to 93 years ago today and two queens (one current and one future) in a pair of marvellous hats. The 1920s modified cloche shape is so great on a young Duchess of York. Push the top brim back toward the hat and you have nearly the same millinery shape she favoured sixty years later.
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Photo from Getty as indicated
Royal Hats 
Queen Mary was the epitome of elegant and traditional regal style while the Duchess’s style seems more at relaxed and comfortable. She always seemed to wear her clothes with ease. I love the style of the 20’s for the free flowing dress and to this day I am a fan of that style of shoe on the duchess.
Is that a veil cascading down the back of the Duchess of York’s hat? It appears that she could have been in mourning.
There could hardly be a greater contrast between these 2 women. QM was clearly unimpressed by modern fashion. The duchess looks divinely haute and elegant, wearing the style of the day with ease — while QM is clearly still wearing a C19th S-bend corset. And QM’s Edwardian toque hat, perched so high on her C19th updo, is the antithesis of the low 1920s cloche style – but then QM never ever seem to mind towering over her husband, and everyone else, with her tall hats. The only concessions to modernity in QM’s look are the wrapover cut of her jacket (note the duchess’s wrap style coat) and those marten, er, pelt thingys. Unfortunately, QM’s formal hat and furs and gloves, added on to her homely tweedy Balmoral outfit including comfy shoes, is a rather odd look.
QM continued her style anachronisms well into the modern era. Her daughter-in-law (perhaps observing with horror, and vowing never to make the same mistake? LOL) took an entirely different approach to style. She embraced fashion and modernism in her middle and later years no less than in her youth. and was consequently admired all her life for her style
It is well known that it was HM King George V who refused to allow QM to follow modern fashion as the altered into the 20th C. QM loved fashion and knowing how her husbands mind worked asked one of her Ladies to don 20s fashion only for KG to say Did you see how Lady so and so looked? ridiculous to wear that short a skirt! So QM continued to wear the styles her husband preferred.
Is that a feather across the front of Queen Mary’s hat? Or is it a small bale of straw?
LOL!
These are certainly not my favorite hats for either Queen; the Queen Mother’s shoes are fabulous though! It is very interesting to note that Queen Mary’s Edwardian hats always sat very high on her hair and above her face (which was true of many, but not all, Edwardian hats), and then after WWI she seemed to suddenly switch to exclusively the toque style she is most known for. Seems she did not appreciate a brim obstructing her view or hiding her face (although she did wear very close fitting veils over face with some of her Edwardian hats).
Here’s another image of these hats:
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Jake: GREAT job! What wonderful, classic Scottish-ness in this beautiful photo! Were you there? HAHAHA!
We met a charming couple from Glasgow (they’re now both well into their 80s) on a Caribbean cruise in the early 90s. He wore a kilt and tuxedo jacket to the captain’s dinner, and IMMEDIATELY stole the show! They have since then come to our Ohio neck of the woods TWICE!
I LOVE the men’s tam o’shanters . . . you Brits have it all over us!
Great photo! Queen Mary must have been an imposing mother-in-law. I’m guessing that is the Duke of York on the right, but who is on the left?
Prince George, Duke of Kent who died in 1942 (father of the current Duke of Kent, Princess Alexandra and Prince Michael).
I’m fascinated by the shoes…DOY’s are shiny and pretty, but what is QM wearing? I also wonder what colors these outfits were…
The hats and furs do nothing for me. What catches my eyes are the wonderful tartan skirt and jacket on QM, and the fantastic coat on Elizabeth. Could they be in Scotland?
LOOK: I found the hat HQ uses for here replies!
I’m more terrified of the DOUBLE animals Mary is wearing!!
It never ceases to amaze me at how much our current Queen resembles her grandmother. And coincidentally how much Lady Louise resembles HER grandmother. My own English grandmother was a great lover of Queen Mary, and I grew up thinking Her Majesty was the Epitome of Royalty. As for those hats, well, each to her own!