Kate Middleton Believes In Hand-Me-Downs for Her Family (Lucky Kids!)

Royals
Kate Middleton Believes In Hand-Me-Downs for Her Family (Lucky Kids!)
James Middleton says his big sister gave his son Inigo “suitcases” full of gently worn royal duds from her own kids.

By Erin Vanderhoof
September 26, 2024
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Photo by Karwai Tang/WireImage.

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James Middleton, the younger brother of Princess Kate and Pippa Matthews, has long talked about how his older siblings were sources of sisterly love as he dealt with difficulties in school and a bout of depression in 2017. In his new memoir, Meet Ella: The Dog Who Saved My Life, he talks about how that support carried over when he and wife Alizée Thevenet welcomed their first son Inigo in October 2023.

According to an excerpt published by People, Kate and Pippa’s parenting advice came along with articles of clothing saved from their children. “We are an affectionate and close-knit family and there are lots of hugs and laughter,” James writes. “Catherine and Pippa bring two big suitcases of hand-me-down clothes, so Inigo’s cupboards are full of sweet little outfits his cousins—even the girls— have worn.”

My sisters both have huge grins on their faces. It takes them back to the days when their firstborns were as tiny as their new nephew. ‘Welcome to parenthood,’ they say,” he adds. “We’re deluged with advice from my sisters, but we muddle through in our own way, sometimes getting things right, sometimes wrong.”

The famously close Middleton family also includes parents Michael and Carole, and Inigo was their seventh grandchild. Kate and Prince William are parents to Prince George, 11, Princess Charlotte, 9, and Prince Louis, 6. Pippa and her husband James Matthews share Arthur, 5, Grace, 3, and Rose, 2. Pippa was last spotted in public with her sister in July, when she accompanied Kate and Charlotte on a trip to watch tennis in Wimbledon.

The Middletons came together to support Kate after she was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year, and Carole was a guest at Anmer Hall, the couple’s Norfolk country home, as she recovered from chemotherapy. When Kate released a video saying that she had completed treatment earlier this month, Michael and Carole were both briefly pictured playing cards in the video. According to another excerpt of Meet Ella obtained by The New Daily, the Middletons are avid card players and they might be too competitive for the royal brother-in-law.

“William would flinch at our ruthless determination to win at all costs. He’d be delighted to be the first out, and when no longer compelled to take part, he’d slink off to cuddle [my dog] Ella,” James writes. “Better still, he’d absent himself from the game entirely. ‘James, does Ella need a walk?’ he’d ask, before we’d even started dealing the cards. My sisters and I would exchange a knowing glance. William, for all the competitive rigor of his military training, was happy to be a loser at cards.”