clothing choices in 2025. The 43-year-old might wear “more brands that get a leg up from the King’s Foundation, to promote the work that the foundation does for UK businesses.”
Meanwhile, Kelley shared she “wouldn’t be surprised” if Kate spent “even less time on her wardrobe,” opting to “increase the number of repeats, especially in the dress coat category.”
Designer brands, however, are tapped to remain a mainstay in Kate’s wardrobe. The reason is because “no one wants a princess shopping on Amazon Essentials and sharing the affiliate links in the name of economizing.”
As for brands Kate might wear, Ross and Kelley suggested Britain’s own Clementine & Mint, Daisy London, Pangaia, and Finisterre.
Kate’s 2025 wardrobe isn’t likely to include lots of pantsuits
Remember Kate’s seemingly endless number of pantsuit outfits in 2023? Kelley predicts the future queen won’t wear so many of them this year.
“I don’t think we’ll see a return to the ‘all trouser suits, all the time’ sort of shift that we saw in 2023,” Kelley said. Rather, she predicts “we’ll see the princess in her usual mix of dresses or separates, as well as some trouser suits. But I wouldn’t look for any major overhauls to the mix.”
“The reaction was less than positive,” Ross said of Kate’s time wearing almost exclusively pantsuits. “She was clearly trying to send a message that she means business and her work was her top priority,” the expert explained. But she missed the mark. “Instead, readers and royal watchers started to lose interest as the events blended into one colorful blur. Articles got less clicks, posts received fewer views. And then the charities and programs she was working with didn’t see a successful boost.”
However, pantsuits won’t likely be gone from Kate’s 2025 wardrobe entirely. Ross expects “[we] will see a reflection of all Kate has learned about the power of fashion with a balance of casual outfits, pantsuits for professional events, and the traditional princess dresses we love” this year.
At the time of writing, Kate has yet to make any public appearances in the new year. However, she did appear in a never-before-seen portrait released to mark her birthday on Jan. 9, 2025.
