The Coat Dress, a Royal Style Signature: Catherine and Meghan's Best Moments

Few pieces do more work in a royal wardrobe than the coat dress. It is formalwear and outerwear at once, built to stand up to a balcony wind at the Cenotaph or the hush of Westminster Abbey without a coat thrown over the top to spoil the line. Catherine, Princess of Wales, has made it something close to a personal signature, returning to the same bespoke Catherine Walker pieces year after year. Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, took a different route, favouring the soft, travel-ready wrap coat as her own answer to the same problem.

Neither approach is right or wrong. They are simply two women solving for different occasions, and looking at them side by side says a good deal about what each has valued in her royal wardrobe, then and now.

Catherine’s “Evie”: a coat dress with a name

Some royal garments earn nicknames because they are worn so often that royal watchers start to recognise them on sight. Catherine’s black bespoke Catherine Walker coat dress, dubbed “Evie” by fans who track her wardrobe, is a case in point. It debuted at the National Service of Remembrance at the Cenotaph in November 2020, a pared-back, socially distanced ceremony that suited its severe, military-inspired lines: a high collar, three diagonal pintucks across the front, and a silhouette closer to a uniform than a party frock. Catherine returned to it for Remembrance Sunday in 2024, this time with the fringing removed, the buttons changed and a velvet bow added at the neck, and again in 2025, when she updated it further with a lacy navy bib collar. Each version reads as the same coat dress in conversation with itself, refined rather than retired.

The red “Beau Tie”: festive glamour with a purpose

Not every coat dress in Catherine’s rotation is built for solemnity. The scarlet “Beau Tie” coat dress, from Catherine Walker’s autumn/winter 2020 collection, is cut from soft wool with pleats that fall from the shoulder and gather into a romantic bow at the neckline. She first wore it to the Together at Christmas Carol Service at Westminster Abbey in December 2022, a service she has hosted annually since founding it, and the colour and bow made it instantly recognisable against the Abbey’s stone. She brought it back in November 2023 for the state visit of South Korea’s president, and again for the 2025 Commonwealth Day service, proving a well-chosen coat dress can move fluidly between a carol service and a state occasion.

Catherine Walker: the house behind the silhouette

Both the “Evie” and the “Beau Tie” trace back to the same atelier. Catherine Walker was the French-born designer who dressed Diana, Princess of Wales, for some of her most memorable public moments, and the house she founded has quietly become one of the current Princess of Wales’s most trusted names for exactly this kind of formal outerwear. The coat dress format itself, structured, single-piece, no separate coat required, is something of a Catherine Walker speciality, and it is easy to read Catherine’s continued patronage of the label as its own small act of homage to her late mother-in-law, whose style she has referenced more than once in her choice of jewellery and silhouette alike.

Beyond ceremonial: a country coat for Christmas Day

Not every Catherine coat moment is built for a state occasion. Since 2021, she has favoured a brown checked coat by Blazé Milano for the family’s traditional Christmas Day walk to church at Sandringham, a far more relaxed, country-house piece than either the “Evie” or the “Beau Tie”. It is worth noting mainly for the contrast: Catherine’s formal coat dresses are reserved for Remembrance Sunday, carol services and state visits, while a checked wool coat does the job when the occasion calls for wellingtons rather than court shoes.

Meghan’s Sentaler: the wrap coat as travel companion

Meghan’s coat wardrobe tells a different story, one shaped by a life that moved between London, Toronto and, eventually, California. The Toronto-based label Sentaler, known for its camel-hued wrap and cape coats, became a recurring favourite well before she joined the royal family and remained one afterwards, including a camel Sentaler cape she wore cheering on Prince Harry at the Invictus Games. Where Catherine’s coat dresses are cut for standing still on a balcony, Meghan’s Sentaler pieces were built for movement: a wrap silhouette that layers easily over daywear and reads as polished without ever looking fussed over, a practical answer for a working royal whose calendar spanned continents.

Meghan’s Amanda Wakeley “Crombie”: a first-impression coat

If the Sentaler wrap was Meghan’s off-duty signature, the cream Amanda Wakeley “Crombie” coat was closer to her formal equivalent. She wore the sculpted, tailored coat to the Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey in March 2018, her first major royal engagement alongside the then-Queen, finished with a white beret by Stephen Jones. The coat reappeared the following February at a Buckingham Palace reception marking fifty years of the then-Prince of Wales’s public service, a sign that, like Catherine, Meghan understood a well-cut coat was worth the cost of repetition. It was a smaller, softer piece than Catherine’s structured coat dresses, but it did comparable work: elevating a straightforward daytime look for an occasion that mattered.

Two wardrobes, one shared instinct

Set against each other, the two approaches map onto two different chapters of royal life. Catherine’s coat dresses are built for the fixed points of the national calendar, Remembrance Sunday, a carol service, a state visit, occasions that repeat annually and reward a wardrobe with memory built in. Meghan’s coats answered a more itinerant brief, dressing a working royal whose diary crossed time zones as often as it crossed London postcodes. What unites them is a refusal to treat a good coat as disposable. Both women found pieces they trusted and returned to them, which is, in the end, the most flattering thing either can be said to have done with a coat.

A closing thought

Fashion coverage often wants a winner, but the more interesting story here is really about instinct. Catherine’s Catherine Walker coat dresses and Meghan’s Sentaler and Amanda Wakeley coats were each built for the life their wearer was living at the time, and both have aged well precisely because neither woman chased novelty for its own sake. That, more than any single silhouette, is the real lesson in the royal coat dress.

Frequently asked questions

What is Kate Middleton’s black “Evie” coat dress?

It is a bespoke black Catherine Walker coat dress in a military-inspired cut, with a high collar and three diagonal pintucks across the front. Catherine first wore it for the National Service of Remembrance at the Cenotaph in November 2020 and has reworn updated versions of it for Remembrance Sunday in the years since.

When did Kate Middleton first wear the red “Beau Tie” coat dress?

She debuted the scarlet Catherine Walker “Beau Tie” coat dress, from the label’s autumn/winter 2020 collection, at the Together at Christmas Carol Service at Westminster Abbey in December 2022.

Has Catherine reworn the red Catherine Walker coat dress?

Yes. After its 2022 debut, she wore it again in November 2023 for the state visit of South Korea’s president, and once more for the 2025 Commonwealth Day service.

Why does Catherine wear Catherine Walker so often?

Catherine Walker was one of Diana, Princess of Wales’s most trusted designers, and the house remains known for structured, occasion-ready coat dresses. Catherine’s continued patronage is widely read as both a practical wardrobe choice and a quiet nod to her late mother-in-law.

What coat does Catherine wear on Christmas Day at Sandringham?

For the family’s Christmas Day walk to church, Catherine has favoured a brown checked coat by Blazé Milano since 2021, a far more relaxed, countryside-appropriate piece than her formal Catherine Walker coat dresses.

What is Meghan Markle’s Sentaler coat?

Sentaler is a Toronto-based outerwear label known for camel-toned wrap and cape coats. Meghan wore Sentaler pieces regularly both before and during her time as a working royal, including a camel cape coat at the Invictus Games.

What is Meghan’s Amanda Wakeley “Crombie” coat?

It is a cream, sculpted tailored coat that Meghan wore to the Commonwealth Day service at Westminster Abbey in March 2018, her first major royal engagement, and again at a Buckingham Palace reception in February 2019.

How do Catherine’s and Meghan’s coat styles differ?

Catherine’s coat dresses are structured, ceremonial pieces tied to fixed points in the royal calendar, such as Remembrance Sunday and carol services. Meghan favoured softer wrap and tailored coats suited to a more itinerant working schedule. Both women are known for rewearing their favourites rather than debuting something new for every occasion.

This article draws on reporting from katemiddletonstyle.org, WWD, Fashionista and contemporaneous royal coverage of the events described. Dates and details have been cross-checked across multiple sources; please let us know if you spot an inaccuracy.