Kate's First Public Engagement In the Cancer Era
Plus, the mystery of her missing engagement ring.
I think you know what event we will be discussing today. You can call this a Monday Memory, or consider the Monday Memory preempted, but we are looking back to last week when Kate undertook her first official engagement since finishing chemo. If you categorize the various royal activities, as I do (I put Trooping and Wimbledon in a separate bucket with other major royal events like Garter Day and Remembrance Sunday, etc.), it was really the first “regular” engagement since before Christmas of last year—before cancer.
The Princess of Wales joined William in Southport to visit (privately) with the families of the three children murdered in an horrific knife attack in July. The couple then met with emergency responders who responded on the day and mental health professionals providing support in the aftermath.
Kate wore the custom McQueen coat she debuted in Boston with a Whistles dress underneath. She used the sash from the dress as a necktie—Kate still loves the bows at the neckline. :)
I was very excited to see Kate wearing her Catherine Zoraida leaf earrings. All her Zoraida pieces are so pretty, and in the last several years, she hasn’t been wearing a lot of her classic pieces from Kiki and Catherine Zoraida.
One of the most intriguing elements of Kate’s recent appearances is this new ring she is wearing, and, more importantly, the absence of her world famous sapphire engagement ring. I have to be frank that I find this a bit of a mystery. She did wear her engagement ring to Wimbledon, so I think we can assume she is not ditching it for superstitious reasons, but I don’t know. At Wimbledon, it appeared to be twisting on her hand. On a ring that big, if the fit is not right, it would rotate down very easily, which has got to be pretty annoying. That said, her wedding band, which we know is he tightest ring, does not look super loose right now.
It was also interesting that she left it off and even seemed to deliberately highlight the lack of engagement ring in her chemo video. All Kate’s rings have special meaning. We think that first eternity band was to mark George’s birth. Although the debut dates don’t match, the second two might be the completion—Charlotte and Louis—of her stack. Obviously, we are just guessing; I don’t have a confident theory. But because she wore her sapphire ring to Wimbledon, I assume we will see it return.
I have decided to suspend fashion analysis until at least the end of the year. My focus is simply on celebrating every “Kate sighting” we get and being grateful for her public presence, her health, and her smile.
It will be interesting to see if Kate keeps up a pace of surprise public engagements or if these will be few and far between. This event took place very shortly (just over a week) after her private meeting with Liz Hatton and her family. I assume Kate doesn’t want to set a regular routine, even if they are unannounced, because that still leaves the door open for speculation if she breaks from the routine. But who knows! After this, though, I am certainly hopeful we will see more of her than we initially thought in September.
So great to see her out again so soon after the her meeting with Liz Hatton. I know that not everyone likes her penchant for matching clothing colors with William (and the kids) but I think it's charming in an old-fashioned way that works for them.
As for the engagement ring, it may be something as simple as it's just not comfortable right now. Several years into my marriage I stopped wearing any rings (including my wedding ring) because they just weren't comfortable and I couldn't stand having rings on my fingers. It didn't mean that I wasn't committed to my marriage. It could also be that these rings mean more to her than the engagement ring, which many people may still see as Diana's ring. She's said repeatedly that she's focusing on things that provide comfort and meaning in her life and she may feel like she wore "The Ring" for years because the public expected it and now she's doing what is most meaningful to her.
I think that while Kate was touched at the meaning behind William giving her his mother’s ring, it’s been a mixed blessing. The ring suited Diana’s larger frame and matched her eyes beautifully. It photographed well, which mattered a lot in the increasingly media saturated world during Diana’s lifetime.
As Kate is so slim now, the ring may be uncomfortable to wear, as Jane mentioned.
My best prediction is that going forward “big blue” will be brought out during big royal occasions and it will be seen rarely during the day-to-day events. In time, it will become part of the royal regalia - tiara, orders, historically meaningful jewelry and became less associated as an engagement ring. I think this would be meaningful for William to preserve its place in royal history.