What's Happening: Zara Phillips’ Surprising Royal Fashion Sense

The world class equestrienne is a class of her own in the royal fashion stakes giving her soon-to-be royal cousin Kate Middleton a stiff competition in a new dimension.

Coming from a family where mere glamour usually comes from the women who marry into it it is surprising to see a descendant of the English royal family having a keen eye on fashion and dress herself tastefully and acceptably as one of its peoples.

Her uncle Prince Charles regarded her birth as being bright as the dawn. Hence Princess Anne’s second-born child and first grand daughter of Queen Elizabeth got her Greek Biblical name Zara. Currently she is 13th in line to the throne of 16 independent countries.
Now at 29 and bound to get married, after eight years since meeting at a Sydney bar her Yorkshire fiance and England rugby captain Mike Tindall, in Edinburgh this summer (after cousin Prince William’s wedding) the world class equestrienne is a class of her own in the royal fashion stakes giving her soon-to-be royal cousin Kate Middleton a stiff competition in a new dimension.
If Kate Middleton is noted to dress with all the restrictions of a future queen Zara is noted to dress more as a scion of a rich conservative family exercising all her taste, freedom and monetary limitations however way she can.

Much as the only close blue blooded born royal noted for her innate style is the lesser blue blooded Lady Helen Windsor Taylor (a first cousin once removed of Queen Elizabeth and a great granddaughter of King George V) Lady Helen’s fashion style doesn’t rest so much with commoners since she serves as a fashion British representative of the luxury brand Giorgio Armani and is known to seep from head to toe with the designer’s products. Besides at 46 she is the epitome of glamour and fashion of another royal generation.

Zara is, however, a little different. She is a royal girl who radiates fun, energy and an ugly-duckling-to -swan-legacy with a surprsingly good skin for a woman who spends her entire days riding her horses training on her sport. She is touted the most likeable woman in the royal scene known to wake up before dawn and muck her way into preparing herself, her horses and her barn for her daily routine training.

Though a pierced tongue and out of this world fashion choices had been her indoctrination of finding out what looks good on her this no nonsense royal has the liberty to put her own style, with the help of her favorite stylist Ceril Campbell, and is just limited by the means to make her way into the world (she doesn’t perform royal duties thus she receives no money from the Parliament and earns a living on her own) to unintentionally limit her fashion to reasonable realistic choices.
The recent Ladies Day at Cheltenham is one of the opportunities to see how this down to earth royal pull off another look characterized by royal ladies’ tendency to look understated but elegant in sophisticated tailoring even if faced with colorful racegoers dressed in a brazen array of flamboyant and sometimes garish hats, feathers, fascinators and fancy accessories.

The first day of Ladies Day saw the newly-engaged Zara in a beige, suede trenchcoat teamed with black tights, a textured beret and black ankle boots.

Though she knows how to pick and wear colors Zara Phillips opted for a black belted coat on the second day with a dramatic collar, a tartan newsboy flat cap with a flower in the same hue as her bright red patent Mulberrry handbag, fingerless gloves and suede ruffled shoe-boots.
Here is a fun look at how royal, down to earth and realistic Zara Phillips dressed over the years. Some are punctuated with mistakes but is tremendously salvaged by a great amount of fashion successes along the way.