to a smart mint green hat, worn 21 years ago this weekend by Queen Elizabeth to her mother’s 96th birthday celebrations. I always thought the pairing of this particular print on the Queen’s dress and coat with this hat was particularly chic.
Royal Hats
The Bold, Beautiful and Bizarre World of Royal Millinery
Royal Hats 
I love this outfit and hat, I especially love that she’s NOT wearing black or white gloves and carrying a neutral handbag. In the pic of HM and QEM it looks like HM is holding both her and her mum’s handbag. Wonderful!!
Looking at this pair of photos together, I wonder again, as I have many times in the past, to what extent the royal women coordinate the colors of their outfits for important public appearances. Sometimes it seems that must have been the case, but since it doesn’t happen universally, it may just be a coincidence.
Also thought I would mention that, although I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting any member of the Royal Family, I did once meet Tim Graham (the photographer of these and many other excellent royal photos) when he was on an assignment in New York in the late ’80s, and he was so interesting and pleasant to chat with, we had a wonderful conversation, and he remains one of my favorite royal photographers. It’s easy to forget as we admire the hats, etc, that there are people behind the camera as well as in front of it!
I agree, what a gorgeous ensemble. The plain hat with the print outfit is lowkey, but very modern and fresh; and it’s almost a shock to see HM in a print for summer that is not a floral. If only we could see HM in more outfits like this today.
Her hat is fine, reminds me a bit of the Queen Mother’s hats, but that jacket is just fabulous!! The print, the sleeve caps, and especially the collar. So perfect!!
What a lovely hat, jacket, and dress on Queen Elizabeth! This looks so chic on her. It is nice to see her in something rather than the floral bedecked hats she currently favors. Outstanding choice! Who was the milliner who created the hat, though. I don’t see a name.
The milliner from hats worn 20+ years ago is often unknown. The milliners making hats for the Queen at the time included: Frederick Fox, Graham Smith, Marie O’Reagan and Philip Somerville, to name a few.
That is a lovely photo of the Queen and the hat is striking. Bring it out from the back of the cupboard!
HatQueen, I just noticed that the name of this post in the URL is hat-from-the-past-100 — is this really your 100th “Hat from the Past” post? I’ve only been reading here for a few months, but I can see how long this blog has been going on. Congratulations on an extraordinary job over the years!
Thanks, Matthew! It’s the 100th post named “Hat from the Past”. There are more of these look back posts, with different names. You should be able to see links to most of them here. I just checked and this is the 2,626th post. How time flies.
Hats off to you HatQueen! Wow, just wow!!!
I can’t remember seeing photos of this particular event before — what a lovely photo of the Queen, and I agree, what a chic ensemble! The colors so perfectly coordinated, and a bit more glamorous than the floral prints she favors now. This is definitely one that deserves being brought back out into the public, if she still owns it!
Well, those photos were a treat! I agree that it is lovely to see The Queen in shoes, bag and gloves that are neither black nor white. I was also fascinated by the Queen Mother’s glove which is one of those “fold back” ones popular in my long lost youth. I remember brides wearing such gloves or alternately unpicking the stitches on her ring finger so it could be exposed during the ceremony. The colours are lovely on all the Royal Ladies, but I am wondering if Princess Margaret wore a hat or not?
No hat on Margaret – her hair was quite high so I can only imagine a hat would have wobbled even with a pin!
I wish she’d pull this outfit from the back of the wardrobe again – love the colour of the gloves rather than her usual white ones. Have just looked for more pictures and it’s actually a jacket over a dress. Her shoes and handbag match the colour of the gloves – at first I thought she was holding a rather large cream bag but she’s holding her mothers handbag as well as her own.
Following LesleyC’s admirable idea of looking at other photos of the day, I see that the Queen, the Queen Mother, and Princess Margaret are all wearing costumes with prints of nearly the same shade of mint green, with the QM wearing a hat of that hue as well, very similar in color to her daughter’s. The Queen Mother’s attire of coat and matching dress, though of a more loosely cut and flowing style, certainly bring to mind the Queen’s present “uniform.”
I really like the fact that Elizabeth wears all kinds of colours.