Queen Camilla Repeats a Beloved Animal-Print Dress for Ebony Horse Club's 30th Anniversary Visit
Queen Camilla marked three decades of the Ebony Horse Club on Thursday, visiting the south London youth equestrian charity in a dress she has worn before — a Fiona Clare shirt dress cut from Liberty of London's "Jungle Crumble" fabric, decorated with small sketches of elephants, tigers, leopards, foxes, and wildebeest in muted shades of blue, gray, and red (Town & Country).
The dress is part of Wildsmith's Wonderful World, a Liberty collection released in 2024 that reimagined illustrations by the British painter and children's book illustrator Brian Wildsmith. Camilla was previously seen wearing the same dress at Wimbledon in 2025 (WWD). Animal prints have become something of a wardrobe signature: her 78th birthday portrait featured a Fiona Clare dress with animal print in green and aquamarine (Yahoo Entertainment), and she wore a leopard print dress to a Buckingham Palace event in 2023 (PureWow).
But the dress was, as always, secondary to the cause. The Ebony Horse Club was founded in 1996 in the Brixton area and works with disadvantaged children and young people aged 8 to 18, using horsemanship to build confidence, empathy, and problem-solving skills. The charity maintains nine horses and serves more than 200 riders each week (Town & Country).
Camilla has been president of the Ebony Horse Club since 2009. She opened the club's Wyck Gardens center in 2011 and hosted its supporters at a reception at Clarence House — her London residence, shared with King Charles — in 2019. The club was also chosen as the designated charity of the Badminton Horse Trials in 2026, where members performed a demonstration in May (Town & Country). The charity's royal connections go back further: the Ebony Horse Club was invited to watch the 2023 Coronation Service from St Margaret's Church, after being selected by the King and Queen Consort (royal.uk).
During this week's visit, Camilla was introduced to two horses recently gifted to the stables by the Royal Mews — the working stables at Buckingham Palace. One is Maggie, formerly used for carriage driving. The other is Taylor, a Fell pony, a sturdy breed native to northern England. She also toured the Arch, a newly renovated communal space for club members, and met volunteers who helped with the refurbishment, along with two physiotherapists who volunteer their services to the charity (Town & Country).
For an American audience, the visit fits a pattern that is familiar to anyone who follows the British royal family: working members of the monarchy serve as patrons or presidents of hundreds of charities, lending their visibility to causes that often struggle for attention. Camilla, who turned 78 in July, has long focused on animal welfare and literacy among her charitable interests.
The Ebony Horse Club occupies a particular corner of that landscape. It sits in one of London's most densely populated neighborhoods, far from the green fields where most equestrian centers operate. For the kids who ride there, the horses are not a hobby handed down through generations — they are a route to confidence that the charity says many would not otherwise find.
Camilla's repeat of the Jungle Crumble dress is its own quiet signal. A queen who rewears a dress to both Wimbledon and a charity stable visit in Brixton is making the same point the Ebony Horse Club makes every day: that what you already have can be more than enough.
