On Thursday, Kate Middleton hosted a banquet for the Red Roses, England’s national women’s rugby team, in Windsor Castle’s Crimson Drawing Room. Decorated to reflect the white-and-red English flag, this is the castle’s most patriotic room, and Kate chose an appropriate outfit for the occasion. To greet the women, who won the World Cup last September, she wore a familiar crimson Alexander McQueen suit with an asymmetrical front.
During the event, Kate told the players that she plays rugby at home with her three children, Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis. “Now, if I play at home, I do not want to get tackled by George!,” she said. “It’s such a great game.” Kate also noted that this is a sport young children can play co-ed: “They shouldn’t necessarily need to pigeonhole boys and girls into particular sports too early.”
Kate became patron of the Rugby Football Union in 2022, after Prince Harry left his role as a senior royal, and it’s one of the royal duties that obviously aligns with her passions. In 2014, Kate’s sister, Pippa Matthews, wrote an essay for Vanity Fair about the Middleton family’s love for watching rugby at home. When the Red Roses were competing in the Rugby World Cup last fall, Kate attended a semifinal match at Albion Stadium in Brighton and Hove, England, and even donned a bright red cowboy hat to show her support for the team. During the Thursday event, Red Roses captain Zoe Stratford presented Kate with a bag of memorabilia, including a crisp, white England rugby jersey.
This striking crimson suit is one of the princess’s standbys for significant events. The princess first debuted the outfit in January 2023, when she delivered a speech about her early childhood education project “Shaping Us,” which summarized many years of her research and work on the subject. It was designed by Sarah Burton, the designer who spent 13 years at the helm of Alexander McQueen, the iconic British house named for its founder, who died in 2010. In 2011, Burton designed Kate’s elegant, sleeved wedding dress; the pair have had a working relationship ever since. In 2024, Burton became the creative director of Givenchy; Kate wore one of the gowns from Burton’s first collection for the house at a state dinner honoring France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, in July 2025.
During the Thursday event at Windsor, she paired the suit with earrings from Katherine James, which feature five pearls inset in a coral-like structure cast in 18k gold. Kate also wore an Auree Jewelry necklace featuring a garnet pendant atop a gold disc. Garnet is Kate’s birthstone—she celebrated her 44th birthday on January 9—and she has an extensive collection of jewelry featuring the gem.