Queen Margrethe’s 75th birthday celebrations began with a gala dinner last night and continued with a traditional wakeup for the birthday girl this morning followed by a lunch at Copenhagen’s Town Hall. As expected, the smiling queen appeared at today’s festivities in a new suit, coat and matching hat.
The bumper style hat, in the same mint green wool crepe and Margrethe’s coat and suit, features a close-fit rounded crown with a small brim, tightly upturned around the hat. On the left side of the hat, the brim pulls away from the crown, forming a wide bow loop. The hat is further trimmed with two coordinating green feathers anchored inside this loop. The result is a hat with beautifully curving lines and shapes that are interesting, creative and very pretty. Queen Margrethe’s hairstyle is a difficult one to pair with hats (we have long talked about how many hats leave her looking bald) but the scale, colour and style of this piece works wonderfully for her.
Crown Princess Mary surprised in Jane Taylor’s ‘Greta’ dove grey circular dish hat with exquisitely detailed lace trim. I adore this hat but I didn’t like it with Mary’s outfit today- the mix of colours didn’t work for me and I thought the delicate lace on the hat didn’t work well with the chunky beading on the neckline of Mary’s coat. I think this hat might need a monochrome ensemble to show to best effect (as we have already seen worn by the Countess of Wessex and Zara Phillips Tindall). For me, this ensemble is a case of numerous beautiful individual pieces that simply don’t work together.
Princess Marie repeated her black fascinator with looped black silk ribbons. This is a substantial piece that works well on Marie, particularly with her hair styled as it was today. Fascinators are getting a bad rap these days, thanks to some famous over-the-top designs and the meagre bits of fluff on a comb that are widely available in most junky accessory shops. This fascinator, however, with its wonderful shape, beautiful layers, elegant sense of movement and hint of playfulness, has every right to be on a royal head (even though today it had trouble staying on Princess Marie’s head!). Extreme wind aside, I thought Marie looked fantastic in this piece.
Queen Margrethe’s younger sister, Princess Benedikte, topped her pale pink coat and dress with a fuchsia tall-sided bumper hat. If the hat looks familiar to you, it is because it was previously trimmed with a large purple pompom at the back. While this hat now sports a wide looped bow in pale pink straw (clearly added to coordinate with this coat), I’m afraid the pompoms are still there. Amidst this disappointment, I still adored how the bright hue of this hat gave a perfect pop of colour to Benedikte’s ensemble. There’s also nothing like a bright pink hat to make one’s ruby earrings shine!
All in all, it was a great day of millinery for the Danish royal ladies and the birthday girl looked radiant. Jump over to this post for hats worn by Greek, Swedish and Norwegian royal guests.
Photos from Getty as indicated
Royal Hats 
