Yesterday The Duchess of Cambridge left the house (or palace) yet again and entered the public spectacle. This time she was going to watch Gary Barlow perform at London's Royal Albert Hall. You haven't heard the juicy bit yet: she was wearing, wait for it... clothes! It seems wherever the new young royal seems to go, the fashion crowd are eager to see what she's wearing, how she's wearing it and where it came from.
The, what we've decided to call the Kate Middleton effect, has been responsible for boosting retailers sales all year long and it's set to continue. Last year, Kate wore several dresses from high end retailer Reiss causing their website to crash completely. Reiss stores were also inundated with phone calls from customers eager to get their mitts on K.Middy's style. Ms. Middleton has also been attributed with soaring sales of sheer tights: it was reported that Debenhams saw sales of sheer tights lift by 65 per cent in the two weeks following the Royal Wedding in April whilst Marks & Spencer, too, saw sales of sheers soar by more than a third compared to 2010.
It appears it's got to the point that when retailers are looking at their year ahead plan, they'd be best advised to slip a Kate Middleton-esque dress in there in the hopes that the newly wed will wear it; think slim pencil dresses and chic shifts. And finally, for those of you who have found this article in a bid to hunt down the Zara dress that the Duchess wore last night unfortunately it has sold out (I proove my point!), but you can get the skirt version here.