Lady Louise Windsor stepped out at the Royal Windsor Horse Show on Friday wearing a cream Fair Isle Knit jumper by Holland Cooper that once belonged to the Princess of Wales. The 22-year-old was seen at the event not just as a royal attendee, but as part of the working team behind one of Windsor’s busiest fixtures.
The knit had already made two high-profile appearances before Louise wore it. The Princess of Wales wore it in 2022 when she read The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark on CBeebies for Children’s Mental Health Week, then again in 2023 when she joined Roman Kemp for a walk linked to her Shaping Us initiative on early childhood development and mental health. On Friday, the jumper was back in public view on a royal who has built her own low-key reputation around work rather than display.
That reputation has followed Louise for years. Nick Books-Ward said she is one of the chief organisers at the horse show and “essentially operating a first concierge service,” adding that she is “a great worker and a real asset to the team with no airs and graces.” He said the role is “a proper paid job” and there is “no special treatment because of who she is.”
The detail matters because it cuts against the easy assumption that a young royal at a major event is there only for ceremony. Louise is the 22-year-old daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh, a regular at the Royal Windsor Horse Show and often a competitor in carriage driving events there. The show itself remains a fixture in the royal social season, but her presence this year was defined by work as much as family name.
That approach fits a pattern. Louise previously took a job in a garden centre before university, and she was pictured this year sitting on the floor of a packed train to make sure an essay was handed in on time. Sara Howe said of her competition-time manner: “you would never know who she is.” The same could be said of Friday’s appearance — the public saw a young woman in a borrowed jumper doing a paid job, not a princess asking for special treatment. That is the point.
