Princess Beatrice celebrated her 32nd birthday on Saturday. To celebrate this, I thought it was high time we dove into her millinery closet for an inventory. Surprisingly, she has publicly worn 20 different blue designs:
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Designer: All are Philip Treacy
Introduced: December 25, 2002; June 12, 2010; June 17, 2010
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Designer: unknown; Angela Kelly (made by Stella McLaren); Stephen Jones
Introduced: June 16, 2011; July 30, 2011; June 5, 2012
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9.
Designer: Sarah Cant; unknown; Sarah Cant
Introduced: June 4, 2013; August 11, 2013; June 17, 2014
10.
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Designer: unknown; Laura Apsit Livens
Introduced: November 19, 2014; June 18, 2015
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Designer: Juliette Botterill; unknown; Laura Apsit Livens
Introduced: June 19, 2015; May 26, 2016; June 16, 2016
15.
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Designer: Gina Foster; Laura Apsit Livens; Emily London;
Introduced: June 18, 2016; May 16, 2017; June 17, 2017
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Designer: Juliette Botterill; Stephen Jones; Juliette Botterill;
Introduced: December 25, 2017; May 19, 2018; June 19, 2018
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Designer: Bundle MacLaren
Introduced: June 18, 2019
UPDATE: Since this post was published, Princess Beatrice has worn the following blue hats:
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Designer: Juliette Botterill
Introduced: June 3, 2022
There’s considerable diversity of shade and shape here- saucers, boaters, fedora, bandeau, pillbox, teardrop and button perchers and brims of all sizes. Seeing this collection reminds me how well Beatrice wears hats, how much we underestimate her millinery sophistication and how wearing the work of numerous milliners (at least nine here) pushes her style and saves her from falling into a single signature look. The wide brimmed Sarah Cant and Gina Foster designs (#9 and #15) remain long held favourites for me because they are just so beautiful, along with the wonderful blue embroidered Bundle MacLaren Matador (#20). I also have a soft spot for the pair of blue and orange Laura Apsit Livens designs (#11 and #14) that were punchy, bold, and very unexpected choices that certainly stood out in the crowd. And you know, I love a hat that stands out!
Which blue hats in Princess Beatrice’s hat closet are your favourites?
Photos from Max Mumby/Indigo; RMA Sandhurst; Max Mumby/Indigo, Paul Ellis / AFP, Kirstin Sinclair/Getty Images for Ascot Racecourse, Samir Hussein/WireImage, Gareth Fuller – WPA Pool, Chris Jackson and Mark Cuthbert/UK Press via Getty and Getty as indicated
Royal Hats 
Another vote for #9, and I agree with HatQueen that the two orange and blue hats are standouts.
I’m impressed at the growing confidence. Those first few hats, while lovely, look as though they are wearing her. That’s certainly not the case more recently.
My favourites are 7, 10, 15, 19 and 21 – no two alike, yet each in its own way is a great look on HRH.
I love Princess Beatrice’s commitment to trying new styles and textures and colors. Sure, some don’t work, but when she gets it right, she gets it right! I would say the larger brimmed hats look the best on her, yet, she wears a modern bandeau (#18) and looks incredible. She’s always surprising us, and I love that.
9, 10, 11, 15 and 19 are my favorites. But, I think #9 belongs in the “Hat Hall of Fame.” It is so pretty and perfectly suited to her.
She’s fabulously fearless isn’t she. They don’t all quite work, and some overpower her deviate features a bit, but some knock it out of the park!
3 is an early success, that net disc is so lovey in her.
I think we all LOVE 9, 11 and 15. She suits wide brims so well, and that colour blocking on 11 is to die for.
20 is a sophisticated choice too. She looks. She pretty in it.
I love that she takes risks, has a real sense of style and commits to a look. She doesn’t always succeed but then that would be boring. And Bea’s style is never boring. I really love her for it.
What an astonishing collection of blue hats! I agree that the warmer blues look nicest with Bea’s lovely colouring. I just love #11 – the teal blue/orangey red combo that she wore with the white dress to Ascot. Awesomeness!
#2, #15, #21
number 7 is perfect on her. close runner up is 10. thanks HQ
My absolute favourites are #9 and #12. The first is so classic and this unfussy look really suits PB. The second Is so much fun and even though it is more detailed than #9, it is so perfectly balanced.
I love no. 9, which we discussed recently; no.12 and that great fedora are runners up; but I think my favourite, partly for her great styling with her hair, is no. 7.
Good one HQ, what a fascinatingly diverse collection!
Blue can be a hard colour to wear for those like Beatrice whose eyes are a greyish-green. If the blue they wear is too bright or light, it can make the wearer’s eye colour look like dishwater; e.g. #1 and #20. Beatrice’s gorgeous bright ginger hair can also look duller and more brownish if paired with a blue that is too cool, e.g. #1 again.
To show off how green Beatrice’s eyes really are, just about any colour other than blue would be easier. That said, blues which contain some green e.g. more of an aqua or a teal—can enhance her green eyes e.g. #9, #11 and, best of all, #18. Navy is pretty safe colour because it’s a. neutral.
The other complication for me picking favourites where Beatrice’s hats are concerned, is that I often feel she’s paired them with trendy clothes which are not doing justice to her hat, or to her unique looks and figure. So I’ve ignored the outfit (mostly), and whether the blue is her most flattering shade or not, and found that I had a lot of faves:
Bandeaux: #18
Wide brims: #9, #10, #11 (but only with the fab 2018 Sandringham coat), #15. And no, not #20 – that slipping-off pink tassel is too random for my taste! 🙂
Perchers: #7 – classic! #12 (skipping the hairstyle, skirt, top and necklace) #19, and finally this one from 2013 (navy and cream, does that count HQ?) https://royalhats.net/2013/08/08/birthday-of-princess-beatrice/ I actually love this outfit in its entirety: Embed from Getty Images
BTW and for what it’s worth, this is the sort of day dress which I think suits Beatrice, where the colours, pattern and cut support her natural looks, as well as her personality. This interesting frock is neither classic, nor minimalist, but neither is it avant-garde or a too-literal iteration of a trend :). And, it definitely needs a hat.
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The hat you suggest is one of my favourites but it’s a cream hat with blue trim… so we’ll see that in the cream/ecru hat inventory, when we get to it.