The Countess of Wessex has stepped out in an elegantly draped collar, pale Armani coat on numerous occasions, four with different hats:
Look 1: with a Jane Taylor rounded pillbox hat in leopard print velour felt trimmed with a flat black bow on the side, worn on Christmas Day, 2014
Look 2: with a pheasant feather covered beret cocktail hat for Easter Sunday, April 5, 2015
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Look 3: with an angular, tall burgundy felt Philip Treacy cloche with flying bow on December 27, 2015 for church at Sandringham
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Look 4: with a Hicks & Brown casual camel felt fedora with overlapping pheasant feather hatband worn on December 23, 2019, again for church at Sandringham
It’s an interesting quartet of hats- which look do you think pairs best?
Photo from Getty as indicated; Splash News, ADavidson/GoffPhotos.com/Splash News and GoffPhotos.com/Splash News via Corbis
Royal Hats 
As a few people have said, personally I don’t love any of them because I just don’t love the coat. Sophie can look amazing, and has a great figure, so for me this 60’s sister style isn’t her best. However, the best way to style it IMHO is the first option, where she leans into the 60s vibe with a pillbox. The other hats, while they do go with the coat from a colour perspective, just don’t pick up on the slightly retro style of it.
To be honest, I feel this isn’t the most flattering of Sophie’s coats…if only it weren’t so loose and baggy on her…but the right hat can make a big difference. However, I feel hats 1 and 3 look either too small or too flat next to this bulky portrait collar. Hat 4 gets a pass as it’s larger — but its aesthetic doesn’t connect with the retro, early ‘sixties vibe of the collar.
Hat 2, the burgundy felt, has the best colour, plus enough height, but the hyper-exaggerated split crown has never appealed to me.
I’d like to see this coat worn with a percher. The height and forward movement of the grey percher below (2015) nicely counterbalances the height and bulk of the standing fur collar.
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I think a pillbox shape looks best with the lovely draped collar. I’d love to see a slightly oversized burgundy pillbox with this coat. I like the camel fedora, but it fights with the style and colour of the coat – to my eyes, anyway. I’ve never liked the tall burgundy hat, tho I have to admit Sophie wore it well!
Hm, very interesting, my answers are different when I compare each hat on its own with the effect together with the coat. I enjoy the burgundy hat, but it is a rather formal (albeit somewhat over the top fun) style, so I don’t think this coat is the best match for it, at least as worn with boots (if there were matching burgundy shoes and accessories involved, it would pull the look together better).
I’m not keen on the fedora. Where the burgundy hat is too formal for the coat, the fedora seems to me to be too informal (although actually it’s just about my favourite fedora out there, it isn’t a style I particularly like).
The feathery hat is a great statement, but I’m not sure it works so well with the coat.
So my winner is the pillbox. I think this whole “look” is the best, as the pillbox brings out the 1960s vibe of the coat very well, the colours look good together and work well with the accessories too.
My favorite combination is with the magnificent feathered creation. How about these same hats with different coats for a switch?
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I’m surprised that 3 of the 4 hats have brown tones when the coat reads whitish-gray to me. So, I like the color of the burgandy best. I agree with the others that the style isn’t the best.
I like 1, 2, and 4. The burgundy hat looks as if it belongs at the Mad Hatter’s tea party. It’s a great color (and a great coat) though!
The pheasant hat is my favorite of the four just as a hat, but to me it seems a little too fussy for this particular coat, and I the burgundy hat is a very strange shape and size. (Though I agree with others that the burgundy color in a different style would be a great pairing with this coat.)
The pillbox is somewhat formal, and the fedora very casual, and yet the coat manages to support both styles equally — what a great coat this is! I have to say that between look 1 and look 4, I can’t decide — I like them both equally.
Well put, Matthew. I agree, except that I don’t like the warm brown fedora with the cool grey of the coat. So the pillbox is the winner for me. But the best hat for this coat is yet to come — maybe a burgundy pillbox?
Interestingly, I have never seen this coat as grey – it looks off-white on both my tablet and my laptop, so brown tones seemed fine. If the coat actually is grey, then those choices would need to be re-evaluated.
I’m seeing pale grey or cool white, but perhaps that’s the effect of winter in the Midwest — everything looks grey!
I love the overall styling with the pheasant beret. Her handbag and shoes bring it all together, so that’s my favorite “look.”
The burgundy color looks fabulous with the jacket, but I’m not a fan of the hat style. If it was a fedora or percher in that color, it would get my vote.
Think the pillbox in the first pic is the best by miles. Next would be the fedora, followed well behind by the pheasant. The burgundy one is miles further behind the pheasant
I like the leopard. But then, I am biased, as leopard is my favorite neutral 😉
Gosh, that burgundy hat looks really weird and unflattering! I vote for the pheasant hat.
Really, it’s such a neutral coat that all the hats look well with it; so the question is which do I prefer? I’m not an admirer of the burgundy felt, which is too high for me, but I too love the pheasant feather confection. Second place to the fedora.
Personally, I think look 1 and 4.
I think the pheasant hat was quite enchanting.