to the early 1980s when headbands were all the rage. Queen Fabiola embraced the trend in blue velvet for her niece Princess Astrid’s wedding on Sep 22, 1984.
Embed from Getty Images
Photo from Getty as indicated
Royal Hats
The Bold, Beautiful and Bizarre World of Royal Millinery
Royal Hats 
Mcncln: How about one more:
June 21, 2008, the 1920s flapper look!
Gorgeous!
I think this one might be more successful!
A better look on someone with a lower hairline, perhaps.
Not in love with Fabiola’s whole look, but that smile on Badouin makes my heart happy!
Love the lush purple velvet of this piece. We don’t see much velvet used anymore, except CP Mary with her luscious blue velvet hat with ostrich feather. In the first picture, I just want to reach in and push it back into regular headband (Alice-band) position. The second picture is much better with the veil and I even love the oversized bow! I agree with our fearless leader that the second wearing isn’t much different from some of the open turbans, headpieces and open crowned hats that we see on some royal ladies.
I am trying to decide which is worse – the headband or the dress. Its a toss-up. I still cringe a bit at some of the things I wore in the 80’s.
With all respect to the late Queen, the more “out there” styles of the 80s, like those of the 60s, were meant to be worn by young people. I don’t like the hairband on her here, or in the other photo where the veil and bow turned it more into a regular hat, though in both cases it might have looked quite interesting on someone with long straight hair very flat on top. The dress – I’m trying to make excuses for it, but I agree that it would have been a miss on just about anybody, even back then!
Oh, dear. That’s all I can say.
This look is now forever etched in my brain, and that is not a good thing. I am going to choose to remember this wonderful Queen with a large lavender hat waving a matching fan, bravely defying those who said they would assassinate her. Her largely attended funeral was a testimony to how much she was loved. But this outfit is ghastly. We all make mistakes……
Dear me, I cannot forget this dress soon enough.
I don’t mind headband hats, but I feel the Queen’s boufy hairstyle, which was old-fashioned even then, is out of sync with the spirit of the hat style, and doesn’t make a good base.
Looks like she was fond of this hat, though – here it is again in 1997. Note the veil and thehuge bow at the back: Embed from Getty Images
I’m sorry, I simply can’t “wrap my head around” such a hat. She should be wearing a track suit instead of that dress with it.
Having only read about this royal, I’m sure she was a wonderful person and leader.
What a great photo- thanks for sharing this better view of this piece! I like the placement here, tilted back a bit (as opposed to the photo in the post, which looks like the piece is placed horizontally). The bow is another 1980s throwback but this view makes me think that this design isn’t that far off from some of the crownless designs we’ve seen milliners like Fabienne Delvigne make for the Belgian, Swedish and Dutch queens in recent years.
How interesting that it came out of storage again 13 years later! Though in this case I don’t expect that it was because a group of people ln a blog were discussing the hat and wishing she would wear it again – LOL!
Back in the early 1960’s, my mom had a hat similar to this one. It was black velvet with a veil but it was much smaller. It sat on the crown of her head. There wasn’t any other trim except the veil. I think there might have been a narrow strip of ribbon or velvet that ran from one side to the other on the inside closest to her head for using a hat pin but I may be wrong on that one. Sometimes she would let me put it on for a minute – to my 4 or 5 year old self, I thought I looked gorgeous!
Princess Lea must have liked the style also, but in black.
Embed from Getty Images
Awesome find, Jimbo. What a coincidence that it’s Queen Fab again, this time greeting Princess Lea. Interesting that the year is 2009, 25 years after Q Fab’s hat was first worn. I do like the Princess’s hairstyle with this hat.
And while we’re in Belgium, here’s another headband-style hat with hairstyle and placement which I also like — worn by Princess Marie-Esmeralda in 2014 (or, is it too wide to count as a “headband” hat?) http://media.gettyimages.com/photos/princess-lea-and-princess-esmeralda-of-belgium-with-her-son-leopoldo-picture-id470103849?s=612×612
With the late Queen Fabiola, it was a case of either / or = either her style was spot-on and she looked great, or else she was way off the mark, as in the accompanying photos.
She was dearly loved by the Belgian people to whom she was very close.
I don’t like any part of this look, but then I am not a fan of the 80’s. I am a fan of Queen Fabiola, regardless of what she wore. She was a very gracious, wonderful lady.
Quite a look this! Totally 80’s and very fashion forward from Fabiola. Can’t say I like it much but I like her for giving it a go!