As we are half way through December, it’s time to look back over all the royal hats we have seen this year and name our favourites. This year, we’re going to focus on all the new hats we saw- we’ll look back by country then bring forward our favourites to face off for the title of Best New Royal Hat of 2015.
We’re going to start today with all the hats débuted this year on Belgian royal heads. I’m exercising my editorial powers by not including Queen Mathilde’s open crowned hats (this one and this one), this nondescript calot and a certain pair of antlers. Click on any of the photos to jump back to original posts to see additional description and detail of the hats.
A note about voting- the hats with the most votes across this semifinal will move forward to the final face off. If you don’t think any of these hats are worthy of the title of Best of 2015, then save your votes for upcoming polls! The next one will be up on Friday.
Queen Mathilde:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Princess Astrid:
11.
12.
Princess Claire:
13.
14.
Do any of these hats, in your estimation, deserve to be named best royal hat of the year? Cast your vote below. Voting will remain open until January 1, 2016 at midnight GMT and you can vote for multiple hats four times per day.
Royal Hats 
I consider Queen Mathilde’s best new hat this year to be the cloche hat, pictured at Number 1. Many of her other hats were among the best hats of the year too, in both the new and repeat hat categories. Top marks to you Your Majesty!
I liked all the Queen Mathilde hats this year, except No:7 which looks like radish slices. It is so hard to pick a favorite, but in the end I voted for No:1, No:6 and No:8.
Thanks for your work compiling this, HatQueen. It is a pleasure seeing how many hats Mathilde has worn. Lots of these are really classic examples of their type. I think number 1 is a really good example of a cloche, just as 5 is a really good example of a small perching saucer, and 6 is a really good example of a big saucer, and 8 of a large upturned brim. 4 and 7 are the less usual ones, the frilly, petally ones, and although I like the idea of such hats, and they often appeal to me as more interesting than lots of hats, actually I don’t think these particular examples are very successful.
I enjoy Queen Mathilde is just about any hat she wears. My first choice was #1 but that was only because I had to pick just one.
HatQueen how will you decide who is in the finals? Will it be the highest voted Royal hat from each country, in a country versus country play-off, or will it be the highest percentage of overall votes, so we might have say 3 Queen Mathilde hats and no Luxemburg hats, or some other method?
I had the same thought as Patsy. Mathilde really goes for a wide variety of styles.
I didn’t realize how many good hats Mathilde wore this year. Thanks for the retrospective.
These are just her new hats! She also wore some wonderful repeats.
Queen Mathilde’s hats at 1, 6, 8 and 10, are my 4 favourite hats of hers. I think the cloche at 1 is the best cloche I have ever seen. Thank you very much HatQueen for letting us have a vote on Best Royal Hat of the Year again!