How cancer-stricken Kate has turned the Breton into her own comfort blanket: LIZ JONES
We all need a comfort blanket, don't we? Something to shore us up, hide behind: the one thing that never lets us down.
Prince William, in a video posted on Instagram alongside Kate on Sunday to celebrate Team GB's success at the Olympics, looked older, more confident, relaxed and completely in charge while in at-home holiday mode. The reason? He was sporting a brand new beard.
And Catherine? Well, she was wearing her trusted style. Yes, she revealed a slightly new look – side-parted hair streaked with caramel, a new ring alongside her wedding band. But her top told us everything we need to know. We haven't lost her. She hasn't changed. All is right with the world.
The Breton navy and white sailor top is a garment go-to whenever she wants to feel and look like a woman, not a princess. For when she needs reassurance; and to reassure. To appear relaxed when her life is perhaps in turmoil, or steeped in emotion.
The £139 Ralph Lauren Breton in the video is new, but some in her possession are more than 11 years old. Each has a subtle tweak – a navy neck, a higher neckline, cut narrow or boxy, in wool, cotton or cashmere.
Catherine wore her trusted Breton style while appearing in a video to celebrate the success of Team GB at the Olympics
Kate used the comfy embrace when she braved the cameras to tell us of her cancer diagnosis
But there is one constant: it's what she wears for strength. Some people have therapy dogs. For Kate, the Breton is her emotional support top.
And my goodness she has needed that comfy embrace, that trusty armour, ever since she came into the public eye. And never more so than when, after months of speculation, she braved the cameras to tell us of her cancer diagnosis.
Many said that William should have been sitting beside her, holding her hand, when she made that announcement. But all Kate needed was her Breton top.
On that occasion, it was cashmere, £160, and by her friend and favourite designer, Erdem. But it could just have well been by Boden, so human, vulnerable and one of us did she seem. All we needed to know is that here at last was something safe and familiar – both the woman and the sweater. Phew.
The choice of Breton stripe shows she is loyal, not easily swayed and definitely not vain. When chosen as the cover star for UK Vogue's 100th anniversary, Kate opted on the inside pages not for a ballgown, but for a simple Breton top. It was a subtle wink to us, the reader: Hey, I'm not a supermodel, are you kidding? I'm just like you.
Kate has worn variations of the top for a supermarket shop, out sailing, when playing with her children, and when making appeals for her various charities.
When she revisited the University of St Andrews, where she fell in love with William, out it came again to calm her emotions. And up it popped during the pandemic, when she and William spoke via Zoom about lockdown and mental health. The antithesis of panic, it simply meant the show will go on.
The Breton simply works – and very hard. Why?
Well, the neckline is flattering, as are the long sleeves, which crucially aren't too long. The bracelet length suggests that here is someone who does the washing-up, who gets stuck in.
The stripes are jaunty, never boring. No fussy buttons or zips. Most importantly, the stripes (traditionally 21 white and 21 blue on the body; 15 and 14 on each sleeve) are more often than not navy.
It's a colour described by former Vogue editor Alexandra Shulman as 'like one of those people who were born, not middle-aged, not old, but simply never young, travelling through life in their own slipstream. Navy is an aide, rather than the star'.
The Princess of Wales wore Breton while delivering a message during lockdown in April 2020
Kate at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in 2013. In Breton she is approachable but smart
That is Kate to a tee. Never a slavish follower of trends, never a show-off, in a Breton she is approachable but smart. The Breton is the sort of thing slung on by Coco Chanel, Jane Birkin, Audrey Hepburn or Alexa Chung: women happy in their own skin.
As the most famous woman in the world, Kate knows what she wears will be endlessly dissected for clues, nit-picked. Wearing a Breton is disarming. She's saying: 'This isn't about what I'm wearing. This is about what I'm here to say.'
The Breton not only gives Kate a reassuring hug, it calms us down, too. Empathetic woman that she is, she realises we need to see her looking exactly like her old self. Familiar in a world of chaos. Yes, a bit safe and bland – but that's precisely what we need!
Of course, the choice of an iconic French style could well have been a nod to the Games having taken place in Paris. But it was also a great big hello to the rest of us, from an old friend we've really missed.
