When Princess Anne appeared at Scotland’s recent celebrations of her brother King Charles III’s accession to the throne, in a bright yellow and navy tunic, most Windsor Castle watchers will probably feel they’ve seen them before. Because yellow and navy are nods to pure green, taken straight from Princess Anne’s closet in the 1980s and worn over and over again.
Anne is the most famous individual in the royal family for her tendency to frugality in fashion, and she regularly rotates handbags, as well as clothes and hats from the seventies of the last century until now, that is, nearly half a century, even on official occasions.
Some would say her closet works just as hard as she is. As a young working royal in the 1970s, Anne shied away from conservative royals’ skirt-and-shirt suits, opting instead for something more practical.
She was the first in the royal family to wear a miniskirt, and wore dark-coloured, wide-brimmed hats, becoming the first major royal to have her picture published in Vogue in September during her 21st birthday in 1971.
Many of her clothing choices were bold, bright colors, and always with a matching hat, so it’s no surprise that her closet is full of “investment pieces,” clothes she’s been wearing since the 1970s, when she was in her 20s.
And she has no worries when she wears a second outfit, happy to re-wear full sets from head to toe. As a result of moving away from the fleeting fashion, she has found a fashion formula that works perfectly for her. It is thanks to these independent notes that she has become somewhat of an unlikely fashion icon.
And last week, Anne appeared in Scotland wearing an ’80s trench coat over a navy blue dress.
Almost 40 years ago, in 1987, she first wore an exaggerated two-shoulder jacket over a navy dress and a yellow bowler hat, and the following year attended Royal Ascot with the same look and outfit other than a brooch.
In 1990, she traveled to the Soviet Union on a diplomatic tour, wearing the same jacket, but this time without the hat, with another navy dress and a pearl necklace.
This blue jacket accompanied Princess Anne in the winter seasons for five decades. And in her twenties, she wore it during the wedding of many celebrities in 1976. Then, Ann appeared wearing the same jacket in 1983 during a meeting with important dignitaries in the church, where she added a brooch of diamonds and pearls to it.
This jacket did not appear in the nineties, but it appeared in 2007 at a fundraising party, at the Royal Ascot party in 2011, and again at the same ceremony in 2015. Then the same jacket appeared in 2019 at the wedding of her relative, Lady Gabriella Windsor. The last time the jacket appeared was when she was wearing it on a visit to New Zealand in February 2023.
• This blue jacket accompanied Princess Anne in the winter seasons for five decades. And in her twenties she wore it during the wedding of many celebrities in 1976.
