Paper Monitor
11:55 UK time, Friday, 25 February 2011
A service highlighting the riches of the daily press.
In case you missed it, yesterday marked Kate Middleton's first official public engagement with Prince William as the young couple launched a new lifeboat.
In the papers, it's all about what Kate was wearing.
The Daily Mail zeroes in on two items in the Middleton wardrobe. Firstly, the rather natty fascinator [a piece of "fun-size" headwear pinned at a jaunty angle onto the side of the head] with its pheasant feathers and little Royal Welch Fusilier insignia.
But it really goes to town on Kate's £700 Shetland herringbone coat which it notes approvingly has been in her wardrobe for five years. Five years! Wow, this a thrifty royal in the making.
Kate decided after first wearing the coat in 2006 that it was a little long and she had it shortened, causing the Mail to salivate: "Its new cut revealed glimpses of a thigh-skimming red-brown dress."
Conducting a quick straw poll of the office it is established that most would not throw away a £700 coat after less than five years, so Kate's position may well just be normal, rather than meriting the Mail's line: "Austerity campaigners would approve."
The Times trundles on in the same vein, praising her for "more than a dash of thrift". One assumes the normal state of affairs in the papers' eyes is for the well-to-do to make a massive bonfire of all their clothes at the end of every week.
Keeping them for five years is on a par with washing out jamjars and getting six cups of tea out of each bag.
The paper has also cottoned on to the age of the "snug-fitting camel coat with chocolate trims", but puts the price at £725.
Times correspondent Carolyn Asome has some time for hair analysis.
"Miss Middleton's swooshy brown mane has been swept into a ponytail but that didn't stop strong winds blowing it about her face."
Damn those strong winds. Ms Asome's prescription is a "chignon" or "Erdem updo".
Paper Monitor will bear that in mind.
The 
