Prince Louis Gives a Little Tooth, a Lot of Charm in New 7th Birthday Portrait

The youngest of Kate Middleton and Prince William’s three children, Prince Louis, marked his seventh birthday Wednesday, and his proud parents shared birthday wishes, a new photo, and a brief video clip of the rambunctious youngest Wales on social media to celebrate along with the world.

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In the video compilation, we’re treated to Louis’s seemingly boundless energy and boyish glee he exhibited during the shoot, complete with him grinning into the camera at close range and even a rare snippet of him speaking.

“I can jump down from there!” he announces, pointing, then demonstrates by leaping off a log, thrilled. The cinematographer is not tagged, but from Louis’s sneaky smiles and close proximity to the shooter, there’s a non-zero chance that Kate was behind that phone, playing Instagram Mom.

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It’s not just the clip that’s a change to the family’s typical birthday offerings: While the Prince and Princess of Wales routinely share new photos of their children to mark birthdays, there are a few subtle ways that Louis’s photographic celebration breaks with both Wales family tradition, and broader royal family norms.

In the portrait, Louis wears an olive green v-neck sweater over a white-and-blue grid patterned collared shirt, paired with a pair of blue jeans. It’s not the casual connotation of denim that is remarkable here, but that his princely knees are covered by the full-length pants.

In the British upper classes, boys typically wear short pants until about age 8, stemming from the 16th-century concept of “breeching,” when infants would be dressed first in gowns, regardless of gender, before boys graduated to short pants. The transition to full-length trousers was considered a milestone and mark of maturity, with etiquette expert William Hanson telling Harper’s Bazaar in 2018 that “a pair of trousers on a young boy is considered quite middle class—quite suburban. And no self-respecting aristo or royal would want to be considered suburban.”

It’s not the very first time we’ve seen the littlest prince in full trousers—he donned a dark pair with his suit at the 2024 and 2023 Christmas carol concerts, perhaps a concession to the cold—but any twitch of differing from royal protocol is noteworthy. Maybe he passed some secret test or very significant arm-wrestling match and has been deemed pants-worthy and grown.

The other break from tradition is one more personal to the family: The birthday portrait was taken by photographer Josh Shinner, not Kate. The Princess of Wales is a passionate photographer, and is usually behind the lens for her children’s birthday portraits. She took Louis’s first birthday photo (sweater, teeny tiny teeth), second (checkered shirt, rainbow paint-covered hands poised for chaos and mess), third (sweater, special guest star bicycle), fourth (sweater, sand), and sixth (checkered shirt, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it missing lower tooth) birthday pictures. Only this year and Louis’s fifth birthday (sweater, wheelbarrow, mom), when the family released sweet shots of Louis and Princess Kate taken by Millie Pilkington, because how is mom supposed to take the photo when she’s in the photo, has someone else done the photographic honors.

Though Shinner is new to the Louis Birthday Photo Hall of Fame, this isn’t the first time he’s captured the Wales family’s likenesses. He was the photographer behind the family’s 2023 holiday card, bearing a black-and-white group shot. In an Instagram caption, he called that experience “without doubt one of the most relaxed and enjoyable sittings I’ve ever had.”