Catherine Joins Prince Charles and Duchess Camilla for Joint Engagement

The Prince of Wales, Prince Charles, invited his daughter-in-law, the Duchess of Cambridge, Catherine, to join him and the Duchess of Cornwall, Camilla, for a joint engagement on Thursday morning.

The trio were seen in high spirits during their visit to the Prince's Foundation training site for arts and culture at Trinity Boy Wharf in London.

They met students who were learning traditional industries like textile, stone crafting, and wax sculpting.

Although the Duchess of Cambridge has joined Charles and Camilla on several events with her husband, Prince William, this marks the first time since 2012 that the trio has stepped out without him.

The Prince's Foundation offers an intensive, focused, full-time one-year course for school leavers with ambitions for studying fine art or applied art and who are seeking a stepping stone to art school or university.

In its first year, students of the course have gained places at art schools at Oxford and Cambridge, among other top universities.

Charles personally invited his daughter-in-law to the education hub owing to their shared love of the arts and passion for textiles.

Photos from the engagement show that proud Charles couldn't hide his joy in the presence of Catherine, who shared his passion.

Grinning alongside Charles and Camilla, Catherine was full of energy as she stepped out again in what is no doubt a firm favourite outfit for her, having worn it on multiple public outings in the past.

Catherine wore a grey Catherine Walker coat dress belted with a black collar, tights, and black heels combination that she previously rocked in both 2020 and 2019.

She completed her look with a black Mulberry handbag and a pair of diamond and sapphire earrings she inherited from Princess Diana.

Catherine wore an almost identical look when she and the Queen appeared on a joint visit to King's College in London in March 2019.

For the visit, Camilla looked regal in a peplum dark green coat dress, which she teamed with a delicate white scarf and a brooch around her neck.

Meanwhile, Prince Charles appeared to be enjoying a cheeky joke with his eldest son's partner as he wore a dark blue cheque suit and a tie for the occasion.

As part of the visit, the three royals met students of the Prince's Foundation School of Traditional Arts.

They were taken to see young people working with wax figures and watched as others did a life drawing class.

They also met graduates and young business leaders from Charles' modern artisan project.

The trio was shown the techniques behind traditional kilt production and silk smocking.

Young designer Nicole Christie, who trained with the project in Scotland, was thrilled to reconnect with Prince Charles and meet Catherine and Camilla for the first time as she takes her first steps in the fashion world with her own Ellipis label.

“It was amazing seeing the Duchesses interacting about one of my garments,” Christie tells People magazine.

“Catherine was asking about the silk.

I use 100% silk sourced in the UK.

They were really taken aback, and it was an honour for me that I had the chance to meet them.

They were really humble and interested in what I was talking about.

It was not a day-filling visit.

They were asking questions about my business and the support I'd had from the Foundation and the Prince's Trust.”

Christie gifted a silk evening purse to both Camilla and Catherine, as well as a pink scrunchie for Catherine's daughter, Princess Charlotte.

In the sculpture class, students were creating head shapes with wax.

Catherine talked about how hard it was to work the wax.

“I told her that it doesn't help when you've got really cold hands,” Cara McKay, 18, says.

Florence Harrison, 19, was another student on the Foundation course between school and university.

“They were really lovely and really friendly,” she says of the royals.

“I spoke to Catherine about the concept of translating a life drawing at school from 2D to this 3D shape.

I was pleasantly surprised at how friendly they were.”

Abigail Eadie, 18, is going to Oxford University later this year to study fine art after her work as a scholarship student brought her to the next level.

“It was quite overwhelming to meet them.

I never thought I'd meet them.

They were wishing me good luck,” she said after the royal trio watched her sketching at the life drawing class.

“I was quite nervous before they got here, but they were really nice and just asked me about my work, and you can tell they had a shared interest in art.

Catherine asked about her theme of some of her drawings.

She said they're really good.

She asked me what the theme was.

I told her they were about natural hair and movement and how it impacts the black community, and she said she really liked it.”

According to a royal aide, Catherine's invitation to join the engagement is said to have been down to her shared interest and long-standing support of the arts and creative industries.

The visit was especially significant as it was believed to be only the second time Catherine has joined Charles and Camilla on an engagement together.

In March 2012, Catherine joined the couple for an engagement at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London while Prince William was away in the Falklands on an RAF posting.

The last time she joined Charles and Camilla for a rare joint engagement was back in September when the trio, along with Prince William, attended the premiere of the James Bond movie No Time to Die.

These rare joint engagements could become more and more common in the future, according to royal sources.

At the time, they told the Mirror that outings of Charles, Camilla, William and Catherine could herald a new era of collaboration and solidarity between the future king and his eldest son and their wives.