The Earl and Countess of Wessex returned to the races today with Prince Edward sporting his shiny silk top hat and Sophie debuting a magnificent bergère. In a plummy-burgundy hued woven straw, the piece features a short, flat crown wrapped in what looks like a cream silk abaca hatband and a very wide brim, trimmed with large purple and pink silk cabbage roses and a cream straw twist.
Embed from Getty Images
Embed from Getty Images Embed from Getty Images
Embed from Getty Images
Designer: Jane Taylor
Previously Worn: this hat is new
Previously Worn: this hat is new
Photos from Getty as indicated
Royal Hats 
Sophie’s look is a WOW for me. She is certainly a royal who has evolved over the years in her style. I love this hat it is such a pretty color on her! The dress looks like the same fabric as the green one worn on day one of Ascot. While it seems simple in style the sleeves and back cutout set it apart.
Prince Edward should have a copy of the first photo above printed and framed. I don’t the Countess has ever looked more beautiful than in that photo. Gorgeous!
The hat is amazing! Love the color, trim, and shape – looks especially lovely in the shots where her face is at an angle.
LOVE this hat! The color, the trim. It’s just gorgeous!
Love, love, love that hat! Shame about the dress.
Love the hat! Outstanding!
I love this hat. Beautiful colour. I realise the “flatness” and lack of contour is part of what was being aimed at, but the one thing I wish is that the rose at the front weren’t so very flat, as to me it just looks squashed!
Well, we can rely on Sophie to keep us on our toes! . It’s not often we see a hat with a brim this size deliberately worn dead centre on the head, and with no wave in the brim – and with a flattened crown intentionally smaller than the wearers head. S This bergere style sits higher than
whoops I must have hit send by mistake, too soon! anyway, I meant to say “… than a hat with a regular crown, which is a look I am not quite adjusted to as yet. I would like to see this hat with a dress that has similar strong lines- horizontals, diagonals etc – as shown in the example above. Sophie’s dress, while a lovely colour, doesn’t feel structured enough for this beautiful hat.
Stunning hat – reminds me of a look during the 1930`s of Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent.
LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the whole look from top to toe! Sophie always looks wonderful at Ascot and her hats are always wonderful – Edward must be so proud of her! Sophie, would you PLEASE give your stylist’s card to The Princess Royal??
Love the hat and love Jane Taylor’s styling of the Countess. It seems as if there is a new trend in shallow crowns but I much prefer this hat, which is lovely, to Princess Eugenie’s hat yesterday. That looked like a LP record on her head.
SOPHIE! Another fantabulous hat. I love this one. I’m not sure about the dress. I think I like it but again with the heavy textured fabric. This amazing hat needed something a little bit more floaty.
This hat is absolutely amazing and definitely one of my favorites for Ascot this year! I’m not as big of a fan of Sophie as most on here, but this is superb, and the color is beautiful for her. I do wonder what the hat would look like if it was tilted slightly to the right. I would love to see this repeated, but it definitely will be hard to find the right occasion. The color of the dress is also great, but the style and cut is definitely not great.
Wow!! This is why Sophie is mine and many others favourite Royal hat wearer. I got up this morning excited to see what Royal hats had been worn at Day 2 of Ascot and was not disappointed when this was the first hat that came up on my screen. It is winter here in Australia, and is cold and dreary so is wonderful to wake up and see Royals enjoying the sunshine whilst wearing wonderful hats! It makes my day, and thanks HatQueen for doing such a fantastic job in putting together such a comprehensive coverage of Royal Ascot hats.
Now onto why this particular hat and outfit wows me. I like how the base plum colour of this hat is different but complementary to the dress colour, and how the lighter coloured pink rose at the top of the hat ties in with the colour of the dress, and then the use of nude accssories connects with the straw twists onto the hat to make for an exquisitely well coordinated ensemble that is not ‘matchy matchy’.
I for one love the dress, the colour is great with Sophie’s complexion and the cut is flattering to Sophie and the unusual cut out at the back gives it an edginess.
The Hat is fabulous. The Dress is not.
Agreed!
Wonderful hat! The Countess is a super wearer of hats – and her hair style sets it off beautifully. I think Beatrice and Eugenie could learn a think or two from the Countess about suitable hair styles for hat wearing.
I’m going to break down the growing myth here that hats can only be worn with hair up- I just don’t think that’s true! I can’t think of anyone who does ‘hair down with a hat’ better than Princess Beatrice. Also- the York Princesses are in their 20s. Sophie is in her 50s. Their approach to fashion is very different- it should be.
APPLAUSE.
I stopped commenting here a long time ago because I got so tired of all the people wanting old fashioned style rules for the young royals. I wish older people would actually look and listen to what is happening in fashion instead of moaning why can’t things be like they used to be. Here are 4 things I wish people would listen to and accept
#1 Perchers are in style for the moment and you can hate them as much as you want but they are still here and people WILL wear them.
#2: it’s totally OK to wear your hair down with a hat.
#3 matching your clothes exactly with a hat or other accessories is SO OVER. Fashion now is all about putting things together. Things that contrast or compliment or slightly clash. Move away from the matching.
#4 Hemlines change. Deal with it.
Sophie looks great. The pink dress DOES go with this hat. The roses on the hat are all kind of watercolor pink and purple and tie everything together. It’s actually more matchy than it needs to be.
I do very much agree with you as a generalisation, there isn’t any reason why hats shouldn’t be worn with hair down. However, I also think *in practice*, it’s much easier to get hats looking right / looking their best, with hair up. Often hair down is distracting / untidy / unattractive / unbalanced unless it’s done really well and as part of an overall look, whereas hair up is easier to pull off and so more often succeeds in bringing out the best of the hat and the wearer.
A very late reply – Bristol – you have it in a nutshell!!
WOW! She’s a winner! I love the whole look and the color really fits Sophie
Gorgeous hat. Love the colour, the trim and most of all it’s a picture hat and not a percher.
I love the roses and the color. I think a wave to the brim and/or a tilt would have added some much needed movement to an otherwise pretty hat. The roses are gorgeous, but unfortunately I don’t see a good correspondence between this hat and the dress.
I think the magic of this brim is that it doesn’t have a wave!
Update: Jane Taylor just described this hat as a boater, making me guess that a waved brim wasn’t ever part of its vision.
Beautiful hat, really stunning. The colour, shape, and size really suit her. The dress, though…
My thoughts exactly ….LOVE the hat… the dress not so much…
Agreed, mainly due to the length…these midi styles are not flattering on our Sophie. Also, like the green dress yesterday, the fabric is WAY too heavy.
I love this hat. It’s fun and whimsical, and totally something I would ogle.
I don’t like the dress, nor do I like the pairing of the hat with the dress. I think a white dress, with the hat as a focal point would have looked spectacular.
I still think HM The Queen gets best overall dressed today.
Mrs. Wessex has a twofer on her titfers!
Two days in a row with stunning hats, and really no qualms about either one.
The dress Monday seemed to be the better complement to it’s hat –as a total ensemble. For some reason todays dress looks heavy and droopy, and with the volume in the sleeves and ropey ruched trim it weighs everything down and does take away from the overall effect. Appeared it was perhaps a very heavy knit at first, but looks rather to be a thick textured weave….
Still, gives one hope as to what this magnificent hat, which frames Sophie’s face so perfectly, will be paired with on a future reappearance….worn with a streamlined silk sheath or a crisp pique dress, this hat can only be all the more magnificent on a revisit.
I like the style of the dress, just not the colour (or, at least, that much of that colour). It’s part of Sophie’s retro thing that she does so well. But I agree the fabric is too heavy.
Well said.
The hat is indeed brilliant! It is very reminiscent to me of many latish 18th century hats with their very shallow crowns and wide brims. (“Normal” in millinery must be a very relative word.) The countess might have been glad at times for the silk bows which attached the 18th c. ones under the chin! The dress is not nearly as appealing to me: hot looking in the front, and too exposed in the back, and in my opinion, either poorly fitted or worn with incorrect foundations. However, as she usually does, the countess makes a very pleasing appearance nonetheless.
You’re exactly right!! That’s what it makes me think of too. It’s a gorgeous hat and lovely on Sophie and goes well with the dress which I”m not so keen on. The fabric looks like crimpelene and the neckline and sleeves look like crimpelene on elastic which I’m sure was not the look she was after.
Beautiful hat! I agree it might be a contender for hat of the year! Especially since we all love large, picture hats so much. Look out Maxima! 🙂
(Making my first comment here after years of visiting!) I feel like this is more of a 17th century bergère hat (see portraits by Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun for examples, or the movie ‘The Duchess’ about the life of Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire) and as such I would have loved to see some steaming of this flat brim to give it a bit of dip to the back and front edges of this gorgeous hat to give it more movement and dimension. I think it’s a stunningly styled hat, just wish the historical nod and been complete, because the Countess can surely wear a hat with drama like no other.
Love the hat. It is gorgeous and a great color for her. I didn’t notice the back of her dress until I read the comments. As you say, it doesn’t detract from the great hat. Hopefully the cutouts kept her cool. That dress was a lovely shade, but it looks heavy and like it would be uncomfortable. I do like it that she takes chances with her clothes.
Wonderful hat. At least the dress didn’t have the current fashion of shoulder cut outs (which to me look very strange), but prefer the front of the dress to the back!
I just love that hat – the shape, texture and the shading in the cabbage roses. Beautiful. I know outfits are planned months in advance and who would have put money on it being 30 degrees C here in the UK today – but that dress makes me feel hot just looking at it.
Love this hat … but wish the crown was normal height (is this a thing at the moment?, see Eugenie’s yesterday). Love the dress … from the front anyway. Small hesitation over the dress colour on Sophie. May have been hard when/if she flushed with heat.
I didn’t think she could top yesterday’s hat and I was wrong. This is a contender for best hat of the year. And although I know yesterday’s and today’s dresses aren’t everybody’s favorites I love how she picks simple classic designs and lets the hat do the talking.
What a great hat! Wonderful shade as well for Sophie.
Wow.
Placing my bets for best hat of the year. Just amazing, dramatic, elegant, beautiful.
Liked the dress too until I spotted what look like shoulder cutouts. Hmm.
It’s an entire upper back cutout from shoulder to shoulder. Umm… interesting.
It doesn’t reduce the hat’s brilliance!
Thanks for posting a shot from the back. I wasn’t sure what the dress would look like but was pleasantly surprised at how well the cutout has been done. Still, this is a dress of two halves but I like the 1940s halter vibe at the back. Her hair is fantastic.