Kate Middleton in her Emilia Wickstead Dress
Kate Middleton in her Emilia Wickstead Dress REUTERS

It is no secret the Queen loves Kate Middleton and here is one of the reasons why she does - it's because the Duchess of Cambridge is very thrifty!

We should begin by pointing out that the Royal Historian Roy Strong affectionately titled the Queen as a "make do and mend Queen". So... when Kate wore the same outfit, in public, more than once, the Queen was apparently all praises for the Duchess.

"Roy Strong, the Royal Historian, talks about both the Queen's affection for Kate and her approval of Kate wearing the same outfits more than once. She also likes the fact that Kate and her mother share clothes," the Examiner reports. Strong opined that since the Queen grew up during the war years, she made many sacrifices for the country.

"That's something that's stayed with the Queen all her life, and I think that's partly why she likes Kate, who's not afraid to wear the same dress twice," Strong said.

For example, at the Diamond Jubilee garden party, Kate wore the Emilia Wickstead dress she wore two weeks ago. It was the same £1,200 Emilia Wickstead dress she wore for the Royal Sovereign's lunch in honour of the Queen's Jubilee at Windsor Castle. She paired the dress with a pretty Jane Corbett hat trimmed with lace and pearl earrings, LK Bennett pumps and a few simple accessories.

Emilia Wickstead, meanwhile, is delighted Kate fancies her dresses.

"We are happy, delighted and excited to see Kate in one of our designs. She looked lovely," a spokesperson for the designer said.

This is not the first time Kate has spotted repeating a dress. The Duchess repeated outfits for her engagement and the Canadian tour and then again in 2006, when at the wedding of Zara Philips and Mike Tindall. Moreover she also shares clothes with her mother. The £139 Reiss dress she wore to The Treehouse children's charity in East Anglia was worn by her mother, Caroline Middleton, to the Royal Ascot in 2010.

The Queen herself has recycled outfits at various times, according to The Sun. The primrose yellow outfit she wore to William and Kate's wedding was recycled, with slight alterations, for the Australian tour.