Mark Zuckerberg may have been distracted by Lauren Sanchez’s boudoir bra, Donald Trump may have looked daggers at Melania’s unyielding hat brim, but at the presidential inauguration on Monday, fashion-watchers all over the world only had eyes for the President’s eldest daughter, Ivanka.

From the green Dior skirt suit she wore to watch her father be sworn in, to the custom-made Givenchy gown in silk taffeta she had made for the Liberty Ball that evening, we loved the clothes, admired the hair – and thought her look strangely familiar.

For the woman Ivanka most resembled on this historic occasion was our own Kate, Princess of Wales, a woman who has been honing her image at ceremonial occasions for 14 years and who, at 43 years old, is Ivanka’s exact contemporary.

Evidently the President’s daughter has been taking notes from our future Queen, and not just in the sense that she has dialled up the timeless elegance and moved several steps away from the brasher style she favoured during Trump’s first term. (For Trump’s 2017 inauguration ceremony she wore an All American ivory pantsuit with an asymmetric long jacket and, for the evening balls, a sequin-spattered, nude-coloured full skirted dress and backcombed hair – worlds away from the minimal elegance of Monday night).

Ivanka appears to have been studying the wardrobe choices of the Princess of Wales and following her lead to the same designers.

On Tuesday, she attended the National Prayer Service in a red coat dress by one of Kate’s favourite labels, Suzannah London. With its brilliant red bow at the neck, it’s almost identical to the Catherine Walker Beau Tie coat dress that Kate first wore to her carol service in 2021 and which is now nicknamed the ‘Christmas dress’.

For Ivanka to pick a British label for an inauguration event is quite a statement: it says a lot for British fashion, but also speaks volumes about how she hopes to reframe her image.

Graceful, stylish, conservative but acutely photocall-conscious is what you get with the British princess, who has mastered the figure-flattering longline silhouette we now associate with royalty on public duty. A block colour dress with a fitted bodice and flared skirt with a big bow at the neck to break up the solid colour, and matching suede high heel pumps, is classic Kate. Ivanka copied her look almost to the letter, right down to the long loosely coiled hair.

On the inauguration day itself, Ivanka’s forest green haute couture Dior bar jacket skirt suit with matching hat, Lady Dior bag and black heels looked like an outfit straight out of Kate’s Westminster-Abbey-and-walkabout book. And if you file back through the Princess of Wales’s outfits you’ll find she wore a similar pillbox hat to Ivanka’s to church on Christmas Day last year. She also wore an LK Bennett green suit with matching hat in March 2012.

Even the children – Ivanka’s daughter Arabella Rose, 13, and sons Joseph, 11, and Theodore, eight – were given a royal makeover for the inauguration. The brief clearly was just dress them like Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis at the annual church service – which is how the heirs to the British throne have dressed for at least half a century.

For the ball in the evening, Ivanka’s stunning white embroidered Givenchy gown was accessorised with long black opera gloves recalling one of Kate’s all-time zinger looks – the one-shoulder Alexander McQueen white gown and black gloves she wore to the 2023 Baftas.

The royal style borrowing is not unprecedented; Ivanka’s been keeping one eye on Kate’s choices for several years and picking up on her best and, crucially, more high-end looks.

Bear in mind the Princess of Wales is obliged to wear high street labels as well as to support homegrown British designers, whereas Ivanka can pick any designer in the world and get all her outfits custom-made if she chooses. That makes it all the more obvious where she’s getting her inspiration from.

Back in 2023, Ivanka wore a blue version of the British designer Jenny Packham’s glittering Lotus Lady dress, the same one Kate owns in gold and first wore two years previously.

In November 2024, on the night of the US election, Ivanka waited for the results to come in wearing an electric blue velvet trouser suit that might have been vintage Gucci but was a dead ringer for one Kate owns by British designer Alexander McQueen.

Both women have worn that memorable Alessandra Rich navy and white polka dot dress with the white collar and cuffs.

Alessandra Rich launched in this country before relocating to Milan and has since become associated with the new easier, hair-loose elegance of modern royalty that Catherine has been quietly and steadily forging over the past few years.

We still think of Kate as a young woman in skinny jeans, trainers and a Breton T-shirt, ready to dash about on a hockey pitch, but today she is also a global fashion icon who has found her groove and has a strong easily recognisable style.

The hair is a big part of it: long and lightly tonged or worn up in a French pleat, and very much key to her brand – relatable, feminine, elegant.

She wears the highest Manolo BB pumps sometimes but not all the time. She likes strong eye make-up but not false lashes. Simplicity with high impact is her forte and she increasingly sticks with one colour head to toe, or monochrome.

That white and black Jenny Packham dress with the stiff bow neck tie she wore for Trooping the Colour last summer – her stunning return to the fashion frontline after her cancer diagnosis – plus the hat by Philip Treacy is quintessential Kate.

Ivanka could do worse than scour Jenny Packham’s website for the Fourth of July celebrations, and perhaps give Philip Treacy a call. In fact, she probably will.