It’s a busy week of milestone birthdays here on Royal Hats (and stay tuned at the end of this month for one more!). Today we celebrate the 40th birthday of Princess Mathilde of Belgium. Here is a look back at some of her most memorable hats.
Embed from Getty Images Embed from Getty Images
Embed from Getty Images Embed from Getty Images
I love watching Mathilde’s style progression from the beginning of her royal life (where some of those large hats overwhelmed her) – she has done some serious millinery experimentation and become so much more confident in her fashion and hat choices. Which one do you think is Mathilde’s best?
Royal Hats 
I love #10
Wonderful to see all of these hats. Thank you. She has had many winners. Seems to wear two designers mostly.
In my opinion so many are tied for first place, it is hard to sort them out.
I really like #1, #15 and #26. My favourite is #1. That hat is beautiful. Princess Mathilde also looks really good in pink flowered hats. She’s very delicate- I don’t like those modern ones on her.
Thank you, HatQueen, for this most excellent review of hats. While Princess Mathilde has worn many hats, most of them are pretty bad:
#2 – Lamp shade
#6 – Bigger lamp shade
#8 – interesting, but in a rather ugly way
#13- Hideous (perhaps this is why you assigned this #13)
#17 – Lamp shade
#19- Solar system model (terrible on the head of a princess)
#23- deep sea creature
#25- plastic bowl stuck on this poor princess’ forehead
#27- Slinky from the toy department
#29- Sombrero
#37- Cowgirl
#38- Yup- it’s a veiled ski hat.
Maybe the next 40 years will bring us more beautiful hats. Cheerio!
I am so glad you enjoyed it! Yes- the turban/pillbox you chose looks great on Mathilde. I believe she also wore this to the wedding of her sister.