Is Princess Anne the Royal Family’s Accidental Style Icon?

Accidental style icon. That describes Princess Anne, the indefatigable royal who turns 75 Friday, who has no intention of retiring to private life despite her age. At an official event attended by other royals such as Kate Middleton and Duchess Sophie of Edinburgh, it’s unlikely that the second-born daughter of Queen Elizabeth will make headlines for her look, but hers may be the most interesting of all. There is no special process around what she wears other than the directions prescribed by protocol, there are no stylists to select her outfits, and she has not created any association with luxury brands. Yet Princess Anne is undoubtedly a style icon, even if by accident. The reason? She is one of the few royals who dress with personality. And you either have that or you don’t, there is no image consultant or brand who can make it for you.

“The Queen and I had a discussion the other day about the difference between fashion and style and I think maybe that’s relevant in the sense that she didn’t do fashion but she certainly does style, and style tends to last longer. You have an individual style and it’s a quality which has a long-term value,” she said in 2022. On the occasion of the Platinum Jubilee, the Australian magazine Women’s Day was granted not just an interview but the opportunity to eavesdrop on a conversation between mother and daughter.

The two women, for whatever reason, slipped into a conversation that led them to talk about clothes, illustrating their philosophy. Although Queen Elizabeth’s style and Princess Anne’s are very different, we can see a common matrix that prioritizes service over fashion trends.

Comfort comes first for the workaholic of the Royal Family. Every year the princess royal wins the title of the hardest-working royal, with hundreds and hundreds of events attended. In 2024 alone, the year a horseback riding accident forced her out of work for several weeks, she nevertheless reached 474. So she needs clothes that are both practical and appropriate for the context in which she will have to operate.

Between a helicopter or car transfer, a plane to catch and dozens of people to meet, Anne needs to be sure that her clothes will not betray her. So wearing tried-and-true, field-tested outfits provides her with the crystal ball: she knows how they will react to spills, how they will look in photographs, and whether the sleeves are appropriate for shaking the hands of those she meets.

Though rewears are a well-established practice among the royals who try to please detractors who do not want their tax dollars going into clothes, in Princess Anne we seem to detect a certain ill-concealed complacency in making headlines with looks several years old. With each outing, recent ones included, it is as if the royal confronts us with a riddle to be solved that sends royal fashion enthusiasts into jubilation.

There was her 2025 Commonwealth Day outfit, the same one she wore in 2023. There was the outfit she broke out on the second day of Royal Ascot 2025, originally spotted on the balcony of Buckingham Palace in 1987. At the Royal Ascot in 2015, Princess Anne dusted off a yellow coat that had debuted a full 35 years earlier at Trooping the Colour. There is a white coat with blue inserts on the shoulders that has cyclically reappeared since 1980.

In the portrait dedicated to her by the Daily Mail on the occasion of her birthday, some of her friends said that it is highly unlikely that Anne will buy a new dress for the wedding of her son Peter Phillips, who announced his engagement to Harriet Sperling on August 1.

“Princess Anne is a true style icon and was all about sustainable fashion before the rest of us really knew what that meant,” said Edward Enninful, former editor of British Vogue, in a Vanity Fair article from 2020. “She is timeless in her style, and she wears a tailored suit better than anyone else I can think of.”

Many of the newer garments—those not salvaged from the 1980s—were made by Shibumi, a tailor shop a quarter-hour drive from her Gatcombe Park estate. Among the pillars that hold up her style is supporting small businesses in her town. “I rarely buy anything that is not made in the UK,” the royal said.

She is the president of the UK Fashion and Textile Association and on July 17, 2025, after 35 years with the organization, she received an honorary degree for services to the arts for that experience in the industry. “I still try and buy materials and have them made up because I just think that’s more fun,” she told VF in 2020. It also helps to support those who still manufacture in this country. We mustn’t forget we’ve got those skills, and there are still places that do a fantastic job” It’s a position similar to the one held by her brother, King Charles, a great advocate of craftsmanship and sustainability in the fashion industry.

There is always talk about “the Kate effect,” the Princess of Wales’ magic touch of turning the garments she wears into coveted items, or Queen Elizabeth’s signature colorful coats, but we tend to overlook the power of Anne’s style. Between the 1960s and 1970s, she was the catalyst for newspaper attention to the point that she was featured on no fewer than three Vogue covers. She was one of the first royal women to show up at public engagements wearing pants and even the hemlines of her feminine skirts followed the spirit of the times.

As a young woman, she sported irresistible outfits in her leisure time, looks that are not so different from what she wears in her country home while tending to her cattle and horses. There are two specimens in the stable, by the way, that would make one rethink her opinion on fashion, since they are named Schiaparelli and Reel Fashion.

In the images from the past, Anne posed with her ex-husband Mark Phillips, wearing layered outfits, jeans, denim shirts, head scarf, bucket hat (which she still wears), photos that look like they were taken today.

But attention to Anne faded when Princess Diana arrived on the scene. It’s hard to compete with that sister-in-law with the unquestionable flair for trends she often launched. Assuming that competing was not her priority, Princess Anne in response began to style her hair in a way she would never abandon. At the very moment it began to be considered untrendy, it became iconic.

Even the younger generation took notice of her. They were enraptured by the way she wore her sunglasses. On that, too, she was able to anticipate trends, sporting aviator glasses or Oakleys well suited for sports. Her favorites are undoubtedly the Team GB Adidas from the 2012 London Olympics.

The exact origin of the accessory is unknown: some claim that her daughter Zara Tindall gave them to her when she represented her country in the equestrian discipline, or others speculate that they were a gift from the cycling team. When she slips on those raver glasses to travel on behalf of His Majesty or at events such as Royal Ascot, you can’t help but love them.

“Princess Anne is the chicest woman in the world,” declared Silvia Venturini Fendi when presenting the men’s Fall-Winter 2024 collection at Milan Fashion Week. “When I saw the coronation last year with Princess Anne in uniform, I thought she was beautiful. So I thought, ‘Let’s get inspired for a men’s collection.’ I liked the idea of breaking barriers, breaking male and female codes. The royal princess is very strict in the way she dresses, with this military-like attitude, but she’s feminine at the same time,” she explained to reporters. “She is a certain kind of anti-fashion person, and that, to me, is something really chic and fashionable.”

At the coronation, Anna had a prominent role in the procession accompanying King Charles as Colonel of the Blues and Royals in the Royal Cavalry Regiment. The uniform was obligatory but it allowed her with a joke for those excited days when style choices were the subject of great curiosity. “That is a role I was asked if I would like to do for this coronation, so I said yes. Not least of all, it solves my dress problem,” she told the CBC.