Trooping the Colour is the annual official celebration of the reigning monarch’s birthday; it’s a joyful occasion, featuring the Royal families in a mode of celebration – and if you’re Prince Louis, with a bit of cheekiness – with outfits to match, to see and be seen. Kate Middleton has long made it the time to debut her most striking, spirited looks.
Crowds gathered in their thousands to watch the parades in central London that continued down the Mall toward Buckingham Palace, and to see members of the Royal family arrive in their house-drawn carriages. Catherine, Princess of Wales, husband Princess William, and their children George, Charlotte, and Louis were among them.
The Princess wore a bright aquamarine woollen dress coat with ivory lapels and cuffs by Catherine Walker – a designer favoured by Kate Middleton as much as Princess Diana – as well as wide-brimmed matching hat with a sculptural motif by Juliette Botterill. Jewellery is always a key and sentimental part of the Royal’s looks, and today was no different: She opted for an Irish Guards Regimental Brooch – a nod to her role as colonel – and earrings that belonged to the late Queen Elizabeth.
Princess Charlotte followed suited in a dress that was a similar shade to her mother’s, with a white waist bow and white flats, her long hair tied in a braid.
Another sartorial detail was also present for Royal Family members taking part in the parade today – King Charles requested that they wear black armbands as a mark of respect to the victims of the recent Air India plane crash.
Trooping the Colour is a practice that dates back to the reign of King George III in the mid-18th century. But last year’s event had a very different feel to today’s. 2024’s occasion was the Princess of Wales’s first public appearance after her cancer diagnosis, and there was feverish interest in seeing her return to some semblance of Royal duties. She wore a previously worn and upcycled white Jenny Packham dress accented with black-and-white ribbon, and a wide-brim hat by Royal favorite Philip Treacy. The year previous, she chose a shamrock-green custom look by Singapore-born, Paris-based designer Andrew Gn.
Today, King Charles III and Queen Camilla appeared in their open carriage down the Mall. The Queen wore a white coat dress and matching wide-brimmed hat, and added the late Queen Elizabeth’s Grenadier Guards Brooch.
As Prince William took part in the military parade, the Princess and the children traveled in the open carriage, all smiles and enjoying the moment of sun.
While Princess Catherine’s tried-and-true, sleek look from last year’s Trooping the Colour marked a stoic return to public life, this year’s bright and bold choice articulated the Royal family’s enduring spirit, togetherness and sense of joy, as clear as the skies above the Mall.
