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Kate Middleton Rose Hill School Visit Means New Dress, Old Shoes (PHOTOS)

The Huffington Post   First Posted: 02/21/2012 8:40 am Updated: 02/21/2012 6:35 pm

It's not rare for a girl to indulge in some retail therapy when she's feeling down. So perhaps with Prince William still on his six-week deployment to the Falkland Islands, leaving Catherine alone for Valentine's Day, the duchess went shopping for a new dress.

On Tuesday morning Kate Middleton wore an Orla Kiely patterned frock, paired with suede ankle booties (a style preferred by her sister, Pippa), to Rose Hill Primary School, where she visited a charity called The Art Room. One of the causes of which she is a patron, The Art Room uses art therapy to help young people with emotional and behavioral difficulties.

Some of these British youngsters were on hand to greet the princess, who stepped out of the car and into the frigid weather with nothing but a thin coatdress and tights, as she did for her first solo engagement earlier this month. Today she chose a brown print dress by Orla Kiely, a "high street" name whose lighthearted printed wares can be found at Anthropologie.

But good luck finding the dress, made with the brand's Birdie jacquard fabric, in stores or online. Already the coatdress, on sale for about $383, is "out of stock" on OrlaKiely.com. Anyone surprised?

Kate's shoes, on the other hand, aren't a new style set to fly off the shelves. The Duchess of Cambridge wore the same Aquatalia by Marvin K booties almost exactly a year ago when she and Prince William christened a boat at the Trearddur Bay Lifeboat Station at Anglesey, where the pair resides.

We liked 'em then and we like 'em now. Check out Kate on yet another solo trip -- do you like this brown birdie-print dress and the ankle boots?

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It's not rare for a girl to indulge in some retail therapy when she's feeling down. So perhaps with Prince William still on his six-week deployment to the Falkland Islands, leaving Catherine alone for...
It's not rare for a girl to indulge in some retail therapy when she's feeling down. So perhaps with Prince William still on his six-week deployment to the Falkland Islands, leaving Catherine alone for...
 
 
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08:59 PM on 02/23/2012
Wow..twice?? Kinda feel badly that I wear mine 10's of times.
09:47 AM on 02/23/2012
Is there something wrong with wearing a pair of shoes twice?...... and who was the Sherlock who discovered that these were the same boots she wore at a boat christening?..... Wow, a real cutting edge news report.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Brian Gorrell
Is this the 1950's or what?
10:22 PM on 02/22/2012
Yawn.
05:52 PM on 02/22/2012
Just noticed she's got the smoky eyes going on...during the day really? I wish I could steal all her black eyeliner...
06:11 PM on 02/22/2012
She wears heavy eye liner day and night and all the time.
05:49 PM on 02/22/2012
nothing special about the outfit...any girl can pull pull off this look. She needs to spray her shoes and I'm tired of seeing her look the same. She could have pulled up her hair in high ponytail and still have the curls she had going on. The makeup? well that's another story.
06:12 PM on 02/22/2012
That makeup will be her trademark for a while but there will soon come a time that it will be wiped off her face by those that have the say so. Still she'll be stuck with those painted by numbers wedding pictures for the rest of her life.
05:43 PM on 02/22/2012
Wow. So tailored and elegant. I admire her style. So what if she wore the same shoes again. Reduce, recycle, reuse. Right?
04:18 PM on 02/22/2012
Sweet girl. Nice dress. Cute shoes.

Moving on ...
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
DrucillaBee
01:28 PM on 02/22/2012
For starters there is nothing high fashion aboutt his look, old or new or any of her other "looks". Kate is an average dresser at best.
09:49 AM on 02/22/2012
Why is HuffPo so desperately trying to become the Daily Mail?
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08:55 PM on 02/22/2012
Revenue.
09:16 AM on 02/22/2012
She looks like a stick figure in photo #9. Her legs have a naturally great shape but they are way too think. It's freakishly scary. She looks like a young kid the way she is attired and groomed rather than a duchess in line to be a future queen. Middle class tastes tending toward trendy and young. She's 30 years old and a married adult out representing the Royal family.
08:25 AM on 02/22/2012
I just came by this article by mistake, really...is this what we call News now?
not sure what surprises me the most, journalist writing about this stuff or that some people actually "care" what shoes the princess is wearing...ugh!
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peacekitten
primum non nocere.
02:20 AM on 02/22/2012
good job, as usual, duchess.
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
DrucillaBee
01:29 PM on 02/22/2012
You need to quit. lol
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HUFFPOST COMMUNITY MODERATOR
KIVPossum
Moldova Marsupial
02:01 AM on 02/22/2012
What a shock!!! A woman wears the same pair of shoes twice in a year.
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peacekitten
primum non nocere.
02:11 AM on 02/22/2012
i know.  what is the world coming to???????
HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Kittenesque
10:27 PM on 02/21/2012
Looks like she just beat the queen as conservative brown.
10:24 PM on 02/21/2012
Just how many pairs of shoes is the Duchess suppose to have in her closet? Why even mention her shoes? So what if they've been worn before? If she likes them, finds them comfortable and they don't distract from her outfit, then why should anyone care if she wears the same pair 100 times? Do the fashion police want her to emulate Imelda Marcos and amass a collection of over 1000 shoes?