If Kate Middleton thought her kids would be envious of her outdoor pizza party with other school kids on Tuesday, just wait until Princess Charlotte hears about her mum’s latest outing!
The royal mum got the chance to tour the costume department of the Royal Opera House in London on Wednesday. She arrived in a magenta skirt suit by Oscar de la Renta (a royal rewear from February 2017!) and new sky-high Rupert Sanderson black pumps with a gold buckle. She also swapped her usual nude stockings for black opaque tights, and she carried a Queen-approved black leather handbag by Aspinal of London.
And she’ll have lots to tell her 3-year-old daughter when she returns to the palace, as she got to meet three principal dancers from the Royal Ballet: Lauren Cuthbertson, Laura Morera and Vadim Muntagirov. She also got the chance to watch the dancers rehearsing the ballet The Two Pigeons.
Charlotte loves to dance and has been taking ballet lessons in London, PEOPLE recently revealed. Kate also recently took her young daughter to see The Nutcracker ballet at the Royal Opera House in December.
During the outing on Wednesday, Kate said that Charlotte enjoyed the “little introduction” to the Royal Ballet last month and had “been very keen [on ballet] ever since.”
There’s another family link to Kate’s visit to the opera house. The royal got the opportunity to learn more about the scale of the department’s work and the production of various costumes.
Kate’s great-great-grandfather, Francis Martineau Lupton, was a mill owner who ran the family’s successful textile manufacturing business, William Lupton & Company, with his three brothers.
During her visit to the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, London, Kate also visited the pattern room to see the process of working and creating costumes for a new production with designers, including sourcing fabrics and samples. She was then taken to the dye shop where staff displayed different techniques from dyeing to hand-painting and digital printing.
The costume department is responsible for creating, refurbishing and conserving thousands of opera and ballet costumes per season, with up to 600 costumes needed per production. That can add up to 10,000 costumes each year being supplied for The Royal Ballet and The Royal Opera House.
The department has built up a historic costume collection of more than 5,000 items, including some dating back to 1861. Many of the costumes are used time and time again thanks to good maintenance and repair. It takes the entire revival workroom around 1,500 hours to refurbish the costumes.
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