Here are all of the Belgian royal hats we saw this year (click on each photo to link its original post with larger views of each hat):
Princess Léa and Princess Marie-Esmeralda (#2 and 3)
1. 
2. 
3. 
Princess Maria-Laura (#4 and 5), Archduchess Elisabetta (#6) and Princess Astrid
4. 
5. 
6. 
7. 
8. 
Queen Paola
9. 
10. 
Princess Claire and Princess Louise (#15)
11. 
12. 
13. 
14. 
15. 
Queen Mathilde
16. 
17. 
18. 
19. 
20. 
21. 
22. 
23. 
24. 
25. 
26. 
27. 
28. 
29. 
30. 
31. 
32. 
Do any of these hats make your list of favourite royal hats this year? Is there one you want to nominate for your least favourite hat of 2014?
*Update: Belgian royal hats worn on December 12 and December 13 have been added to this list.
Royal Hats 
Is Number 25 a hat???
Definitely Princess Claire in the grey wool (#13) for the win….but this is a rather lackluster bunch. Sigh.
So hard to choose here, among Queen Mathilde’s hats! I really love her simple pillboxes in pink and blue, but for ‘best’ I will nominate the black calot with feather trim (#20) she wore in March on the visit to the UK. I also really like the brown calot she wore in February (#18) as 2nd place. No nominations for least favorite here.
Queen Mathilde’s red pleated pillbox (#17) is one of my favorite hats of the year, because it’s cute, a good shade of red, versatile, and suits her well and I would wear it myself. I also loved her peacock feather headband (#30). The worst hats of the year are her bandage hats, especially the brown (#25)one as some others have said. Princess Claire’s pink straw hat (#11) was about the only one of her hats that I liked. Overall I just don’t think it’s been a good hat year for the Belgian royals.
Queen Mathilde is a stunning, classic beauty. I wish I had her incredible looks. I also wish, she would get a better sartorial look, starting with her hats. A head to toe style makeover, would be wonderful to see for 2015. While she often looks very nice, I think she could look like a knockout with the help of a good stylist.
With that said, she has some of the hats which make my least favorite list, but she does look very nice in some of the structured hats, which are worn more to the back of her head.
I agree G.A. it’s time for a makeover!
My favorite for thus group is Princess Claire’s grey hat #13, worst is QM head wound hat #25
Still waiting to see the other groups for my overall favorite and least favorite hat. I know Max has a doozy that is coming.
Well for me, Queen Mathilde’s red sun visor is pretty bad along with the (10th) brown head bandage of course. I thought the black feathered headpiece that she wore to meet HMQE was rather elegant and understated and suited her, as do most hats that are placed further back to show off her lovely face. For me, Princess Claire’s grey hat she wore with a very vibrant orange outfit is perfectly proportioned and is a lovely style for her. Lastly, the blue sparkly number worn by Queen Paola to the wedding was a little too stark for me. Thanks for this, good fun.
I like Q.Poala’s brown pillbox but that may be because that was the first time I saw her surprising and beautiful hair style. I also like QM’s little rose wreathy thing but I wouldn’t really call it a hat. Can’t say much esle stands out except the dreaded rag hat QM wore on the least favoorite list.
Those are two of my favourites too. I also like Mathilde’s feathery number (#30) and Claire’s pink hat (#11) and grey/black hat (#13), which seem to have an identical shape which suits her well.
The Belgian royal ladies are joining their counterparts from Monaco and Spain in my opinion. None of these hats are on my “best” list! Several may make my worst list. However, I am going to wait until I see the ladies from the other royal houses first. 🙂
Jeepers Mathilde wore a lot of off-the-face hats this year. YAWN. I’m saving my best (and probably worst LOL!!) for Maxima.
You mean antena Max. 🙂
Yes! I don’t know how those awful antennae can go without being voted the worst of 2014. But I also think Max’s has two big hats (the burgundy one and the black & white one) that are serious contenders for best hat. She could sweep both categories!
Princess claire with the big pink hat at Prince Amedeo’s wedding stands out as the very best one here, and Queen Mathilde at the same event as the worst!
I agree. I don’t usually like pink hats but that one is very pretty.
Queen Paola best and worst. Best, black pillbox; worst, blue pointed abomination.
My favorite hate was Queen Matilde’s pleated red beret. Least favorite is her bandage hat made of heavy fabric.
Oops. Meant to say “my favorite hat.”
Of Queen Mathilde’s hats, I like the brown felt calot-style hat the best. But it’s not my favorite royal hat of the year! On the flip side, I really, really dislike the bandage hats!
Of the rest, none rings my bell for ‘best of’.
The pink bandage hat is much better than the brown one maybe because it looks like strips of bandages instead of one big bandage wrapped around her head. The big brown one looked terrible on her especially with that beautiful blue dress.
I didn’t realize until seeing all these photos together how many of Queen Mathilde’s hats are the type that sit back on the rounded part of her head. This retro style looks really good on her.
Best Queen P…sorry I am going to spell the name incorrectly…the large black pillbox.
I did not like any of the others.
What is it with Queens Mathilde and Maxima and their wrap hats and donut hats?! I hate all of those hats. There are some nice hats here, but I don’t know that I would call any of them favorites. I am surprised with Queen Mathilde. She is very chic and lovely, so I was sure I would love one of her hats. Not so much, sadly.
As I put this together, I also felt like none of Queen Mathilde’s hats stood out. It’s a contrast from last year, when her hat was the landslide winner.
Couldn’t agree more. Mathilde’s hats are a bit of a letdown for me. I’m quite surprised seeing them that I feel like that. I do like the real feathered headband, but do wish she’d leave the donut hats aside. Somewhat controversially I like Paola’s space age blue one from the wedding though!
Do you like it enough to nominate it for one of the best of 2014?
best = Princess Astrid hat with blue roses. beautiful.
worst = Queen Mathilde brown head wrap. horrible.
I agree with your worst choice but not your best choice. The blue hat with flowers that Princess Astrid wore for her son’s wedding looks like a flowered bathing cap from the 1950s.
I think the best hat in this group by far is the pink on with the big brim on Princess Claire.
I’m a little confused by “brown head wrap.” Do you mean the 10th had worn above by Queen Mathilde? The third hat actually is brown; the 10th, which I think is absolutely horrid, actually seems to be multi-colored. That tenth hat, whatever color it is, gets my vote for worst hat. Some of those bandages above are better than others, but none is particularly good. I agree that Queen Mathilde’s hats were a disappointment this year.
Queen Paola looks pretty good in each of her two hats above.
My favorite here is Princess Claire’s pink straw picture hat. I LOVE Queen Mathilde but I have to nominate her brown bandage head wrap for worst hat of 21014.
I agree. That bandage hat is truly horrific,
Two of these hats were among my favorites this year. I like Princess Astrid in the pale pink (on my computer) straw hat, and I like the queen in the red hat with pleats. And the queen’s green feathers were my favorite headband for the year.
Do you mean Princess Claire’s pink straw hat (top row, far right)?
If you mean the blue/teal feathers with the green coat then I agree! That was such a pretty outfit.