This animated evolution of hats Queen Elizabeth has worn to Ascot since 1952 has been making rounds around the internet this week. While I suspect the creators don’t understand the difference between Royal Ascot races in June and other races held at the Ascot Racecourse, it sill is an interesting record of some of the hats she has worn to races at the famous track, both in summer and in fall. Enjoy!
Animated graphic from My Voucher Codes. Used with permission.
Royal Hats 
What fun! Although the hat shown as being worn in 1998 was actually a new one from last year.
http://tinypic.com/r/rvae0j/9
This looks like the modernization of paper dolls – we used to spend hours moving dresses and hats around … wish we had had access to moving parts then ! I love this … good childhood memories 😉 sorry I got off topic there – I imagine that would be a good ‘idea’s .tool for milliners
So I love this, obviously. The only niggle is that I don’t think they were all worn to ascot, for instance the 2016 titfer is a Christmas hat, so no chance of a crossover there! Nonetheless, what fun!
Prior to HQ posting it here, I had previously (just a few days ago) seen it here:
http://mentalfloss.com/article/552969/queen-elizabeth-hat-evolution-gif
where it doesn’t say that the hats are Ascot hats. The gif is credited to “DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS, AFP/GETTY IMAGES”, so it even meets our image posting criteria! I had meant to send the URL to HQ, but I forgot, and Luke Doyle beat me to it!
Matthew, that credit refers to just one of the hats, not the entire GIF.
Thanks, HQ!
I’ve updated the post to say that I don’t think the creators of the graphic understand that not all races held at Ascot Racecourse are during Royal Ascot (the reason I qualified the hats as both summer and winter designs!). The 2016 hat was worn to Champions Day at Ascot Racecourse on October 15, 2016. Same for the blue felt one in 2014, which was worn October 18 that year. So technically, all the hats have been to Ascot but not all of them were worn to Royal Ascot!
Embed from Getty Images Embed from Getty Images
Wow! I think we can all call ourselves Uber hat geeks when we can get these distinctions done and dusted! Clearly the (very clever) originator is this did quite know the subtleties of these things!!
Fascinating! The hearts on 1958 and feathers on 1966 stand out.
Wonderful! It’s too bad there’s no way to pause it so as to get a better look at any one of the pictures!
You can pause if you are observing on an iPad or iPhone. Just press down and hold on the hat screen you’d like to look at further, and the show will pause. Once you release your finger hold, the show will continue. Hope that helps, Matthew!
Thanks, lestressmd, unfortunately that does not appear to work on an Android device, but I appreciate the reply!