The Duchess of Cambridge may be a fashion icon the world over, but her husband does not always appreciate her choice of outfit, she has admitted.

The Duchess, wearing an emerald green coat (below) by Erdem over a Suzannah dress at the opening of a new velodrome in the town of Cambridge yesterday, told a member of the public that Prince William thought the colour was "a bit bright".

The couple, who are on a three-week tour of New Zealand and Australia with their son, later carried out an impromptu walkabout and were greeted by a crowd of 15,000, three-quarters of the town's population.

Among them was Madam Bev Hayes, 68, the Mirror newspaper reported.

"I complimented her on her green dress.

"She said she liked it but Prince William thought it was a bit bright."

The Duchess' fashion choices have also been getting some competition from an unlikely rival on this tour: her son.

Indeed, with just one pair of mini-dungarees, Prince George appears to have stolen her fashion limelight.

When the eight-month-old future king crawled about in a playgroup in Wellington, New Zealand, last Tuesday for what was billed as his first major public engagement, his outfit sold out within hours - the same effect that his mother Catherine has had in the past.