Monday Memory: April 14, 2016
If you still have royal tours on your mind after King Charles and Queen Camilla wrapped up their visit to Australia and Samoa, you are in luck. Because today’s Monday Memory is a return to April 14, 2016—William and Kate’s arrival day in Bhutan.
At the end of the couple’s tour of India in 2016, they popped over to Bhutan for a two-day visit to the Himalayan kingdom. The royal couple were formally greeted at welcome ceremony with King Jigme and Queen Jetsun of Bhutan at the Tashichho Dzong—a Buddhist temple and fortress.
Kate—34 at the time—wore a half-kira—a skirt modeled after a traditional Bhutanese kira. She had her own private tailor create the skirt in London from fabric woven by a woman in Bhutan. Kate paired the skirt with a belted wool cape by French label Paul & Joe.
Kate was wearing Kiki McDonough’s Amethyst pear drops and L.K. Bennett Floret heels. We got a good look at her accessories when William and Kate watched and competed in an archery competition and enjoyed tea as part of an afternoon learning about Bhutanese culture.
This type of visit highlights how special royal tours can and should be. Kate’s decision to wear an ensemble inspired by a traditional Bhutanese dress was a lovely nod to the host country. I worry these are the types of things the couple could shrink from in the future, but these colorful images—rich with the history and celebration of the host country—are truly what help make royal tours what they are.
William and Kate truly had smash hit after smash hit in the royal tours department. I hope so much that Kate fully recovers, and they undertake another visit to some wonderful locale in 2025.
If you missed Sunday’s update about little changes coming to this newsletter, please make sure you drop by and read it. You can find it here:
Changes: FBTB Newsletter
In February, I will have been writing this newsletter for two years. Many of you are longtime readers from my blogging days when I wrote on the Google Blogspot platform, but we have also expanded to many new subscribers. It has been fun to grow the
Such a fun and colourful tour. I learned a lot about Bhutan from this tour and it was wonderful to follow along without the criticism that marred later tours. I especially love the expression on Catherine’s face in the photo of William having a go at archery!
Oh my, I have somehow never seen these photos before, and they might be some of my favorites of them ever??? This look of Catherine's is so unique, and I just love the expressions on her face in both the archery photos.