Category Archives: All About Design

Pick A New Hat

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Last week we entertained ourselves by choosing hats for British royal family members to wear on Christmas Day. This week, we’re opening up our royal hat dreams with new designs we’d like to add to a royal’s closet. Share a link to the hat (Twitter or Instagram hats will show up as photos here), name its milliner AND the royal you’re choosing it for and, most importantly, share your reasons for that choice. You can stick with established royal-milliner collaborations or suggest entirely new ones- anything goes!

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This is my only post scheduled for this week- so let’s settle in and have some fun with it!

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Photos from Getty as indicated 

Fantasy British Royal Family Christmas Hat Parade

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With no hats to cover this week, we’re going to create our own excitement here by creating Fantasy British Royal Family Christmas Hat Parades. It’s simple- you act as stylist for the British royals, digging into their royal hat closets and choosing a hat you’d pick for them to wear for Christmas Day. You can take an individual approach or style the group as a whole (hats that compliment, blend or deliciously clash!).  There are two stipulations- first, new hats are off limits (you have to pick from what is/has been in each royal’s closet) and second, no trading hats between the ladies.

This is the final post I’ve planned for this week so take your time, explain why you’ve chosen each hat and revel in the choices others share. The whole point of this is a little lighthearted fun.

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I can’t wait to see your styling choices!

Photo from Getty as indicated 

Monday Multiples: Princess Benedikte

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One of the hats that fared well in our recent repeated hats poll was Princess Benedikte’s purple felt trilby. She has added two different hatbands to this hat and paired it with four ensembles:

Look #1: With a graphic grey and camel coat worn March 8, 2013 to a manufacturing facility

 

Look #2: With a magenta suit worn for a December 3, 2013 visit to an elder care facility

 

Look #3: With a grey textured suit with fur stole and a grey leopard print hatband added to the hat worn March 3, 2017

    

Look #4: With a multicoloured woven textured coat and heather purple dress, along with a purple silk hatband added to the hat, worn October 3, 2020 for the opening of Parliament

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Which hatband, and which ensemble do you prefer most with this hat?

Photos from from Niels Henrik Dam;  Allan Nørre Overgaard; Lars Krogsgaard; Ole Jensen and Ole Jensen via Getty; Getty as indicated 

Inventory: Princes Anne’s Red Hats

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Today we’re diving into Princess Anne’s closet to look at all of her red hats. To my great surprise, she has only added four in this colour scheme in the past 40 odd years:

1.   2.   
Designer: unknown
Introduced: Dec 25, 1984; Apr 3, 1988

3.    4. 
Designer: unknown
Introduced: June 18, 1996; Jan 27, 2019 

What’s most interesting to me here is not so much the styles, as the few number of hats in this hue. Maybe the Princess Royal is not such a fan of red? While the first two are well into their third decades of wear, they continue to make public appearances, usually around Christmas. The first design has not aged particularly well (as one may expect for a pyramid of pompoms) while the second has nearly fit in with the beret percher styles that have been fashionable over the past decade. The most recent acquisition, a deep scarlet velvet bucket hat, feels less stylish than the beret and while the third hat has not been seen in a long while… it wouldn’t surprise me if it magically appeared at Ascot next year.

What do you notice about this group of hats? If you were to add a red hat to Princess Anne’s wardrobe, what style would you choose?

Photos from PA; Max Mumby/Indigo, Tim Graham and Nigel French/PA Images via Getty Images

Princess Eugenie’s Christmas Hats

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We continue our retrospectives on hats worn on Christmas Day today with a peek into Princess Eugenie’s archive:

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Velvet hats in jewel tones for Christmases 1995 through 2001

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 Mulberry stovepipe cloche with feather explosion in 2002; Winter white beret in 2003; Cuffed faux fur hat in 2004

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Burgundy felt beret in 2005; Chocolate cocktail hat with feathers and looped bows in 2006: Ivory beret in 2007

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 Black felt blocked beret in 2008;  Bright pink fedora in 2009; 

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Black fedora with side spray of pheasant feathers in 2010; Burgundy stylized beret with rose in 2011;

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 Repeat of the 2008 black felt blocked beret in 2012 and 2013 (with an added Christmas tree pin)

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Cerise percher with knotted trim by Juliette Botterill in 2014; Teal straw percher with black crin by Nerida Fraiman in 2015;
Scarlet felt button with sculpted leaves and silk blooms by Sarah Cant in 2016

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Cuffed black felt beret with bow by Whiteley w in 2017; Black ruched bandeau by Emily London in 2018;
Blue silk bandeau with arrow trimmed feathers by Juliette Botterill in 2019

I love a jewel tone on Eugenie so in this collection, my eye is naturally drawn to the colourful designs worn in 2009, 2011, 2014 and 2016, along with the beautiful blue feather trimmed bandeau she wore last year. What do you notice about this collection? Which designs stand out most to you?

Photos by Geoff Robinson/Shutterstock; Getty as indicated