Last week at the Trooping the Colour, the Princess of Wales opted for a “mummy-and-me” look with her nine-year-old daughter, Princess Charlotte. Kate wore a striking aquamarine Catherine Walker coat dress with a matching fascinator, while Charlotte was dressed in a similarly hued outfit, in a move that has been heralded as “a masterclass in mother-daughter style”.
It’s not a new phenomenon. Princess Diana pulled off a similar trick for the same event in 1988, sporting a smart pea-green dress on the balcony of Buckingham Palace while carrying a young Prince Harry dressed in matching shorts. But the Waleses have arguably fine-tuned the technique, frequently appearing en masse in coordinated outfits. Kate and Charlotte wore similar sailor-style dresses at Trooping the Colour in 2024 and matching black coat dresses with deep pleats and wide-brimmed hats at Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral in 2022. Kate paired a forest green fascinator with Charlotte’s little green coat while attending church at Sandringham on Christmas Day in 2019. And they also donned matching mother and daughter silver and crystal headpieces for King Charles III’s Coronation in 2023.
“Kate dresses her family like this as a way of marking it apart from the rest of the royal family and also to provide a big show of unity and togetherness, because the strength of the monarchy lies in the Waleses brand, especially at the moment,” says Charlotte Griffiths, royal commentator and editor at large of The Mail on Sunday. “After all, William is going to be King in the not-too-distant future.” The Waleses are “pictorially aware” these days, she adds, and matching outfits make for a great photo opportunity that can add a level of “mystique”. Furthermore, she says, it’s important to Kate that Charlotte is a “chip off the old block”. “The narrative is that Charlotte is just like the late Queen – and looking very formal and traditional with perfect hair plays into this. Louis is the ‘joker’, so he can have his skew-whiff tie. They get George to look as much as possible like William. It’s all about lineage and protecting the future.”
And where the royals tread, mere mortals tend to follow. Matching outfits, particularly between mothers and daughters, have become a popular trend among celebrities and their children. Beyonce and Blue Ivy often coordinate their outfits, wearing matching Gucci dresses with a blue rose and bee floral print by the Eiffel Tower in Paris in 2016, and more recently spotted in orange and blue football sequinned jerseys in behind-the-scenes footage from Beyonce’s world tour in 2023. Kim Kardashian and her daughter North wore a matching sequinned metallic dress to attend Kanye West’s gig at Madison Square Garden in 2016, and Kim twinned with her younger daughter, Chicago, in off-white and light blue dresses for Christmas Eve in 2023.
Naturally enough, Joe Public has also got in on the act. I recently saw a mum wearing a bohemian maxi dress with her toddler perched in her Bugaboo pram wearing a classic smock dress in identical print, strolling down Westbourne Grove. At a party for one of my daughter’s classmates, the mum coordinated her all-in-white look with the birthday girl. Another mum in the local playground wore pink and white striped pyjama-style trousers, while her daughter wore a dress in the same colours.
Unsurprisingly, the high street has been quick to catch on. Stores like Trotters, Boden, La Coqueta and Needles & Thread, which has concessions at Harrods and Selfridges, actively cater for this upmarket trend, with rails of expensive pretty florals and dreamy ruffles that offer a “royal” or bohemian look with plenty of mummy-and-me scope.
La Coqueta, a popular Spanish children’s brand, is a favourite among yummy mummies in Notting Hill, and this year has teamed up with Hill House Home to create a 14-piece capsule “Mama & Mini” collection that includes the Rita and Matilda dresses in their exclusive green bird floral print. More affordable, but still unmistakably middle-class, is Boden, which offers identical mother-child items.
Trotters, meanwhile, remains the holy grail for middle-class parents seeking royal emulation: “Daddy & Me” swimwear and matching “Mummy & Daughter” shoes and pyjamas are proudly on offer. So aspirational is Trotters that house prices tend to increase in the nearby areas, the clothing equivalent of the “Waitrose effect”.
Yet one wonders whether these more high-end stores are helping to contribute to a sense of sameness in affluent middle-class boroughs – and beyond, through online sales. Their influence means local communities risk becoming bland mummy-and-me breeding grounds. Moreover, something is infantilising about mums sporting Hello Kitty pyjamas, and equally, something conspicuously over-curated about dreamy Instagram-able shots of mother and daughter in blissful sartorial harmony. They do little to reflect the real-life messiness of parenting.
“Mother–daughter dressing can symbolise emotional connection and shared identity, with the child often seen as an extension of the mother,” says Professor Carolyn Mair, a cognitive psychologist working in the fashion industry and the author of The Psychology of Fashion.
“However, although this behaviour is often affectionate, matching outfits can also reflect the mother’s need to project aspects of herself onto her child, sometimes crossing into control or identity projection, particularly in curated public images.”
Generally, most young children love the idea of dressing like a parent,” says Charlotte Kewley, a children’s fashion stylist and founder of The Little Stylist (thelittlestylist.com). “But it can become problematic if the child doesn’t enjoy the attention – especially if it draws focus to them.”
It can also veer into naff rather than sweet, she says. “It’s most successful when not completely head-to-toe identical. As with any trend, some brands do it beautifully, others, less so.”
I can understand dressing young siblings in the same pretty dresses for practicality and ease, and to prevent jealousy and arguments. But including a parent in these copycat fashion moments places too much importance on outer appearances. It also risks taking away childhood innocence by moulding children into little polite adults. I’d never let my children be seen dead wearing the same outfit as me, and vice versa.
However, at least when it comes to tweens, even the most dedicated matchy-me mother will struggle to get their child into the cute floaty dress. No teenager wants to be seen dead in their parents’ clothes – unless it’s cool vintage designer garb – and that’s just how it should be. Let’s hope Kate and Charlotte get the memo.