How Kate Middleton Mixed Style Staples to Create 'One of Her Bravest Looks of All Time' (Exclusive)

"She knows the world is watching and for visiting presidents, a big part of their visit is seeing her and William because they are the future of the royal family," style insider Bethan Holt tells PEOPLE

Kate Middleton's latest monochrome moment was a layered look — both visually and symbolically.

The Princess of Wales, 41, popped in a red cape coat and bow dress with a coordinating hat, clutch and heels to welcome the President of the Republic of Korea Yoon Suk Yeo and First Lady Kim Keon Hee to the U.K. on Tuesday for a state visit.

The Princess of Wales suited up for the diplomatic duty in mostly recycled pieces, topped with a new bespoke red wool cape by Catherine Walker & Co. While the bow appeared to be part of the cape, it’s not! The oversized accent is from the long-sleeved red Catherine Walker dress she debuted at her first Royal Carols: Together At Christmas concert in 2021.

“I think they are trying to be a little more sustainable, let’s take something you have already worn and reinvent it a little. The cape completely transformed it from a classic Kate look to one of her bravest looks of all time,” Bethan Holt, author of the book The Queen: 70 Years of Majestic Style, exclusively tells PEOPLE of the fashion statement.

Related: Kate Middleton Has Major Princess Moment in Diamond Tiara That Hasn't Been Worn Since the 1930s

Princess Kate and Queen Camilla might be mindful of recycling looks from their royal wardrobes as a sensitivity towards the ongoing cost of living crisis in the U.K., and the Princess of Wales has repeated several looks through the last year.

The bright scarlet shade of Kate’s outfit on Tuesday, which fan blog What Kate Wore identified as a new Jane Taylor hat paired with Princess Diana’s sapphire earrings, red suede bow Miu Miu clutch and Gianvito Rossi 105 heels (all previously seen in her royal rotation), was also a flag dressing tie to South Korea. Like Queen Elizabeth and Princess Diana before her, during both internal and external state visits, Princess Kate is known to diplomatically nod to the other country by wearing a hue or two from the national flag.

Princess Kate was unmissable beside Prince William during the important duty conducted on King Charles’ behalf, and Holt decodes the tribute as deliberate.

Related: Kate Middleton Drops into an Expert Curtsy for King Charles — While Navigating Stairs!

“It’s really intentional. On that stage, there was only one person you were looking at, and it was Kate. Over the last year, there has been a military element coming through in her style, and it really felt like a statement uniform to me and the color was striking and completely unmissable,” says the fashion director of The Telegraph.

“The late Queen used to say she had to be seen to be believed, and you would have been able to see Kate from a mile away! Especially with the big bold hat, there was no element of that outfit where they were pairing it back at all — it was all big, bright and bold. There was no mistaking who was being put forward as the star of the family,” she adds.

The padded shoulders of the cape coat created a dramatic effect, and Holt likens the overall statement to Kate “finding her armor.”

“She knows the world is watching and for visiting presidents, a big part of their visit is seeing her and William because they are the future of the royal family,” she tells PEOPLE. “So that’s a lot of pressure so she needs her clothing to bolster her for these moments. Often it’s a lovely coat dress she wears, and she has been criticized for sticking to that silhouette, so maybe she is just ready to experiment a bit.”

Following the ceremonial welcome at Horse Guards Parade, the King, 75, and Queen, 76, traveled by carriage with the presidential couple down The Mall to Buckingham Palace. A private lunch and tour of Korean items from the Royal Collection followed — where Princess Kate removed her cape and hat for the indoors, but surprisingly let her hair down from the chignon she sported earlier!

“She transformed then back to classic English rose Kate again, not this bold military Kate so it’s almost like this chrysalis, having all these layers,” Holt says of the unexpected style switch.

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Speculating on the deeper meaning of Kate's shifting style, Holt pointed to how her royal role and place in the family has changed since becoming the Princess of Wales following Queen Elizabeth's death last year.

“I think we are at a moment with Kate where she can’t be the same thing all the time because she does have these conflicting roles. With Princess Diana, we used to see everything from really casual to power tailoring to big ball gown moments — because when you are the Princess of Wales, that’s what your role involves," Holt tells PEOPLE. "She is second from the top, and I think it's really hard to strike that balance."

“Sometimes she will have to let the King take precedent. Sometimes she needs to appear very relatable talking to mums about parenting, and then you have to go and greet the president of a foreign nation and have this dignitary role. It can seem confusing, but she has to morph between them, and it does feel jarring," she says.

"It is in a way showing that as a woman she is doing all of these jobs, the ultimate example of multitasking, the many uniforms of all the roles she is embodying," Holt says.

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