Kate's fashion in full effect

  Kate's fashion in full effect


Fashion's royal affair with Kate just keeps burning brighter.

Ever since Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, was crowned a member of the British royal family last year, she has captivated style watchers around the world who covet her understated and always wholly appropriate look.

Last week she topped Vanity Fair's international best dressed list and is set to grace the cover of the magazine's September issue.

Then there are the London Olympics, which have given the fashion media reason to rejoice as they track the duchess's outfits day by day.

Whether stepping out in a new blue Stella McCartney shift or recycling a dove grey Roksanda Ilincic dress at a recent glitzy London gala, Kate's latest looks always cause a minor frenzy for those who follow her choices label by label, accessory by accessory, scrutinizing the details down to whether it's the first time she's worn the outfit, or the fifth.

Those in the fashion industry call it the "Kate Effect." So influential are her fashion choices that what she wears can dictate trends and what sells out on the floor of retailers.

"She's now become the iconic woman of style," says Barbara Atkin, Holt Renfrew's vice-president of fashion direction.

"She's very consistent about who she is, which is probably the most infectious thing about Kate. The fact that yes, she might be royalty, but she's very inclusive of the people around her and I think that's the most wonderful aspect of who she is and why she so represents a strong woman of the 21st century."

Kate's sense of inclusiveness is one of the major reasons her style is admired. Not only does she wear brands the average person can afford - Zara, Topshop, the U.K's Reiss and Whistles - she's also known to recycle her outfits.

Her reassuringly thrifty choices (a recent Olympic sighting of her in a $55 Hobbs dress made headlines) sends the message that none of us need a million bucks to look great.

Atkin is completely candid about how the duchess influences buying at Holt Renfrew.

After seeing the famous blue Issa dress Kate wore for her engagement announcement, Holt Renfrew buyers immediately got on the phone to order that dress.

The store had carried Issa for years, but sales were "hit and miss." Then came the Kate effect and Issa became an overnight sensation. The blue dress sold out in Vancouver and other Holt Renfrew stores across Canada.

"We actually had people fighting over the last one," Atkin recalls.

Months later, when Prince William and his new bride made their first overseas tour to Canada, Holt Renfrew got on the phone to Canadian designers.

"We actually spoke to all the Canadian [designers] to see if they'd sent anything to Kate. Kate really wanted that Smythe jacket and she got it and we ordered it and it sold out to a T.

"It's a frenzy, I think it was two days and it was gone," says Atkin.

Kate recently rewore that same navy Smythe blazer at two Olympic events to the excitement of the label's Toronto designers, Christie Smythe and Andrea Lenczner.

"[We're] delighted that she chose to wear her blazer again a year later. We feel like Sally Field: She likes it, she really likes it," the designers wrote in an email to The Province.

The blazer, which will be available this fall at TNT stores, has been appropriately renamed "The Duchess."