World

Princess Charlotte floral dress: Spanish designer flooded with orders

A children's clothing shop in Spain has been inundated with orders for dresses identical to the one worn by Britain's Princess Charlotte in the latest official photos — but has enough cloth to make only 20 of them.

But limited supply of pink floral fabric means no flourishing sales for Spanish clothing shop

Spanish dressmaker Margarita Pato holds a dress identical to the one worn by Princess Charlotte in the latest official photos, at her store in Madrid. (Susana Vera/Reuters)

A family-run children's clothing shop in Spain has been inundated with orders from around the world for dresses identical to the one worn by Britain's Princess Charlotte in the latest official photos — but has enough cloth to make only 20 of them.

Six-month-old Charlotte, Queen Elizabeth's newest great-grandchild, was pictured wearing the floral dress with ruffled neck in photos taken by her mother Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, and released last Sunday, but fashion blogs and celebrity magazines were stumped when they could not determine the origin of the princess's dress.

It was the dressmaker herself who spotted the princess was wearing one of her designs when she saw the photos in Spain's Hola! magazine's digital version.

Afraid to jump the gun and commit a blunder by claiming it was her design, Margarita bought a paper copy to make the comparison.

The owner of a clothing shop in Spain won't be able to capitalize on interest in the dress Charlotte wore in photos released last weekend because the company, with five store locations in Spain, only had a few metres of the fabric left. (HRH The Duchess of Cambridge via Getty Images)

"I bought the magazine and I had an attack of nerves, 'It's my dress! One-thousand per cent. I had a piece of the fabric at home and then I compared it, I called Hola.com and I said, 'I just bought your magazine, and I am the designer of the dress.' They were extremely happy," Margarita Pato, the 62-year-old founder and designer of M&H, said.

However, the shop is not going to crank up production in response to the overwhelming demand because there are only 10 metres left of the pink floral fabric used in the princess's outfit — enough to make just 20 more dresses.

"It was madness .. madness ... from then on it was, the last three days have been like a dream. I haven't stopped giving interviews, I get calls from all over. I'm so happy and very proud and what less concerns me is whether I make a profit. I am completely unconcerned about that. Just this is a super prize," Margarita said.

Celebrity magazines have speculated that the baby's Spanish nanny may have bought the dress for Charlotte, who is fourth in line to the British throne.

Margarita is not certain. She says she has British clients, too, and it could have been one of them.

M&H, which stands for "mother and children" in Spanish, was opened by Pato in 2009 in the central Spanish town of Valladolid. She later opened shops in Madrid, Valencia and Seville.

The shop just makes two models in each size of the designs.

The dress, typical of M&H's traditional baby clothes all made in Spain with Spanish fabrics and yarn, costs 29.90 euros  ($32.58 US) and Pato says she is not going to put up the price in response to the avalanche of demand.

Pato said the 20 dresses that will be made have already been ordered and they will go clients as far as Japan and Australia, as well as the U.K.