Shes been out of the game for a while now but Kate Middleton is well and truly back.
The Duchess of Cambridge was seen in her element at the official opening of a new photography centre at the Victoria and Albert Museum on Wednesday evening.
The duchess, who was paying her first visit to the museum since becoming a patron in March, was given a tour of the exhibition at the design museum before meeting the curators and unveiling a plaque.
But its her choice of dress that has left many people talking.
Sporting a mid-calf frock from British label Erdems SS18 collection, the mother-of-three stunned as she walked through the museum.
She paired the dress with a small box clutch, maroon heels and £290 earrings also from Erdem.
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The duchess, who studied art history at university, showed her expertise in the field during her visit, according to Martin Barnes, the museums senior curator of the exhibition.
She is a really knowledgeable student in art history, so she understood about the technology behind the photos, he said.
I really got a sense of her knowledge and interest in how it is relevant today but how its history informs its present.
Displays in the new centre, the first phase of which more than doubles the amount of space in the museum dedicated to photography, will be drawn from the London museums collection of more than 800,000 photographs.
More gallery space is set to be given over to photography in the museum by 2022.
The first exhibition to be held in the centre – called Collecting Photography: From Daguerreotype to Digital – showcases photos taken from the 19th century, when the medium was first invented, up to the present day.
Tristram Hunt, the former Labour MP who is now the director of the V&A, said: Our new photography centre provides a world-class facility to re-establish photography as one of our defining collections.
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In an era when everyones iPhone makes them a photographer, the V&As photography centre explores and explains the medium in a compelling new way.
He also thanked the gallerys Kensington neighbour the Duchess of Cambridge for unveiling the official plaque.
Visitors entering the new photography centre will pass a display of more than 150 cameras spanning 160 years.
The exhibition opens to the public on Friday and entrance is free.
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