While Princess Anne famously has worn some hats over several decades, she also mixes pieces. Her ecru suit with tangerine silk binding and crossover blouse has been paired with three different hats:

Look #1: With a cream close-fitting percher hat edged with tangerine-backed bumper brim raised to flying bow tails at the back worn June 13, 1987 for Trooping the Colour and March 30, 1988 to open the Royal Easter Show

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Look #2: With an ecru straw pillbox with visor brim around the front and layered tangerine and ecru folded bow in the back worn for the Founders Day Parade at Chelsea Royal Hospital on June 5, 2008

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Look #3: A pumpkin straw modified cloche with angled brim, wide silk ruched hatband and posy of straw lilies studded with amber feathers by Walter Wright worn April 17, 2012 in South Africa

To celebrate Princess Anne’s 70th birthday on Sunday, we’re diving into her millinery closet for an inaugural inventory of her hats. At the turn of the millenium, the Princess Royal had just two green hats in rotation, both introduced during the previous decade (and both repeated within the past nine years years):

As we’re all aware, the Princess Royal has a knack of reintroducing hats from decades past- in July 2013, she brought back a straw picture hat painted with peacock feathers by John Boyd that goes back to at least 1982 and on December 31, 2017 she attended church in a deep forest green velvet cloche that dates to at least December 1984:

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Since 2000, Princess Anne has added eight additional new green designs to her wardrobe. Here they are, in order of introduction:

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Designer: unknown
Introduced: June 21, 2000; March 12, 2002; June 18, 2009

4.  5.  6.
Designer: unknown; Amy Morris-Adams; unknown
Introduced: December 25, 2011; June 22, 2017; March 9, 2018

7.  8.  
Designer: both are Amy Morris-Adams
Introduced: April 4, 2019; June 20, 2019

I’ve held off tackling Princess Anne’s inventories because they require going back 40+ years to catch all the hats we still see her wear today (the longevity of her wardrobe is clearly one of her superpowers). This first group of green hats surprised me. There are less here than I imagined there’d be- perhaps green is not Anne’s favourite colour but when you think about how many  events/engagements she attends (509 in 2019), this is a proportionately small collection. This group also covers a wide breadth of different shapes- there are not two designs close to being alike. Sure, some shapes look more dated than others but it also indicates a more sophisticated ability to carry off very different hat styles that I suspect I’ve underestimated.

As for favourites- I like the new additions from Amy Morris-Adams and hope their collaboration continues. I also love the early 1980s green straw John Boyd picture hat painted with peacock feathers and would love to see it worn again (although, not with it’s original matching outfit!).

So… what do you notice about this group of hats? Which designs do you think suit Anne best?

Photos from  Allstar Picture Library Ltd via Alamy; Fiona Hanson/PA Images, Joe Giddens/PA Images, Tim Graham Photo Library, Max Mumby/Indigo, Mark Cuthbert/UK Press, Hollie Adams, Max Mumby/Indigo, Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty