by The last few weeks may have felt very dramatic with regards to the royal news, but trust Princess Anne to keep calm and continue to do exactly what she does. In other words, working hard and looking unique in a style of clothing that would have sent most people to the charity shop years ago.
The Princess Royal is visiting Dubai on her second trip of the year so far. It’s clear that she and her team had prepared carefully and, for one of the first events of the tour, they chose an outfit that was fitting in more ways than one.
Over the weekend, Anne visited the Queen Elizabeth 2 in Dubai, the only floating hotel in the emirate. With the hot temperatures in mind, the Princess chose a turquoise shirt dress for the commitments that have been in her wardrobe for 46 years.
Her choice of attire also drew a resemblance to her late mother, after whom the hotel is named; The dress is in the same aquamarine hue as the box coat and turban hat worn by Queen Elizabeth II when she launched the ship in Glasgow in September 1967, creating a visual mother-daughter comparison. This echoes last month’s visit to Nottingham where Anne wore a purple jacket that once belonged to her mother.
Princess Anne, this was undoubtedly a practical way to dress for the job at hand with the added bonus of paying homage to her style icon mother – a great example of how her status as a fashion leader has taken off ” accident” of the public imagination. some of the industry’s most influential figures.
“The Princess Royal is very strict in how she fits, with this kind of military mentality, but feminine at the same time,” said Silvia Venturini Fendi in January, when she paid tribute to Anne with her men in autumn/winter 2024-25. show in Milan. “She’s an anti-fashion person, and to me that’s very fashionable and chic.”
Fendi went so far as to call Anne “the most elegant woman in the world”. Like her older brother, the Princess has inherited the instinct shown by both her parents for always dressing for the occasion without any unnecessary fripperies; Prince Philip wore his wedding shoes for years and the late Queen looked stunning but he would ensure that fabrics were reinvented to reduce waste and keep the same shoes and bags in rotation for years.
As well as making it clear that she is still the same size as the dress when she first wore the 27-year-old dress for a lunch in honor of the president of Botswana at Buckingham Palace, Anne decided to “a shopping one’s own wardrobe” – as fashion editors like to call it. the act of throwing away your old clothes instead of buying new clothes is typical – her attitude of not stunning her looks. In fact, it’s more common to see Anne re-wearing an outfit than strolling with her latest purchases (although she is a fan of Gloucestershire-based Cotswold Collections when she shops).
We can point to a number of previous occasions when she has worn the turquoise collared dress seen again this week, including at Royal Ascot in 2023 and at Brompton Cemetery in 2022. Each time the frock is styled slightly differently her; in Dubai, she teamed it with a turquoise blazer, at Ascot it was worn with a white jacket, and it looked low-key and summery while the Princess sported sunglasses for another outing.
And there are many other vintage gems that this dress came from. The eye-catching lilac coat has appeared at least six times since it first appeared in 1982, when Anne wore the belted design to meet the Queen of the Netherlands in London. A year later she wore the coat and matching pillbox hat in Jackie Kennedy style again to unveil Mountbatten’s memorial statue, this time adding a classic single-strand pearl choker. The Princess Royal revived the outfit ten years later in 1992 with a brand new look. Since then, Anne has worn the coat three more times – 1997, 2001 and 2004 – for the church.
Meanwhile, a cream and navy coat that debuted at Royal Ascot in 1980 has been worn at least four times since; at the Epsom Derby in 1985, he was an understated choice next to Queen Elizabeth who wore a bold signature shade of orange. After that, the coat was packed away until 2014 when the Princess teamed her old coat with a new wide-brimmed hat for a Buckingham Palace garden party. It has appeared twice more since then – in 2015, for another garden party and in 2018, at the Commonwealth Day service.
Five cream skirt suits with a patterned jacket were also seen for the first time, again at Royal Ascot, in 1988. Never be afraid to be seen wearing the same suit at the same event, the revival of Princess Ascot look again. in 1994 before being deployed again in 1995 to mark VE Day. The outfit reappeared for church in Windsor in 1997 and then for a third time at Royal Ascot in 2014.
In a fashion culture where we can all too easily decide we’re fed up with a piece after a year or two or feel it’s no longer fashionable, it’s a great reminder to see the Princess Royal re-doing items she’s owned for years long, especially when they don’t particularly conform to current trends, but instead reflect Princess Anne’s unique look. These are obviously long-lasting favorites that make her feel good and fit beautifully, so why move on?
