This week’s discussion question is a colourful one, dearest readers – Which royal hat features the most unusual, interesting or unexpected colour scheme? Jump over to this discussion on Queen Elizabeth’s hats with interesting colour schemes for additional inspiration!
Royal Hats 
We forgot an important one, dear readers- the purple, olive, blue, orange and red oversize design that Princess Martha Louise wore for the Dutch royal wedding in February 2002
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Whoa, what are those coral feathers doing there? and those maroon feathers and royal blue too? a random colour scheme indeed!
some unusual yet typically 70’s mixes on princess anne
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That first hat and dress, brown with grey,white and russet accents, is an absolute knockout. Such a timeless design. I hadn’t seen it before –many thanks!
I agree with you mcncln. That dress is fabulous. I would love to see Zara give it a try.
Considering how long Princess Anne keeps many of her clothes, it’s probably in a closet somewhere if Zara wants it!
I agree!
It was also new to me and it’s fantastic!
While nothing for me tops the feature hat selected by HQ for the post — Queen Margrethe’s tricolour hat with an unexpected, and inexplicably, apricot-coloured crown –I had to throw in these 2 odd colour combinations. HM in Fiji 1977.
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Queen Elizabeth in Canada (and in 3D glasses) in 2010. I don’t like the colour combination and I don’t like how the hat ‘fights’ with what I can see of the dress … okay, I have lockdown fatigue,but still!
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This hat of QE2’s distresses me a little bit. Designed by Marie O’Regan, suit by Ian Thomas and worn in Budapest in 1993.
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Despite loving the hat, the colour scheme gives me pause for thought. Red and beige … Zara Tindall at the Cheltenham races, 2018
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And she wore a navy blue dress with white polka dots underneath …
3 unusual color combos for Birgitte (all at Ascot), but all very successful IMO and ones that I love!
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Orange, pink and yellow! It was the 1980s to be fair but I can’t think of another hat in this colour scheme!
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Princess Anne has had some surprisingly colourful hats
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With Anne’s recent preferences for beiges/browns or monochrome outfits, I keep forgetting she certainly liked to play with colors too. I wish this first outfit would come back; a bold color combo for Anne, but one she pulled off well IMO. The second color combo is odd: peacock greens with faded goldenrod yellow? Bring back the hat, but leave the rest behind.
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Another from The Princess Royal’s colorful period. Lavender, lime, and periwinkle may not be the most usual color combo….but what sticks in the mind most is the way it appeared that someone might have sat on the hat during the ride to the abbey…
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Purple, pink and green – another combination I can’t recall seeing all on the same royal hat! Photo from IBL
Burgundy and red is pretty unusual- seen here on Zenouska Mowatt and Princess Beatrix
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on the pink and green theme i came across the duchess of york in canada in ’87 in this very strange mix of creamy pink hat with an unusual chartreuse trim, which seems even stranger (more strange?) mixed with a bright pink and mid-green mixed dress…???
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Along the pink and yellow lines, I never understood the yellow floral trim on Queen Silvia’s 2002 Ascot hat
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One of my favorite hats is the red and grey one Princess Sibilla wore to HGD Guillaume and HGD Stephanie’s wedding. It’s not a color combo you see very often.
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That is such a stunning hat!
You’re right that you don’t often see those colours paired.
I like red and grey so much better than red and white!
The only other red and grey royal hat I can think of is the Duchess of Gloucester’s beret, and it’s more of a mushroomy taupe
This combo doesn’t seem that unusual to me because my high school colors were maroon and grey. An odd combination even at that time, even for high school colors, but as far as I know, it dated back to my father’s time (1940s) who attended the same school, and possibly persists to this day. I was in the marching band, and our uniforms were awesome — maroon military-style caps and jackets with lots of trim and gold braid, over grey slacks with a maroon stripe down the outside legs.
This post is so fun! I’ve spent an hour reading and smiling. Thanks so much for giving us a good distraction from the rest of life.
Purple with metallic gold:
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One of my recent favourites is this magenta button percher with green, blue, silver, lilac, red, opal and pink beaded shibori silk flower by Sylvia Martinez.
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I agree — a gem!
This is an amazing petite jewel of a hat.
Queen Mathilde on Belgian National Day in 2007 in a headpiece of dark and light pink, blue, brown and cream feathers. With the patterned coat, it’s a lot of look.
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A year later at the same event, her headpiece was orange and red.
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HMQEII is obviously the Queen of colour blocking. Now I love this one actually, but it’s a bold combo not many people would brave.
Mind you, I could just be swayed by her handsome escort!
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Everyone loves a Mountie!
A bold combo like this usually tips the hat (so to speak) to a similarly colored floral dress under the coat or jacket. Do we know what the rest of her ensemble looked like on this occasion?
Matthew, she removed the green jacket for her gardening project. I wonder if the Mountie moved the brooch over to the dress for her.
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Queen: Mr. Mountie, do you see who (or is it whom?) I see?
Mountie: It’s Jeanette! “When I’m calling you oo-oo-oo-oo!”
As much as I love green and blue (even together), there are too many similar/competing shades to make a harmonious ensemble IMO:
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This isn’t a bad color combo, but lime green paired with blue-purple and white is definitely not one I would think of:
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Finally, it seems like yellow is a hard one to pair and wear, so I imagine that’s why we don’t often see royals wearing it. Nevertheless, fearless Margrethe has worn some unusual color/pattern combos, and this one ranks up there (perhaps made more obvious by the material and design):
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October 1981 Fiji – unusual combo of blue and green, so similar in depth Embed from Getty Images
The Duchess of Kent in black, salmon, periwinkle and gold stripes
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Lady Helen Taylor at Ascot in 2015 in a Stephen Jones design in bright pink and green
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Here’s another pink and green hat on the Countess of Frederksborg. Milliner is likely Per Falk Hansen. Photo by Jorgen Jessen
The countess also in a bright pink hat trimmed with lime
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Grand Duchess Maria Teresa in lime and pink for Princess Amalia’s christening
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It’s unfortunate MrFitzroy couldn’t locate a photo of Mathilde actually wearing this hat after it was gifted to her.
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And the award for “Best Coordinated Duo in an Unusual Color Combination” goes to…….
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That coral and royal blue duo will indeed, be tough to beat!
Princess Beatrice is the only other one I can think of who has worn hats in this scheme- both for Ascot.
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Ah- how can we forget Princess Claire of Belgium in blue and white toile with orange trim?!
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I like the orange and teal combination … a lot, as well as the shape of the hat on Beatrice. (Oddly, or perhaps not, my bathroom is painted in orange and a teal-y green!)
OH NO! I stumbled on a triple “This or That!” Beatrix’s initial 1998 combination of red/green/gold is certainly an interesting color scheme.
May 30, 1998
October 7, 2000
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August 14, 1999
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/the-dutch-queen-beatrix-and-federal-president-johannes-rau-news-photo/1068507760?adppopup=true
A few of Diana’s hats come to mind- this raised brim design in pale pink and deep purple
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The purple and red pagoda hat
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I don’t remember when or in what context, but we’ve discussed red and purple as a color combination on this blog before, when I noted that people in Florida and possibly in much of the US south would not find red and purple to be an unusual combination, due to the prevalence of women’s groups called Red Hatters, who always wear red and purple as their club colors, stemming from a poem that starts with “When I am old, I will wear purple.” Since there are at least a dozen Red Hatters groups within shouting distance of my house, I see women walking around in red and purple all the time!
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The wide brimmed red straw Philip Somerville hat with pleated pink hatband
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Thanks for this gallery, HatQueen, and particularly for the last photo in it. Apparently in all these years, I’ve never before seen a photo of the left side of that Somerville hat. The round disk holding the band in place possibly matches the buttons on the suit, but I’m not sure.
I believe it is a button on the hatband, Matthew. Nice touch, wasn’t it?
It’s not the only fuchsia and red royal hat we’ve seen.
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Even without the unusual color combo, this one definitely goes in the “What was she thinking?!?” category for me!
Yellow and black
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Princess Beatrix has had several black and yellow hats as well.
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As did Princess Alexandra of Denmark (now the Countess of Frederksborg). Photo taken in 1996 by Linda Henriksen Laursen
Mountie: I love your bumblebee ensemble, ma’am.
Horse: Those black shoes are perfection.
Anne: Get me away from this talking horse!
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1990, 2 yellow and black hats Embed from Getty Images
navy and yellow
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Princess Anne also in navy and yellow… so maybe not that unusual
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Queen Sonja in yellow and navy as well
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this is one of my favourite royal hats ever!
Hereditary Grand Duchess Stephanie in yellow and royal blue. Photo by Valentin Dupont
Yellow white and teal 1996 Portsmouth Embed from Getty Images
Red and dark loden green. The green trim was added to go with the suit for her first trip to Wales in 1981. I’ve always preferred this hat in its original, all red form.
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Here’s another odd red and green combination, worn in India in 1992.
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more red with emerald-green silk (I think) embroidered with black, 1996 Embed from Getty Images
If I’m remembering correctly, wasn’t the loden green and red color choice made as a tribute to the official colors of Wales?
Regarding the photo of Queen Margrethe at the top of this post, it’s not so much that the two-toned hat is an unusual combination in itself, as that it doesn’t seem to go with the dress at all!
Actually, if you enlarge the photo it appears those are the colors in the plaid! Just in smaller amounts that blend together. I’m loving the collar on that dress!
The following color scheme isn’t extraordinary – what IS extraordinary is the re-wearing of an ensemble almost 40 years later by a DIFFERENT Royal! How cool is this! Although hat-less, Victoria seems to have taken the material from Silvia’s hat and worn it as a scarf. Were times that tough in Sweden?
Queen Silvia: June 1978 (Russia)
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Crown Princess Victoria: August 28, 2017 (Stockholm)
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Jimbo, if she were wearing her mother’s wedding dress, would you also speculate about tough times? Women often wear their mother’s clothes as a tribute. At least in my family they do. Here is another pair:
https://www.royalty-online.nl/monarchie/nl/mxima-draagt-oude-japon-beatrix/
I used Google Translate to translate the text:
“Queen Máxima has provided a special surprise at the Liberation Concert. She appeared in a dress that Queen Beatrix wore in 1981 during her state visit to Belgium. The bright green dress, probably made by Theresia Vreugdenhil, appears to have been neatly preserved all these years. Máxima had the dress entertained a bit, so some accents are different. It is not the first time that an old Beatrix dress is worn by one of her daughters-in-law. Princess Mabel was already seen in the dress that Beatrix had worn when her engagement to Claus von Amsberg was announced in 1966.”
(I suspect that the word “entertained” is not correct, but I don’t know Dutch to provide a better word.)
Matthew, when I was writing about tough times in Sweden, I “entertained” adding “Ha Ha” afterward; I was totally tongue-in-cheek with my comment. I think the re-usage is fantastic. In 2014, my father was buried in a 50 year old suit, and it looked like we had just bought it for the sad occasion. I wish I had it today to continue enjoying!
Understood, Jimbo, sorry for the misinterpretation. Many decades ago, when music was still sold on vinyl, my brother starred in a locally shown television commercial for a small record store as a Charlie Chaplin-like character, wearing a suit and bowler belonging to our grandfather, that was even more decades old. (Would probably qualify as an antique if still surviving!) Unfortunately, the film of the commercial has long since been lost, but I’ll have to ask my brother what became of the suit and hat.
Indeed, “altered”, not entertained.
Misunderstandings and cheeky comments aside- Yellow, lilac and pink is, indeed, an unusual combination. Not a successful one in my eyes!
This suit is also sort of lavender, yellow, and blue, oddly paired with a pink hat, since I don’t actually see any pink in the stripe.
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The stripe is actually yellow, turquoise, purple and pink
https://people.com/royals/princess-diana-commemoration-her-hats/?slide=2152797#2152797
Thanks, HQ, the pink does show up a lot better in that photo. Though actually, she could have chosen any one of those other colors as well for the hat. (And she did have hats in each!)
She also wore the suit with a lavender hat at Ascot before the wedding. I really liked that hat.
https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/british-royalty-horse-racing-royal-ascot-england-june-1981-news-photo/78977268?adppopup=true
O dear – Princess Laurentien – strange colour mix, pattern and material combos…
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and especially not a fan of brown on formal hats (- see princess anne, and unfortunately a couple on hm the queen, with maybe the exception of fur and fedoras…)
Yikes, sirlancelot! Blue and tan are fine, but it looks as though there’s some gold in there and then the grey in the tweed…definitely overloaded.
I tend to agree about brown hats, but here is one with an unusual color combination that I think works well — sort of like chocolate and strawberry.
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This was such a great hat on her. I love that signature Philip Treacy inter-looped bow.
Oh WOW! I think the first hat wins this round. Amazing find sirlancelot!
Oh my word, that is some outfit of Laurentien’s! Whatever possessed her?
So my first thought her was this classic. Now there’s so much going on here, but my focus is reserved for Fergie. Purple and green is a lot going on in this look….
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Fergie’s outfit actually looks tame compared to the other two outfits!