When the Prince and Princess of Wales traditionally share portraits of Prince George, Princess Charlotte or Prince Louis to celebrate their children’s birthdays, there’s one element Sophie Mirman always looks forward to seeing: their outfits. Just don’t ask her to pick a favorite.
“They are such perfect little models,” says Mirman, co-founder of Trotters, the British children’s clothing brand behind some of the young royals’ most imitated looks: Prince George’s blue and brown plaid shirt with an embroidered elephant to meet Sir David Attenborough; Princess Charlotte’s blue floral dress in her fourth birthday portrait; Prince Louis’ puppy jumper in his first birthday portrait, and more. “Every time they wear our clothes, it’s amazing.”
Seeing Princes or Princesses wearing Trotters makes her “so proud. I feel like my mother is sitting on my shoulder somewhere saying, ‘This is great!'”
For Mirman, who opened her first Trotters store in London’s Chelsea district nearly 35 years ago, the royal connection represents a family tradition. Her mother, Simone, was a milliner who counted the Queen Mother, Queen Elizabeth II, Princess Margaret and Princess Diana among her customers. “This is the fifth generation now because we are dressing Princess Diana’s grandchildren.”
Simone Mirman designed some of the Queen’s most memorable hats, including the butter-yellow Tudor-style triangular hat she wore on the accession of Prince Charles of Wales in 1969 and the pink bell-studded hat she wore to celebrate her Silver Jubilee at St Paul’s Cathedral in 1977.
Mirman’s father was also a major player in post-war British fashion, introducing Christian Dior to England in the 1950s. The family home in Chesham Place, Belgravia, was a hub of fashion activity, with Simone’s showroom, study and stockroom dominating the ground floor. “I remember looking down over the railings at these wonderful fashion shows my parents used to put on,” Mirman says. “It was all so grand.”
She helped out from a young age. “My main responsibility was to tidy up the yarn drawer, which was always messy. I loved to sort them by colour,” she says of her early days as a shopkeeper. She earned her pocket money by delivering hats. She also visited Buckingham Palace once or twice. “I went in through the back entrance. It was a wonderful place – I loved it.” She never met the late Queen or the Queen Mother, but remembers Princess Margaret vividly.
“My mother was incredibly, incredibly talented and she always said that Princess Margaret pushed her to think outside the box. And to use very unusual fabrics. One of the hats she made for him was a pillbox made from a Turkish kilim carpet, which was incredibly hard to work with. She also made a trilby out of chair straw for Lord Snowdon.” [then Princess Margaret’s husband].”
Despite the grandeur of the family business, finances were tight. When Mirman finished school, she could not afford to go to university. She took a writing class and started working as an assistant secretary for Lord Sieff, the chairman of Marks & Spencer. She rose through the ranks and after six years left to start Tie Rack, where she met Richard Ross. They married and in 1983 they founded Sock Shop together, growing it into an international business.
She had young children at the time. Around the time the Sock Shop went bankrupt, Mirman had two experiences with her children that seeded the idea for the Trotters: a haircut that left her son William terrified of the barber, and a shoe-shopping trip that left her daughter Natasha, then three, “demoralized” when she discovered the pink and green shoes she had set her heart on were sold out. “They both seemed like unfriendly ways to treat kids to me,” she says.
Mirman was sure he could do better. He decided to open a shop for children, with everything they could possibly need under one roof: clothes, shoes, books, toys – even haircuts. He named it Trotters, after the fictional character Dunwoody Trotter, the animated pig who would be seen as the owner of the shop. He and Richard opened the doors of their King’s Road shop in 1990 and have since expanded to five stores, a website, concessions in Harrods, Selfridges and Liberty and a fast-growing online business. Turnover is £20m a year. “It’s changed a lot since we first opened, but the concept is still the same: make it fun for children. Because if it’s fun for children, they’ll bring their parents too.”
On the day we met at the Knightsbridge store, a little boy was getting his hair cut in front of a wall-sized tropical fish tank (“poor hairdressers trying to remember the names of all the fish”), a toddler was twirling around in a pair of dress shoes, and two granny types were arguing over a wall full of tiny frilly dresses.
Mirman describes the Trotters look as “British heritage with a twist” and “dressing kids like kids, not dressing them like tiny adults.” That means tiny dresses in Liberty-patterned fabrics with puff sleeves, gathered bodices and short shirtsleeves, perfect for page boys at summer weddings. The latest Peppa Pig collection walked a line between traditional and animated—enough Peppa to please both wearers and Peppa-weary adults. The brand also designs for more casual moments, with Hampton Canvas sneakers worn by the royal children (and the Princess of Wales) in a variety of settings, including a polo match and a royal tour of Pakistan.
Her team works closely with Liberty, licensing prints from the archives or recoloring time-tested prints for a younger audience. Everything is made in Portugal and Spain, mostly in small, family-run factories. The burgundy velvet-collared coat that Princess Charlotte wore to church on Christmas Day 2022 was made in a small factory in Portugal that Mirman likens to a haute couture atelier, meaning “every step from the cutting of the fabric to the end of the label is done by one person.” While dresses remain its flagship category, the brand sells shoes for boys rather than girls (“boys are very hard on their shoes with all the scooters and football,” Mirman says).
Mirman never knows when the royals might wear Trotters designs in a photo. And when they do, she doesn’t shout it down. “We’re very careful. But somehow people learn.” The impact of a young royal wearing Trotters is “huge and immediate”: When Princess Charlotte wore one of the brand’s pale blue Liberty-patterned dresses for her fourth birthday portrait, the style sold out overnight and has been particularly strong in the American market. “Americans absolutely love anything to do with royalty.” Wait until you hear about the fish tank.