Don't be surprised if the Duchess of Cambridge were to go shopping in Stamford Hill because one of her favourite coats was inspired by a kapote.

Katherine Hooker, designer of the London Contrast coat, told New York magazine that it was based on "a young boy's Chasidic coat" that she once bought in a junk shop in Israel during a visit as a teenager.

It was "black silk with a little collar, cut small shoulders, straight down," she explained. It was "like when clothes used to be made for people as opposed to mass market. I was 18 and tiny and skinny, and it fit me absolutely perfectly; it was made for a 14-year-old boy or something."

Next: Prince William in a shtreimel?