Hats off to the Queen for preserving an industry

SHE has been on the throne for more than 65 years, fulfilling her public duties, unifying the Commonwealth and providing the steady role-model the nation needs in turbulent times.

But the Queen deserves praise in a less obvious area too – she has single-handedly kept the hat industry in business, according g to Philip Treacy.

Treacy, y, the milliner used d regularly by the Royal oyal family, said the e monarch had “kept pt hats alive in the imagination agination of people all over the world”, ensuring their survival vival even as most of her subjects abandoned ed them.

Now, he said, young women were choosing oosing to wearhats arhats once more re as they come ome back as an accessory of “rebellion”. Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, Treacy, who made dozens of hats for guests at the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, said: “The patronage of the Royal family keeps hats alive. The patronage of the Queen has kept hats alive in the imagination of people all over the world. “If the Royal family chose not to wear hats in the Sixties and Seventies when some gave up on them, I wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

Of changing fashions, he said: “A hat has changed from a conformist accessory to an accessory of rebellion, almost.”

Asked about one of his famous and most controversial creations, the “pretzel hat” worn by Princess Beatrice for the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, he joked he feared his head would be mounted on a spike outside the Tower of London following public criticism. Treacy also shared his ire towards fascinators, dismissing them as a “hair band with a floppy flower on it”.

The full interview will be broadcast on Radio 4 today.