Queen Elizabeth visited Somerset today, taking in an art gallery, King’s Bruton School and a racehorse stable. For this visit, she repeated the cream and spring green hat and coat many of us will remember from her 90th birthday.
The cream straw hat follows the split crown design used on several other Kelly/McLaren designs, the same silk wool as the Queen’s coat wrapping half of the hat’s tall crown and edging the short brim. The hat is trimmed simply with a spray of silk orchids and a slim green bow at the side.
Embed from Getty Images Embed from Getty Images
The hat radiates spring from its colour and light floral trim. I’m less keen on the wide brim edging and fabric wrapped crown (slimming down both would do the hat well, I think) but these are familiar details for Her Majesty’s hats.
Designer: Angela Kelly made by Stella McLaren
Previously Worn: Apr 21, 2016
I know several of you have been waiting to see this hat worn for a second time- have your thoughts about it changed after seeing it again today?
Photos from Getty as indicated
Royal Hats 
As a rule MrFitzroy loves this outfit….and the wonderful clean spring green is certainly a palate cleanser after looking at Grand Duchess Maria Teresa’s rather bizarre assortment of, shall we say -difficult- green toned outfits the other day.
But again, the devil is in the hat details. The split crown is actually working here, and the white Cymbidium Orchid blooms are quite lovely and fresh looking….however, the yellow buds look like small artificial bananas, and have a very plastic and clunky look to them. The little jolt of color is great, but the strange ovoid objects are not the right conveyance.
Additionally, when one views the back view of the hat, it looks like the wired stems of the flowers are just sort of bunched up and tacked down…..again, slightly lacking in the finesse department.
Still in all, HM looks so haapy, lovely and radiant, who can quibble with a few alien pods nesting in her hat!
Question: why black gloves and a black handbag with such a summery outfit?
Habit? While she gets a pass from all of us at this stage in her life I agree- cream accessories would be so much better here.
I don’t much care for the wrap around fabric. I think an edging round the brim, or a wide hatband, of the coat fabric, would have looked less fussy. This looks to me like “There’s a swatch of coat fabric left after trimming the brim; we can’t waste it, what can we do with it?” Love the colour and Springlike feel, though.
Although we disagree about the hat itself (I think the wrap-around adds extra interest in a positive way), I had to say, Elizabeth, that I really love your comment “we can’t waste it, what can we do with it!”
tulips for spring
It’s been a little while since I feel we’ve seen HM seem so genuinely happy and delighted during an outing. Her smile is absolutely radiant, and that brightens up this hat and outfit so much more! Like last time, I think the joint between the fabric and the straw could be more refined, but I’m also more onboard with the floral trim, and overall it’s a lovely hat. It’s still not my favorite hat for HM and I’m rather surprised it got pulled out again, but it’s a nice change from what we’ve been seeing.
P.S. I love how HM’s gloves stay on to meet people, but come off to feed the horses. We know where they rank in HM’s mind! 😉
Thanks for the other angles. I did not realise this was a two toned and split crowned hat. From the other examples in your link I don’t think this is the best designed one she has worn but I do like the idea behind these hats. The flowers on this hat are a bit too bulky for me. I think just the orchids would have been fine without the addition of the tulips (I think?)
The colour of the outfit is perfect for spring and a great background for her brooch which is sparkling beautifully! I think that is the Jardine Star brooch.
Orchid buds maybe, certainly not tulips!
@Wies Maudit: LOL! Thanks! As is obvious I’m not great with naming flowers.
What a delightfully fresh spring green color, and after three long years of waiting, it’s a welcome return to Royal service! My only quibble is the hat pin on HM’s left side – it seems rather useless in its position, considering her shorter hair.
Out with the wool felt, in with the straw!
Ah I’m happy to see this outfit again. It’s a beautiful colour and today has been such a lovely spring day here is the UK, it feels like
Summer is about to come.
I went back and checked my comments from three years ago, and I still think the same. It’s a fab colour and the fabric is stunning. I like the concept of the hat, but the join between the straw and the fabric on the hat is really clunky. The view from above shows it’s a classic split crown which i hasn’t seen before. Anyway, quibbles aside, she looks great in the lovely happy shade.
I confess I don’t like much about this hat other than that wonderful spring green colour. But HM looks so happy to be around horses – and it appears to be entirely mutual!
I like many of these split crown hats. I also like the fabric of today’s dress, color and texture.
While today’s had does look better in some views than in others, the rear view in the third selection of pictures above shows a multitude of problems: the floral trim looks too large and heavy for the hat; the off-centered brim looks crooked since the concentric lines in the white straw are increasing in number to accommodate all that trim on the one side only; the stitching between the green and the white on the back of the crown looks uneven and perhaps puckered; the foldover of the green material on the brim looks wider and narrower, or perhaps just higher and lower, as it gets closer to all that heavy trim. There’s too much going on here, and it’s all to do with what appears to be sloppy workmanship. If the workmanship actually is impeccable, then something’s wrong with the way this hat photographs. My eye is immediately drawn to oddities rather than to what should appear as nice complement to the coat.
The Queen has many hats that have been tweaked every so slightly to make small modifications that, frankly, often seem unnecessary. This dress and coat, it seems to me, could do with an entirely new hat.