Royal Hand-Me-Down! See Prince Louis in the Same Christening Robe That George and Charlotte Wore 

Prince Louis is following in his older siblings' royal footsteps

Prince Louis is following in his older siblings’ royal footsteps.

The littlest royal family member kept with tradition for his official royal christening day on Monday by wearing the same gown his big brother, Prince George, 4, and big sister, Princess Charlotte, 3, wore for their own ceremonies.

The family heirloom is a replica of the historic royal christening gown first worn by Queen Victoria’s eldest daughter, also named Victoria, in 1841. It was worn by 62 royal babies (including Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles and Prince William) before it was deemed to fragile to continue using. It was hand-washed in spring water and stored in a dark room between christenings.

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The new gown was designed by Queen Elizabeth’s assistant, Angela Kelly, and Buckingham Palace’s team of dressmakers in 2008.

Britain Royals, London, United Kingdom - 09 Jul 2018
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Kelly enlisted London company Joel & Son Fabrics, which traditionally supplies cloth to the Queen and her household – and they worked with a company in Italy to create the Honiton lace lined with white satin material for her and the dressmakers to make the robe.

HRH Prince George Of Cambridge Is Christened At St James' Palace
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Kelly and one of her dressmaking colleagues, sat for hours over two or three days as the painstaking work of sketching out the designs to match the original, which was commissioned by Queen Victoria and styled after the wedding dress she wore to marry Prince Albert the year before, as closely as possible began.

The Christening Of Princess Charlotte Of Cambridge
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“It was recreated in exactly the same way. Even though there was modern machinery, they had to go back to doing a lot of it by hand so there was a mix between by hand and machinery,” an insider previously told PEOPLE

The designers wanted to make as exact a copy as possible. “It was made from scratch, from sketching it out, to embroidering the lace on a special silk-based tulle,” said the insider.

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