Kate Middleton Showered in Valentine's Day Gifts Despite Prince William's Absence

Prince William may be miles away in the Falklands, but he didn't forget his Duchess on Valentines Day. Kate Middleton revealed that she received a Valentine's card with a large bouquet of flowers from him on Tuesday, according to STV.

That wasn't the only card the Duchess of Cambridge received. Ethan Harris, a 10-year-old boy Middleton met at a charity, made her a handcrafted card. The heart-shaped card featured a picture of Harris and his brother and came with this message:

You're smiley like the sun, you're bright like a star, you're light when it's dark and I love your spark.

Thank you, that's lovely, Middleton said upon received the card.

Middleton spent her first Valentine's Day as a married woman at two charity events. The first event was at The Brink, an alcohol-free event run by Action on Addiction, and the second event was held at the Alder Hey Children's Hospital.

At the hospital, admirers--mostly children--showered her with flowers, cards and chocolates. Paige Hearn, a leukemia sufferer also gave Middleton a hand-made card and a curtsy, which she said she had been practicing for weeks.

Kate Middleton Style

On Valentine's Day the Duchess was sporting a £369 brown wool flared coat from the high street chain Hobbs. The coat was sold out at the retailer by lunchtime that day, according to the Daily Mail. The Duchess accessorized the coat with £1,900 green amethyst earrings by Kiki McDonough.

Under her coat, she wore a black polo neck dress from another high street chain, Oasis, but the retailer announced that the model was old and is not currently being sold.

Meanwhile, Kate Middleton has become the first person to top Hollywood's Fashion Buzzwords for a second consecutive year.

The Duchess Effect, a reference to Middleton's chic and elegant style, took the number one spot of the Fashion Buzzword List poll. The list is put together by the Global Language Monitor using a combination of data collected from online search terms, blogs and 75,000 print and electron global media outlets, according to the Daily Mail.

Middleton was revered one of the most stylish figures of 2011. The Duchess Effect is a term that describes items of clothing that sell out immediately after the Duchess has worn them. Middleton often mixes affordable high-street labels with some designer accessories and items, often sporting labels such as Reiss, Whistles and Zara.

According to the Daily Mail, the British high-street label Reiss, posted a doubling of profits in 2011, which may have been down to the Duchess favoring the label. When the Duchess wore a Reiss Shola nude dress to meet the Obamas, the demand became so high that the retailers website crashed.

The Duchess Effect appears to extend much further than the economic impact of Kate's fashion choices; this year the fashion landscape seems to be a brighter, more accessible place with the styles more colorful, feminine and graceful than we've observed in many years, said the Global Language Monitor's fashion expert Bekka Payack.