By MAYSA RAWI

Plain Kate? The fashion director for US department store Nordstrom claims the Duchess of Cambridge 'blends into the crowd'

She has graced countless magazine covers and anything she wears sells out within days, in a phenomenon dubbed the Kate Effect.

But it seems the Duchess of Cambridge’s style has fallen foul of the sharp-tongued members of New York’s so-called fash-pack.

Gregg Andrews, a fashion director at leading U.S. department store chain Nordstrom, sniffed: ‘She is stylish, but she’s not setting trends, she’s following trends.


Dress debate: Jill Martin, author of 'I Have Nothing to Wear!' thinks this spring, there will be many brides walking down the aisle in dresses with sleeves, paying tribute to Kate

‘If you take Kate out of the Royal Family, put her on a street in New York, you wouldn’t look at her twice. She’s a beautiful woman, but she blends into a crowd.’

Indeed, most figures at the city’s Fashion Week had their claws out for Britain’s blossoming style icon.

One leading journalist insisted that Kate was the very opposite of fashionable and that the public is becoming obsessed about what she wears only because of her royal status.

Elle fashion news director Anne Slowey said: ‘Is she a style icon of the likes of a Kate Moss? Absolutely not. Is she in the public eye? Are people going to become obsessed with everything she wears regardless of what it is? Yes.’


Lauren Conrad recently launched a fashion collection with Nordstrom

The £385 blue Issa knee-length dress she wore when her engagement to Prince William was announced sold out within 24 hours, while chain store Reiss saw its website crash when she wore its £175 taupe Shola bandage-style dress to meet Michelle Obama in May.

There were some good words for Kate. Fashion writer Jill Martin predicted that her wedding dress, by Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen, would be a style followed by many brides next spring.

source: dailymail