The Duchess Directory: The ultimate guide to Kate’s favourite fashion brands

From high street to designer, check out Kate Middleton's go-to shops

kate middleton fashion brands
(Image credit: 2020 Samir Hussein)

From high street to designer, check out Kate Middleton's go-to shops

If you had your pick of Kate Middleton's dresses, how many fashion gems do you think you’d find? There’s a plethora of McQueen, sure. Boxes and boxes of nude L.K. Bennett courts, obviously. But the Duchess Of Cambridge is also really good at introducing us to niche new brands that we would never previously have heard of.

She's the ultimate fashion diplomat, whose impeccable style choices have been known to build bridges between nations (remember when she tactically wore Canadian-born British designer Erdem to kick off her royal tour in Ottawa, or wore this dress in Poland?), and the Kate Middleton effect leads to an instant sell-out of any item she wears.

'There is no question that Kate choosing to wear Reiss has impacted our brand,' David Reiss, Founder and Managing Director of Reiss told us. 'We have noticed a significant increase in terms of brand interest and awareness globally, strengthening existing markets and attracting attention in markets we are yet to enter.'

Getting Duchess Kate’s seal of approval is the ultimate honour for any fashion brand, but the impact her endorsement can have on small businesses in particular has been known to literally see tiny labels launch into fully fledged companies overnight.

'I was so excited the first time I found out that the Duchess had chosen to wear one of our dresses,' Natasha Rufus Isaacs, co-founder of ethical fashion label Beulah told us. 'We were a relatively unknown and young label, and it definitely helped spread the word about us and the cause that we support.'

Kate Middleton's favourite fashion brands

Find out more about Beulah, Reiss and all of Kate Middleton’s favourite high street and designer fashion brands below, plus shop our edit to recreate her royal wardrobe. Don’t forget to check our Marie Claire vouchers site before you shop for the latest offers and discounts.

Penny Goldstone

Penny Goldstone is the Digital Fashion Editor at Marie Claire, covering everything from catwalk trends to royal fashion and the latest high street and Instagram must-haves.

Penny grew up in France and studied languages and law at the Sorbonne Nouvelle University in Paris before moving to the UK for her MA in multimedia journalism at Bournemouth University. She moved to the UK permanently and has never looked back (though she does go back regularly to stock up on cheese and wine).

Although she's always loved fashion - she used to create scrapbooks of her favourite trends and looks, including Sienna Miller and Kate Moss' boho phase - her first job was at MoneySavingExpert.com, sourcing the best deals for everything from restaurants to designer sales.

However she quit after two years to follow her true passion, fashion journalism, and after many years of internships and freelance stints at magazines including Red, Cosmopolitan, Stylist and Good Housekeeping, landed her dream job as the Digital Fashion Editor at Marie Claire UK.

Her favourite part of the job is discovering new brands and meeting designers, and travelling the world to attend events and fashion shows. Seeing her first Chanel runway IRL at Paris Fashion Week was a true pinch-me moment.