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SCHOOL’S IN. With rugby shirts becoming the most searched-for sportswear style of 2023, last month’s reprinting of cult Ivy League book Ametora and this week’s release of Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn, the ‘posh mystery film’ praised by Esquire for nailing Noughties Oxbridge style, dressing like a louche toff lolling around your Halls of Residence has become quite the thing.

With great timing—punctuality being the politeness of kings, after all—comes the sixth and final season of The Crown. It’s the one that ‘does’ Di and Dodi, Charles and Camilla and Kate and William.

The latter relationship mines William’s time as a geography student at St. Andrew’s, between 2001-2005—AKA the Unicore Years, the zenith of his personal style where a bid for anonymity saw him adopt the alias ‘Steve’. (We’re not making this up.) Oxford shirts, crew-neck jumpers, boot-cut jeans and boxy trainers (when they were just ‘trainers’)… it was peak Y2K fashion.

To mark the launch of The Crown, here’s eight times our king-in-waiting has never looked greater.

The Crown Season Six Part One starts on Netflix on 17 November; Unicore William arrives in Part Two – from 14 Dec


JULIAN HERBERT

Ok, so it’s utterly impossible to compete with dad in full For Your Eyes Only get-up—turtleneck and neckerchief? It can be done!—but top marks to Wills for giving it a bash. Seen here during a photocall in Klosters at the start of his annual skiing holiday in the Swiss Alps in 2002, the un-poppered orange jacket and turned-down collar projects a breezy ease with the Great Outdoors. On his wrist is the Omega Seamaster 300m, a gift from his late mother – famously also known as ‘the Bond watch’. Some lookalike outerwear makes an appearance in The Crown, with imitations already appearing online as ‘Prince William The Crown S06 Jacket’.

JOHN LI

Attending a match at the Beaufort Polo Club in Gloucestershire, July 2002. The flipped collar, the navy, orange and white club colours and the rakishly undone top button is very chip-off-the-old-block. With a dash of Rupert Campbell-Black, for any Jilly Cooper fans reading this.

ANWAR HUSSEIN

Posing in Salvator’s quad at St Andrew’s University, 2004. Oxford bags, accessorised with a pop of orange—a Young Wills signature—on the belt. The fleece worn over a white shirt is very Drake’s 2023.

ANWAR HUSSEIN

The same as before but make it The Color of Money.

POOL

Embracing the workwear trend before it became a thing, we may noddingly approve of William’s gorpcore sandals-plus-socks combo, his indigo technical trousers and his off-white collegiate hoodie (JW Anderson for Uniqlo has one very similar right now). Bonus points for the rolled-and-tucked sleeves, impressive forearm muscles and gold wrap bracelet. What’s he making? We’re glad you asked. It’s a wooden rubbish bin for villagers in Southern Chile during his Raleigh International Expedition—his gap yah, if you will.

ALAMY

A young Val Kilmer.

SION TOUHIG

Unlike his father, William favours simple, single-breasted suits in solid colours—no DBs, please. The cross motif on the tie adds a touch of character, the young Prince bucking royal convention by using a simple knot, unlike the showier Windsor favoured by his dad (and named after his great-great-uncle). The light blue shirt is perfect for setting off his peachy complexion. And, for now, great hair.

ALAMY

How to look good naked. Possibly the first and last member of the royal family you’d ever want to see shirtless, HRH styled it out in pair of black Speedos to play water polo in a tournament against Ireland in 2004. Alright Ken, you’re on. Let’s beach off.

This story originally appeared on Esquire UK.