In June 1954, Queen Elizabeth attended Royal Ascot and welcomed King King Gustav VI and Queen Louise of Sweden for a state visit in a unique star shaped hat with layered white crin brim.
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This is lovely and so unique! I join with everyone else wishing for a color photo, but its lots fun to speculate on how this looked!
Once again coming up with no colour photo, I DID find a description of the coat, worn again on June 21, 1955, as HM left on the Brittania for Norway. The coat was yellow with grey pattern with a matching feather hat. (Click on the photo in the link.) Sooooo, could Hat #59 be a yellow hat with a grey or black star? It would be great if the ensemble’s description jogged someone’s memory from the time.
https://www.rexfeatures.com/search/?kw=queen+elizabeth+jun+21+1955+royal+state+tour&js-site-search_submit=Go&order=newest&iso=GBR&lkw=queen+elizabeth+jun+21+1955&viah=Y&stk=N&sft=&timer=N&requester=&iprs=f
June 22 or 23, 1995: The coat was also worn in Glasgow for the launching of the Empress of Britain.
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Somehow, these dates don’t seem to jive.
I think you must have meant 1955 rather than 1995, Jimbo — only Princess Anne would have repeated a dress 40 years later!
Jimbo, I have found a clue to this hat’s colour. In The West Australian newspaper on Friday, 18 June 1954 it was reported that women could not take their eyes off the Queens hat. “It looked like a wavy pancake with a translucent yellow brim and a star-shaped crown in rich forest green velvet”. From the accompanying photo it is clearly the same hat.
Brava! Fantastic, Gwyneth. Yellow doesn’t surprise my at all, but the forest green does. Thanks for your help.
(Matthew, thanks for catching my typo! The dates still don’t make sense though.)
I love the movement this hat creates like waves in the ocean echoed by the pattern in her dress. Just lovely all around!
Yes indeed. Such a unique and stunning hat on Queen Elizabeth. The whole look is just beautiful. Such a stylish arrival by the Swedish King and Queen with their nephew.
I’ve always thought this was a stunning hat, it’s a really creative shape, which you can appreciate more in motion than pictures, but is a fab piece of millinery. I love the combo with the watermarked effect dress too. She’d stopped dressing like her Mother by this point, and found the style she stuck with for the next ten years or so which was a very flattering look for her.