The most common reader question here at Royal Hats is “How do royals store all their hats?”. British milliner Rachel Trevor Morgan (who regularly makes hats for Queen Elizabeth and other members of the British Royal Family) joins us today to offer 4 simple recommendations for hat storage (for both royal and non-royal hats!) 
Always keep your hat in a box.
Sit the hat the right way round and not upside down when in its box. It keeps its shape better that way.
Use plenty of tissue and make sure that the tissue is supporting the hat. If the brim is a down-brim the put lots of tissue in the crown of the hat so that it is sitting on that tissue and not on the brim that could otherwise go out of shape.
Likewise with a small hat with a veil, make sure the veil sits over a ball of tissue so that it does not lose its shape. This is especially relevant to veils that have been blocked (shaped) which we always do.
Thank you so much Rachel! It seems the equation for successful hat storage is simple: store the hat upright in a box entirely supported with tissue. I suppose if you have many hats, a photo or description on the box would be helpful for organization as well. I imagine Queen Elizabeth’s hat closet is a large set of shelves filled with hundreds of hat boxes in varying sizes, perhaps organized by colour. Do you have other handy tips for hat storage you can share?
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I am having a new closet installed this month and am giving priority to how my hats will be stored. Thanks for these tips! Now I plan to buy a few more boxes and more tissue paper, and to label my boxes, so I don’t have to remember (or guess!) what is inside.
Yes Hat Queen a “Track-A-Hat” feature would be fun. I wonder how many of her hats are totally recycled, by removing the trims and covering and then recovering and re-trimming them, in other colors and fabrics.
I would love *Track A Hat*, what an interesting idea!
Definitely a track a hat piece would be awesome. Still wan to know how Maxima stores thta hat from the Lix wedding. Do they reove the feather for storage or is ther and enormously tall hat box?
I just love this picture taken from Ms Kelly’s book. I can see probably 10 or so hats that I instantly recognise and of course you are then prompted to remember the whole outfit -some of which are hanging up- the occassion etc etc. Oh to be privvy to all these intricate details and behind the scenes goings on!!!!
Most of the Queen’s hats are of moderate size, but think of the huge hatboxes necessary to store hats like those of the Duchess of Cornwall or Princess Michael!
That’s all stuff I learned as a young gal since in the 40s as a teen it was always a hat day then! But what I still want to know is where do royals store all those hats? My imagination leads me to dream there are rooms full of shelved closet with hat boxes in them in the the like of Buckingham Palace!
You’ll have to ask during your next tour of Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle!
I also will be in line to see those hats, and I want a whole day with hat ladies so we can try all those hats on and have tea in together in the storage room to our delight. And HM should be there with us for we know she is the ultimate Hat Queen!
Informative post! The mind boggles to think of all the Queen’s hats in their hat boxes. Now THAT would be a great part of a tour of Windsor Palace, wouldn’t it? “Excuse me, I don’t need to see the Queen, just show me where she stores all those fabulous hats!”
When you make your request, I shall be just one step behind you. I understand the theory of storing all these hats, but I too want to see this in operation.
Do you suppose there is one central storage, or do some hats live at Windsor, others at Buck House, others at Balmoral, etc? Do you suppose there are pictures on the hat boxes? There must be numbers at least. And what happens when someone opens box 3,452 for a “turquoise hat with feathers,” and the box is EMPTY?
I honestly think the only people privy to such things are the queen’s dressers and staff. In Angela Kelly’s book, there is a photo of hats and outfits lined up for some sort of wardrobe organization. I suspect the hats are stored, in boxes, on similar shelves.
Just throwing a thought out- would you all like to see a “Track-A-Hat” feature where we look at the life of a hat- its debut and every location it is worn- to try and guess if it stays in one location or moves around to different closets in different palaces?
My suspicion is that the Queen’s hats are worn everywhere. There is no home location, in other words, although if you could show there is, I’d be fascinated. I believe that your picture from Angela Kelly’s book shows outfits preparing to travel to Balmoral.
I’ve read that for each function approximately three outfits are presented for the Queen to select from (to depend, I guess, on color required for backgrounds in photos, no repeat colors in specific cities, no repeat outfits for specific audiences). Your correspondents write occasionally that they wonder why the Queen was forced to wear some specific (usually somewhat unattractive) outfit; although she doesn’t have complete choice, I assume that the Queen has the final choice on everything she wears.
So yes, I’m always in favor of “track-a-hat,” but I’ll bet you’ll discover that everything she owns travels everywhere.
I rather like that hat in for foreground of the last picture. interesting information. thank you