We continue our search for Queen Elizabeth’s most iconic hats with a peek into the 1960s. When you think about this decade, which of the Queen’s hats fit the criteria of “widely known and acknowledged especially for distinctive excellence”? As always, feel welcome to link to articles, youtube videos or photo galleries featuring a particular hat but please avoid pinterest links and any hotlinked photos.
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Photos from Getty as indicated
Royal Hats 
The hat from Mary, Princess Royal and Countess of Harewood’s funeral is also an interesting one:
What an interesting news reel Jake ! I was fascinated to see that I recognized so many of the participants ! I have ever seen that before – so to see the Duke of Windsor (,whom she cha!Milner all her life ) was very poignant !😕
Sorry … should be “championed” . ..
On a visit to West Berlin in 1965 – the Queen wore a yellow outfit complete with a yellow hat with (it was described as … ) the spaghetti hat 😉 I can’t post a picture but I think it’s so cool !!!
NB to HQ … woohoo !!😊
Because I missed a few days I just noticed Jimbo mentioned this hat on the Hat from the Past post 😑
The hat for the investiture of the PoW is iconic. While, I did not find it a particularly flattering hat for Her Majesty, it was evocative of the moment and the setting. I remember still being much struck by it when I first saw footage from the event.
I was trying to find something from our Canadian Centennial in 1967, but nothing really popped. However, there was this one interesting photo showing the Queen cutting the massive birthday cake. Sadly, not in colour.
https://www.chatelaine.com/living/culture-living/queen-elizabeth-favourite-foods/
I agree about the hat for Prince Charles’ Investiture. It was memorable, and was something of a prototype for the iconic event hats for the next decade, with it’s back interest.
Other than that, the shape of the hat Jimbo shows below cries out 1960’s – my grannies and all their generation wore this shape of hat as a matter of course, but always in either a floral or ruched form for weddings, or furry if in winter, so the Queen epitomises her generation in this shape of headwear. The next generation sadly stopped wearing hats as a given, and never wore this head hugging shape.
I’m partial to the ensembles HM wore on her India tour of 1961, especially the wonderful lavender outfit.
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I found some other 1960s hats, but most of them were either black and white, or simply unbeddable!
I forgot to add this nice shot of the investiture hat.
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I would say the hat worn for Princess Margaret’s wedding in 1960. The Queen looked so chic with the rose in honour of Margaret Rose with the veil – it’s not often we see the Queen wearing a veil: Embed from Getty Images
I would also say the hat worn to Princess Alexandra’s wedding in 1963. It does have a certain shower cap quality about it but the eau de nil colour matched the outfit perfectly and the ensemble was very fashionable for the time. I remember seeing it at the Buckingham Palace exhibition for the Queen’s 90th birthday in 2016 and thinking how different it was from what I had expected in the photographs from the event – so much lighter, I can only imagine it in motion.
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Lastly, I don’t see how I can not select the hat worn for the Prince of Wales’s investiture in 1969. It was such a unique hat and has been seen so many times around the world in documentaries since for nearly 50 years:
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So the two obvious contenders are of course Princess Margaret’s wedding and the PoW’s Investiture. Yes, because they were such high profile events, but also because they look in turn back and forward in her evolving style. The wedding hat echoes her 50s designs, flowery, fussy. The investiture predicts the structures turbans with fancy backs of the 70s. I also like them both!
As for others… we’ll the orange number worn for the unveiling of the Queen Mary memorial is remarkable; again a high profile event, but very 60s in its uncluttered aesthetic. Can’t find a link right now but will remedy later on.
Here’s the Queen Mary one in here – it’s MUCH more orange in photos!
Oh yes, I forgot about this event and this hat!
Here’s a great photo (albeit in black & white) showing details of HM’s hat at Margaret’s wedding: https://www.gettyimages.com/license/50564638 (sorry, it didn’t have the option to embed).
Well, this should be good!
But, didn’t mrfitzroyobe give us this challenge? I haven’t noticed his contributions to the discussion in the decades we’ve covered. What say you, sir?
The pink “helmet” hat worn for the Prince of Wales investiture is the one that I think is iconic for the 1960’s and is my number one vote for this decade.
I thought it was pink but now I’m not sure….
It’s cream surely?!
I’ve seen pictures where it looks cream-ish, and pictures where it looks pinkish. Maybe it’s one of those lighting things. I think we’ll have to find an article or a commentary by someone who was there in person!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/history/sites/investiture/pages/investiture-background.shtml
The Royal Collection describes it as a pale primrose yellow. You can see detailed photos at this post.
Yes you’re correct my mistake! Long hours at work is my excuse:
Thanks for the link to the older post, HatQueen! Clearly yellow in the modern photos, though I will point out that even you yourself commented in that post that you had thought it was cream. Maybe color photography wasn’t as good back then. If you do a Google image search on it, most of the photos are still in black & white in that era, and the ones that are in color all seem very pale.
Seeing the video in the older post, I have an even greater appreciation for the amazing embroidery work that went into the hat, but that doesn’t make me like its shape any better! And yet I do agree that it counts as iconic for the event that it represents.
The two hats that first come to mind for this decade are the hat worn to Princess Margaret’s wedding in 1960 and the hat worn to the Investiture of the Prince of Wales in 1969. Sorry for not providing photos at the moment, but hopefully some good ones will come up soon! And looking forward to what others think should be included as, like the 1950s, I’m not so familiar with many of the possible iconic hats of this decade.