to this day in 1942 that saw Queen Mary visit Cheltenham in one of her signature ruched toque hats with bejewelled feather trim. The average royal daytime look has certainly decreased in glamour in the intervening 74 years, hasn’t it?
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Photo from Getty as indicated
Re the ‘shaving mug’ – I think QM is visiting a canteen for troops when on leave, probably in London. Part of her war work, to draw attention to the canteens’ war effort.
The hat reminds me of the turbans the Indian Maharajas used to wear. Classic and timeless Queen Mary.
It looks like she’s holding a shaving mug!
I immediately thought of the current empress of Japan when I saw that cape and the DoC shooting arrows in Bhutan! Ha!
I wish more royal ladies would add jewels to their hats these days!
Really rather a minimalist look for Queen Mary, though, when you think of it – just a hat brooch, brooch, double strand of pearls, and earrings.
No one could wear a quantity of jewels as she did, and few today would even try (although I’m always living in hope that Queen Maxima will drift Teck-ward in that respect). I’ve long adored Osbert Sitwell’s observations about Queen Mary, and especially his writing of the “particular kind of film-star glamour that in advanced age overtook her appearance” – in part, I think, because her wardrobe was both so lavish and so timeless. She was one of a kind.
Wartime austerity didn’t make much of an impression on her!
Queen Mary was certainly a royalist through and through. I have read that Mary continued to wear her skirts long when the fashion was to wear them shorter because George V wanted her to. The turban was definitely a Mary look!
It’s interesting to see Queen Mary in a mini cape rather like the current Empress of Japan.