The Gist
A longtime fan of sustainability in fashion, Princess Anne has recycled items from her wardrobe for years.
Case in point? While on tour of Australia on November 8, the Princess Royal wore a skirt set with statement orange trim that she originally wore 38 years ago in 1987.
This isn’t even the first time this year that Anne re-wore this particular outfit, as she also wore it to Royal Ascot over the summer.
Long before Kate Middleton became the queen of the re-wear, Princess Anne was pulling out repeat items from her closet to wear again and again.
That’s exactly what the Princess Royal did this week while on tour in Australia and Singapore, pulling an item out of her closet that she first wore 38 years ago in 1987. Anne, who has long been known as the royal family’s “hardest-working royal,” was with her husband Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence in Sydney on November 8 when she changed out of a navy blazer into a new outfit upon arrival in Australia—though it was one many immediately recognized.
Anne wore a beige jacket and skirt set, both pieces lined in bright orange trimming—an outfit that the Princess Royal not only wore to Royal Ascot this past summer, but one that she’s worn many times since it first debuted at Trooping the Colour way back in 1987. Tatler also reported she wore the same two-piece set during a visit to South Africa in celebration of Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee in 2012 and then again in 2015, at the Centenary Annual meeting of the National Federation of Women’s Institutes at the Royal Albert Hall.
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Princess Anne in the same outfit at Royal Ascot on June 18, 2025 alongside Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh
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Princess Anne debuting the outfit at Trooping the Colour in 1987
Anne’s orange color theme continued on to Singapore, where she and her husband were on November 12 when she wore a vivid orange blazer and blue skirt printed with an orange floral pattern. Anne had previously worn that outfit alongside her mother Queen Elizabeth at Royal Ascot in 2009.
Anne is not only unafraid of the re-wear, but she’ll dip into archival pieces from the 1970s and 1980s with gusto. Asked why she chose to recycle outfits so frequently, the Princess Royal told Vanity Fair in 2020, “Because I’m quite mean.”
“I still try and buy materials and have them made up because I just think that’s more fun,” she added. “It also helps to support those who still manufacture in this country. We mustn’t forget we’ve got these skills, and there are still places that do a fantastic job.”
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Princess Anne on November 12, 2025
Anne is famously no-fuss—she chooses her own outfits, does her own makeup, and isn’t afraid to adjust her own tiara. As she previously said (per Vanity Fair), “I rarely buy anything that is not made in the U.K.” She has a signature style and she knows it, as she told Women’s Day in 2022.
“The Queen [Elizabeth] and I had a discussion the other day about the difference between fashion and style, and I think that maybe that’s relevant in the sense that she didn’t do fashion but she certainly does style, and style tends to last longer,” she said. “You have an individual style and it’s a quality which has a long-term value.”
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Princess Anne on July 16, 2025
Silvia Venturini Fendi previously called Anne “the chicest woman in the world,” adding, “She is a certain kind of anti-fashion person, and that, to me, is something really chic and fashionable.” Former British Vogue editor-in-chief Edward Enninful told Vanity Fair that Anne “is a true style icon and was all about sustainable fashion before the rest of us really knew what that meant. She is timeless in her style, and she wears a tailored suit better than anyone else I can think of.”
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Princess Anne on May 9, 2025
She’s also a straight-shooter. While in Australia, she met James Thorpe, president of the Royal Australian Regiment Association, at a garden party. After Thorpe told the Princess Royal that he’d met her brother, Anne quipped, “Which one? I have three.” To this, Thorpe replied of King Charles, “Ahhh, that’s the main one, ma’am,” to which Anne chuckled.
Read the original article on InStyle