The grand dame of royal hats is, without question, Queen Elizabeth. The most frequent wearing of all current monarchs, Her Majesty continues to enthrall and entertain us with her marvelous millinery. While several of the following hats were worn multiple times in 2014, they will each show up in the review list just once. Please click on each photo to link to the original post on each hat, complete with additional views, larger photos and detailed information. Without further ado, here are all the hats worn by Queen Elizabeth in 2014:
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74. 
Will any of these hats receive your nomination for favourite royal hat of 2014? Stay tuned tomorrow morning for the final royal hat review post and the start of our nominations!
Please click on each photo to link back to the original post with additional information and photo sources
Royal Hats 
An astounding number of hats! Almost too many to choose from, but we’ll do our best.
I like these: 4, 13, 15, 22, 25, 40, 42, 55, 73.
In general, I think Angela Kelly tends to over embellish, but some of her designs are winners. I know that a lot of people think some of the hats are too tall or don’t like the split crown, or maybe it’s the bulbous or hourglass look. I like the those! I love that Her Majesty wears interesting hats. And so very many of them!
Thank you, Hat Queen, for all of your work! This is one of my all time favorite blogs!
I just want to take this opportunity at year’s end to thank you for all the pleasure your blog gives me. It leaves a smile on my face every day when I check it. I can’t imagine how much work you put into this.
You are so welcome, Ruth. It is my little labour of love and I am deeply touched by the incredible response it continues to draw. It is wonderful also to know that there are so many of you out there who share my love for royal hats!
I want to commend ruth for her comments, and I agree, and long may HatQueen reign! Bravo!
I much prefer the hats by Rachel Trevor Morgan to anything by Angela Kelly, which to me look overdone and dangerously close to “homemade with glue gun.”
I just went through the pictures choosing my top five, and was interested to see that every single one I chose was a Rachel Trevor Morgan design. Her designs tend to be more feminine and less severe than those of Angela Kelly. I would love to see Her Majesty in a pretty picture hat with a bit of veiling… anyway here are my top five: 37, 52, 36, 8, 23, 38.
Hmm I can’t count – that is SIX top choices!
What a collection and not a fascinator or pillbox in sight! Thank goodness!
I am invariably delighted with how this attractive, vivacious but elderly woman presents herself as Monarch and my head of state. This was especially so at the D Day commemorations wearing 29 with that vibrant, citrusy green coat and matching silk dress and Queen Victoria’s Fringe brooch.
On a different level, I thought 27, together with the gorgeous but demure Botswana Flower brooch, completed a chic and charming travelling outfit for the Queen.
I don’t find much to dislike about the Queen’s hats although I am tired of the Queen’s flat brimmed style and some hats are more work a day than others. My least favourite was 28, again worn in France. I loved the colour and shape but disliked the shaggy material of the hat and the outfit – best viewed at a distance.
From this review of the Queen’s hats and those of others have deduced the following:
1. Looking good requires major planning – I counted 10 new hats/outfits for the Queen this year. Also the Queen attends a huge range of events in a variety of locations and still looks impeccable. That takes a lot of work and a system. Thank you Angela Kelly.
2. Looking good requires discipline – a simple hairstyle and regular hair dressing, (NB Duchess of Cambridge, Queen Maxima and Countess of Wessex), simple accessories, making time for fittings, knowing what works on you (NB Countess of Wessex, York Princesses).
3. Hats work best when they are coordinated with an outfit in terms of colour and, more elusively, style. (NB Autumn Phillips).The frequently maligned Angela Kelly and her staff do a professional job sourcing fabrics, designing and commissioning outfits and hats from a variety of sources and integrating them with outfits from previous years. Princess Beatrix too is peerless in this regard. Among the younger royal women Crown Princess Mary has good wardrobe planning as does Queen Letitia (although she needs more hats).
4. Hats are expensive so if you don’t have deep pockets you have to work harder on 1, 2 and 3.(York Princesses).
5. Finally, no one can force you to wear a hat (except perhaps if you are in the Japanese Royal Family). So if you look bad blame yourself not your dresser or milliner. Chapeaux! everyone I have loved reading all the comments. Happy New Year.
Gawd, luv a duck, guv’nor! I had no idea HM wears so many hats in a single year. She is terrific, isn’t she? There’s plenty to dislike without a doubt, but I think the point is that she lights up lives wherever she goes, sometimes creating memories that will last a lifetime. I saw her as a child, standing in the back of an open LandRover waving to a sea of schoolchildren. Her outfit was mustard yellow but that, and the fact she was the Queen and I saw her, are all that I now remember. So, good hat, bad hat … on the day for the people who see her, they’re all great hats and they’re all an integral part of her regal “uniform” (ie, not something she grabs off the coat stand and chucked on as she’s going out the door). Long may she reign over us!
I pretty much agree with you on all points sandra. Bravo! Long may she reign over us!
Thanks HatQueen for your intensive research. This Best and Worst of the Year 2014 series is a lot of fun! I am amazed at the variety and volume of hats the Queen has worn during her lifetime. I wonder if anyone knows altogether how many hats she has worn? I prefer the Rachel Trevor Morgan hats over the heavily trimmed, and often tall crowned, Angela Kelly ones.
This year my favorite hat is 8, as it’s a lovely watermelon color, and the petals remind me of an English rose garden. Hat 3 is my next favorite, as the red color and proportions suit her. Third best is hat 27, as I thought the hat, suit, jewels and accessories looked very chic and Coco Chanel inspired, for her French arrival. I liked hat 68, due to its gold tones. I do like 16, even though I don’t usually like split crowns, but it looks good on her. Hat 23 is a good one, as the Queen looks good in pink usually. Hat 24, and its outfit, is one I liked when she wore it initially to Prince William’s wedding, but I’m rather bored with it now, as I think it was too simple to repeat several times. I liked hat 28 from a distance, but close up the tweed looks rather heavy, given the matching coat too, and the hanging threads make it looked frayed.
My pick for worst hat was 9, with its bulbous crown and twee bow (which is a shame as I liked the blue color). Hat 47 is next worse, as it also suffers from a bulbous crown. My next pick is 49, with its tall crown and excessive trims. Next worse is 30, due to its hourglass shape with too tall crown, and a curly blue trim at its waist. Next worst was 73, with its too clashing colors, too tall crown, and huge feathers. Hat 30 looks like a miner’s lamp (so does hat 65, though I like the navy color and the navy coat, though the shades of navy looked mismatched). Hat 33 has way too much trim. Hat 42 resembles an upturned bucket. I also hated 14, the red top hat, with its hat pin in the center. The lampshade at 19 wasn’t too good either.
TiarasRUs thanks for your research, and I pretty much agree with you on all points. Bravo! I
My favorite on her is #19 (I do not care for her typical Angela Kelly hat shape), but I love the color scheme of #73.
My favorite hat is #37. I love the shape of #19 because that style of hat gives me such glam Audrey Hepburn vibes, can you imagine if she’d worn a full sized cartwheel like that? One woman wore a bigger version of that hat to Ascot this year and it had to be my favorite hat of all.
Hi Hatqueen, this is an excellent display. Does Queen Elizabeth II ever chose styles such as pillbox hats or picture hats with round crowns?
I really liked a number of the Queen’s hats, but for me #54 and 68 stood out for me. The one I really didn’t like was #25
#8 and #11 stood out for me this year. All though all of her hats are appropriate and conservatively styled, as a queen should, All of these are successes on their day to shine
A quick question HatQueen. Are you tallying results for favourite and least favourite hats on each of the individual posts you have made for the different royal houses or are you going to make a final post where we give you our selections? Also thank you for all of your hard work with sharing these lovely hats with us.
56 and 60 are wonderful hats on Her Majesty! Especially 56…she ought to wear this hat shape more often because it looks great on her!
P.S. Hat Queen, thank you so much for all your work on these year-end roundups of hats. Looking forward to what 2015 brings.
My favorite new hat is No. 27, but it was a hard choice to make. HM must have the world’s most extensive wardrobe of hats, and I applaud her willingness to try new colors, shapes and textures. I do agree with the comments about the stovepipe and Dr. Seuss hats. I don’t like them esthetically, but that is a matter of taste. More importantly, I do not think they flatter HM, and for that I would fault the designer. When making a custom hat, I think that should always be the designer’s top consideration.
I think #8 may be one of my favorite hats of HM’s of all time. But I also love #’s 15, 23, 26, 41, 46, 56, and 65. I wish she would wear ones similar to #56 more, that shape looks lovely on her. The one I wish she would throw away is #9.
My favorites are 4, 26, 27, and 59. While I certainly don’t love every hat HM wears, she wears hats extremely well…I suspect that were another person to wear HM’s hats, I wouldn’t like them as well. There are a few, ahem, interesting selections pictured above, though–I’d prefer to see fewer of the “Dr Seuss” style hats, as they don’t seem elegant enough for HM.
Her Majesty never disappoints. She is game to try about anything and for that and many other reasons I admire her tremendously. My fave in the way of color is #24. I love her in this watermelon color. The shape perhaps not so much, but I can overlook that in favor of the color! I also like #20 with the downturned brim. Wish she would wear this style more often. Also #26 in navy with white. A good look for her majesty. Least fave is the shape of #63. I don’t know what it’s called, but I don’t care for it. Some of the hats look a little overdecorated for my taste. I wonder how many different hats she has worn since she began her duties as Queen?
What a fabulous assortment of hats! Thank you so much for the time-consuming compilation. Styles, colors and ages of the hats certainly vary, don’t they?
My top five hats are these: 1, 8 (like last year), 22, 27, 28, 35, 36, 38, 40, 41, 42, 48, 52, 55, 61, 68, 73, 74. Oops, that’s way more than five. My two favorite new hats would be 27 and 36, I guess, one AK, one RTM. My long-term favorites probably remain 22 and 68, though: simple style that resembles a crown, so appropriate for the Queen.
The only hats I actually dislike are 33 (already thoroughly commented on), 54 (too short, squashy) and 70, which I’ve never liked because of that ugly fabric roll even though it goes with the coat’s collar.
Looking at the hat without examining the entire outfit makes judging difficult (although in the case of the Queen, I can remember what the outfits basically look like). But the hat itself should complement the outfit, and a beautiful hat that doesn’t go with the outfit fails in its purpose. That is a problem the Queen doesn’t have: everything is beautifully coordinated.
Hello HatQueen,
Back to choosing a fave, I simply can’t do it. Like JamesB, I find there are simply too many wonderful confections here. Three cheers for HM and three cheers for you for taking the time to create such an entertaining blog!
At the risk of sounding rather nit picky, it’s ‘without further ado’ not adieu which is a French word for good bye, or, see you later and is pronounced differently. Sorry, I couldn’t let it slip by a second time without saying something.
Thanks, Lyn. Correction made!
I think 16 and 59 are the same hat, and my favourite of the bunch, but what makes every hat she wears so beautiful is her smile (with the obvious exception of Remembrance Day, of course).
A truly great Hatter! And providing so much for us to talk (and disagree) about. Thank you, Hat Queen, for putting this list together! Perhaps the thing that I appreciate most about this selection as a whole is that the Queen is unafraid to experiment, while still staying on the right side of fashionable, not going overboard. Personally, I certainly don’t find any of the Queen’s hats warrant a laugh, I’d say they are always interesting, always well-thought-out in relation to the outfit and the occasion, and usually beautifully executed. And I like the great majority of them.
I like the fact that the Queen’s collection embraces variety, but looking at all these, I must say I think the asymmetric tilted up brim really suits her face particularly well (for example 10, 23, 29, 34, 36, 38, 45, 46, 67). 15 and 73 are lovely partly because of the vibrant colour. I like number 6, the very unusual toque / beret style – very simple, but really the most different of all these hats, definitely channelling Queen Mary! I very much like the unusual embellishment on the lemon yellow hat (42), and I like the wrapped effect of the trim on 41. My least favourites would probably be ones like 11, 12, 17, 37, 70 – nothing particularly wrong with them, just boring. My favourites are easy: the green with the passion flower (29) and the yellow with the asymmetric brim (45).
Forgot my third favourite, the navy with the pink flower (65)!
absolutely agree My favourites are 29 and 65
I think what this post says to me is just how busy Her Maj is. She’s nearly 90 for heavens sake – and attended enough engagements to warrant 74 different hats (many worn more than once) and not counting all the non hat affairs she attended.
I think her hats get a hard time. I really like nearly all of them. Many are really beautiful (I will concede these are more often the RTM ones – such as the one worn to meet the pope and the beautiful sugar pink number), but the AK ones aren’t a disaster – I really liked the navy one with the pink flower, and many many more.
Here’s a woman who has embraced a more up to date style in her 80s and looks better than she had for a few decades. She uses colour most of us would be terrified of, experiments with style and shape, and no matter if you like the hat or not, always looks ‘just so’. I think this has been a great year of hattery! Thank you for bringing it to us!
I just don’t like many of the shapes worn and the best in my opinion is No. 3. But I applaud her HM for wearing hats, and the wide range of colours she wears.
Favorite 45 not so favorite 33.
The Queen’s expression in #18 and #69 pretty much sums up my thoughts about these hats. It is sad to me that she is not better represented by her milliner (s). I think the softer shapes, with a brim that opens up her face, and is gentler to an older woman is much preferable to the stovepipe, clown and Dr Suess hats, or even the witches hat (#65)! # 45 and 46 I like the brims, but the crowns are wonky. Then there are those hard edged, #24.25.40,44, 53 that are so stiff. There are several here that could be in my worst ever list. 9,14,47, 50, oh, my. And that doesn’t even reference the miners lamp .#30. When one looks at pictures of the Queen one should not have to stifle a laugh or shake one’s head in disbelief. Seeing them all together is worse than I imagined.
God save our gracious Queen! I was eagerly awaiting this post, while dreading the decision-making at the same time. #25 will always hold a special place for me, first because it is green (my favorite color), and second because it premiered when HM met Martin McGuinness, a momentous occasion for Northern Ireland (where I spent a semester and holds a special place in my heart). Okay, enough sentimentality. I do wish #15 had worked better; it was a great idea, but didn’t quite come together as well as it could have. #27 was a nice and fun addition to the rotation, while I still desperately wish #29 had a wider brim on the right side to balance it out. I’m not usually a yellow fan, but HM can pull it off, and does so brilliantly with #45. #54 belongs in my top 5 hats of 2014; it was a beautiful piece and complimented a successful Commonwealth Games. #65 was another favorite, although it was odd to premiere a sinamay hat in October; would’ve been better at Ascot. Finally, #73 rounds out my list of favorites for the year, thanks to the unusual combination of colors paired with HM’s smile.
No. 3 is the best, she looks really good in red, it makes her look cheerful and I also like 23, and 14 is the worst, it’s the style of the hat that is unbecoming on her.
My family and I spent so much time looking through all these hats and their links and we think HatQueen must be exhausted. We agree with you elizabethmclaughline42, Photo:3 is best, then comes 23, but there are many more that come close, by Rachel Trevor Morgan. We think the top hat at Photo 14 is the worst as you do, but we don’t like any of the Angela Kelly Dr Seuss Cat in the Hat styles with very tall, slanted crowns, and the heavily trimmed hats.
Wow! This post was a lot of hard work for you with so many hats worn by Her Majesty.
I love #45 because she looks glorious in yellow. Some hats are nice, some are ‘meh,’ but what is constant is how regal she is in public. She always looks amazing.
3,43,68
I tried but nothing amazing …I use to like the Wedgwood hat but not so much now.