Hello again, dearest readers! It’s wonderful to be back with you- thank you all so very, very much for keeping the conversation going while I was away. I want to quickly review the hats we’ve seen this month and give you all the opportunity nominate any designs you wish to see in our October favourite new and repeated hat polls. Here are the hats we saw October 1 to October 7:
Sunday, October 1: Empress Michiko in a repeated pale grey rimmed saucer with origami circular trim worn on a visit to Ehime Prefecture
Tuesday, October 3: Crown Princess Victoria attended the opening of the Swedish Church meetings at Uppsala Cathedral in a new headpiece of dark green silk folded into dahlia blooms, each with a knotted silk center scattered with beads. It’s from Swedish label “Parant Parant” by Örjan Jakobsson.
Tuesday, October 3: Prince Naruhito and Princess Masako attended the closing meeting of the 14th Science and Technology in Society forum in Kyoto in a repeated caramel brown bowler style hat with upturned Kettle brim, edged in a wide stripe of ribbon.
Tuesday, October 3: For the opening of Danish Parliament, Queen Margrethe repeated her blue beanie hat with black patent leather cuff by Per Falk Hansen. Princess Benedikte repeated her red felt brimless hat with stacked crown by Susanne Juul, Crown Princess Mary repeated her Jane Taylor designed purple pillbox with beaded side feather trim and Princess Marie repeated her navy straw fedora with wide net tulle hatband wrap and silk flower trim
Tuesday, October 3: Princess Hisako of Takamado attended a conference on public nutrition in Shimane Prefecture. She repeated an oyster grey straw variation on a boater hat with textured straw hatband, side bow and feather spray.
Wednesday, October 4: Queen Máxima opened an exhibition at the Mauritshuis museum in a new cranberry felt Garbo hat with hatband and side bow from Fabienne Delvigne
Wednesday, October 4: Princess Ayako in a black straw Breton hat to attend the National Sports Festival
Wednesday, October 4: Princess Anne was joined by the Duke of Kent and Princess Michael of Kent at the memorial Mass for Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor at Westminster Cathedral. Princess Anne repeated a black cocktail hat with net veil wrapped beret base circled in feathers by Amy Morris-Adams. Princess Michael repeated a black felt Breton hat with side bow.
Wednesday, October 4: Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko visited the Brunei Embassy in Tokyo to sign a guest book of good wishes for the Sultan of Brunei. The Empress repeated a small grey rimmed sauce hat with origami bow.
Thursday, October 5: The Earl and The Countess of Wessex attended The Sultan of Brunei’s Golden Jubilee celebrations. Sophie repeated the natural straw saucer hat she first debuted at Ascot, with a slight change of trimming. The hat’s first outing featured black silk twists which were replaced here with taupe crin ones and a large coral pink feather.
Thursday, October 5: Queen Máxima attended a Teachers’ Congress in Amersfoort, repeating her midnight blue felt fedora.
Embed from Getty Images Embed from Getty Images
Friday, October 7: Princess Beatrix in a navy straw bumper hat (with giant belt loops) to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Team Motor Assistance in Driebergen.
That wraps up the hats we saw during the first week of October- do any of them receive your nomination for top new or repeated hat this month?
Photos from Asahi; Stella Pictures; Sankei; Press Association; Keld Navntoft/Scanpix; Søren Bidstrup/Scanpix; Mazur/catholicnews.org.uk; Chugoku Shimbun; Asahi Shimbun via Getty
Royal Hats 
My favorites of this grouping are: Máxima in the new cranberry wide brim on 4 October (my top pick overall), Benedikte in her repeated layered structured beret on 3 October, Anne’s black cocktail hat on 4 October, and Sophie’s reworked disc hat on 5 October (which is much better than the Ascot appearance in my opinion)
I liked Sophie’s hat before, and I like it probably more now with the different trim. I like Benedicte’s berry hat and Mary’s pillbox too. I love Maxima’s cranberry hat in itself, but this is an instance where there’s a mismatch between the hat and the occasion, I think it’s not suitable for a royal engagement like this, since it obscures her face too much and she’s peering out from under.
My votes go to Victoria (love that headpiece, it is masterfully made), Mary and Sophie. I know, I know but alongside these splendid hats I cannot bring myself to vote for my usual faves Anne and Max. The colour is great on Maxima but the brim is, gasp, too big! IMHO, of course.
Max’s hat I was referring to above is the purple one. The blue is pedestrian.
ZOMG so much at once!
In order of appearance (not rank) those that stood out to me from this set.
1. CP Victoria’s teal headpiece. So fabulous! I’m not usually a fascinator person but this one is such a lovely color and fairly substantial. Love the design.
2. QMax in the cranberry Garbo hat. SIGH OF RELIEF that our colorful big-hat Max is back after a run of turbany things I didn’t care for. This one is beautiful, a great color and shape and goes well with her dress.
3. Love the trim and angle on PAnne.
4. The COWessex- That hat is amazing. Loving loving the lattice brim. She looks so good.
Welcome back Hat Queen, we missed you!
The Countess of Wessex gets my vote here.
Welcome back, HatQueen.
Here are my choices: CP Victoria, CP Masako, CP Mary, Countess of Wessex. (Lots of crown princesses here!)
Here is one more full-length photo of CP Mary’s outfit on October 3:
My votes are for:
1) The Countess of Wessex’s hat in Brunei – very clever to retrim the hat, and I like this trim much better than the original worn at Ascot.
2) CP Victoria’s headpiece on October 3 – I love the workmanship on the piece, and disagree with Kew Gardens hatter about the color being deadening, it is in fact one of my favorite colors. (As an aside to Kew Gardens hatter, I stand corrected about the Hawaiian print comment a couple of weeks ago while HatQueen was away — it was in fact mcncln who made the Hawaiian comparison and you just reacted to it.)
3) I know that compared to some of the others in this group, it’s nothing special, but I really like Princess Masako’s bowler hat on October 3 – it looks so cute on her, and looks much better with her hair up than in the original wearing 4 years ago.
We know from previous posts that Princess Benedicte’s hat is much better than it looks here. It is beautifully structured, a rich colour and a good fabric for autumn/winter. I’d like to remove the dent the hatpin has made. Princess Masako’s hat also scores with me for shape, colour and fabric. A simple beautifully made hat. I like the idea and execution of Victoria’s head piece but find the colour heavy and a bit deadening. These were my favourites although nothing offended. I wouldn’t want everyone to have a beanie type hat like Margrethe’s but I think this tall handsome woman wears it with her usual flair. I prefer it with that gorgeous blue swing coat of hers with the giant black buttons.
Sophie did it for me. The reworking of that hat with a previous Ascot outfit was masterful I bough. She looked amazing.
Welcome back! We’ve missed you!!
Welcome back HQ!
Fave new hat ~ a tie between Oct 3: C P Victoria and Oct 4: Q Maxima – jewel colours for the win!
Fave repeat hat ~ Oct 5: C Sophie – bonus points for using a different trim to match her skirt.
Close runner-up ~ Oct 3: C P Mary
Sophie gets a nod from me for repeat hat — I’m not feeling that heavy purple felt Garbo hat on Max, esp with that lace dress.
Yay, you’re back!
My favorites here are:
October 3: Crown Princess Victoria
October 3: Crown Princess Mary and Princess Marie
October 4: Queen Máxima
October 5: The Countess of Wessex