to November 11, 1932 and an Armistice Day ceremony in Whitehall, London, just as we will see this weekend. A young Duchess of York wore a black cloche (one of her go-to hat shapes at the time) while Queen Mary wore an elegant but interesting black hat with curved kettle brim.
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to this day in 1965 when Princess Hanako, who was on a ten day official visit to London with Prince Hitachi, donned a fur hat for a visit to Buckingham Palace.
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thirty-one years to this day in 1987 and a royal visit to Hamburg that saw this faux fur tam o’ shanter by Arabella Pollen (who also designed the coat). We can thank the 1980s for such slouchy-chic shapes as these!
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Photo from Getty as indicated
to thirty-eight years ago yesterday, when Queen Elizabeth wore a vibrant red poppy covered hat by Simone Mirman on a visit to Morocco. I don’t suspect the Queen was as cheery as her hat this day after King Hassan II’s lack of punctuality caused some tension (watch the youtube clip at the bottom!).
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Photo from Getty as indicated
twenty-five years ago today and a pair of unusually similar hats worn by Queen Elizabeth in Cyprus. For her arrival (this was the 13th Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting), she wore a vibrant pink Philip Somerville hat with upswept, side vented straw brim, crown covered in the same silk print as her dress and twee side bow.
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Later in the day, she donned another Philip Somerville hat, this one in vibrant blue with the outer side of the brim covered in the same silk floral print as her dress and a bow at the back.
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Am I the only one who finds the choice of such similar hats, both worn on the first day of a high profile overseas visit, a little odd?!
Photos from Getty as indicated
to this day in 1940, 78 years ago, when King George VI and Queen Elizabeth visited several bombed areas of London. Queen Elizabeth’s dramatically sideswept brim hat (with swirled pleats on the underside of the raised brim) is all kinds of wonderful and shows, again, how a brim shape we think of as rather contemporary isn’t truly so.
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Photos from Getty as indicated
to this day, 30 years ago, and a very smart royal blue Philip Somerville hat worn for the start of a state visit to Spain.
Photo from Getty as indicated
