86 years to this day in 1933 and an outing, by members of the British Royal Family, to the British Industrial Fair. It’s a look at two quintessential hat shapes- the young Princess Royal and Duchess of York in cloches that were so stylish at the time and Queen Mary in a striped toque.
Photo from Getty as indicated
Members of the Belgian Royal family gathered at Notre Dame Church in Laeken yesterday to attended a mass held annually in memory of deceased family members. For this event, Queen Mathilde wore a new rounded headpiece covered in the same charcoal fabric as her high collared blouse. The textured fabric works surprisingly well on the design (and is well made- there’s not a pucker to be spotted here) but oh, how I wish it had a covered crown. I can’t get behind these doughnut designs.
Princess Stéphanie, Hereditary Grand Duchess of Luxembourg, celebrates her 35th birthday today and in honor of this, we’re going to dive into our first inventory of her millinery closet. We don’t see Stéphanie wear many hats beyond Luxembourg’s National Day, Closing of the Octave after Easter and the occasional state visit but despite this, she’s stepped out in five blue designs so far during her royal life. Here they are in the order that they have been worn:
1.
Designer: unknown
Introduced: May 5, 2013
2.
3.
Designer: both are unknown
Introduced: June 23, 2013; Sep 21, 2013
4.
5.
Designer: unknown; Amelie D’Hooghvorst
Introduced: June 23, 2016; August 11, 2017
For someone who does not wear hats often, there are some brave designs here! I’ve always adored whimsical curling trim on #2 (SUCH a fun hat for a new princess!) and admired the bold shapes of flower #3 and ruched headpiece #4, both of which take some confidence to pull off. Stéphanie’s colouring matches well with lighter shades which suit her much better than the dark first hat. I’m impressed with this inventory, not because all the hats are flawless but because it shows the Hereditary Grand Duchess’ willingness to experiment with millinery shape and scale- something that makes me take more deliberate notice of her style. What do you think of Princess Stéphanie’s blue hats?
Photos from Manuel Dias via Le Cour Grand-Ducale de Luxembourg; Patrick van Katwijk/dpa/Corbis; Corbis; The Catholic Church of Luxembourg; Max Mumby/Indigo via Getty
Photos from social media
On Thursday, Queen Elizabeth visited Watergate House to mark the 100th Anniversary of Government Communications Headquarters (GCH), the UK’s Intelligence, Security and Cyber Agency. For this visit, she repeated her sky blue hat with hourglass curved crown and gently sideswept brim (straw on top, the same wool silk as the crown and coat on the bottom), The photos taken on this day finally give us a close-up view of the hat’s trim- cut green feathers, amber beaded gold sprigs, and large, round amber and darker blue glass beads.
Royal Hats 