Pretzels, switchboards and faux fur: the royals' most controversial hats
As reviews for the third season of The Crown begin to trickle in, audiences watch the trailer on repeat, looking for hidden clues to what the latest instalment might entail. But in that trailer, there’s something that almost steals the show: the hat worn by the Queen for her Silver Jubilee celebrations in June 1977, controversial in its whimsy and ridiculed for its daring.
Designed by the royal milliner Frederick Fox, it wrapped round the Queen’s head and matched the Hardy Amies ensemble she wore on the day. Hanging from the back were 25 pink bell flowers with green silken stems, symbolising her 25-year reign.
Commentators were not kind about the hat. In a 1977 Guardian article, the Labour MP Neil Kinnock described the Jubilee as “an action replay with a lady in a pink hat that looks like a disconnected switchboard”. In the Washington Post, Sally Quinn described the colour of the Queen’s ensemble as “garish and inelegant”.
Prone to interpretation as either a silent protest or fashion faux-pas, royal hats regularly prove controversial. “They are very often symbolic, and [royal designer Sir Norman] Hartnell was the one who brought the old practice of using symbolism with embroidery into modern dress,” says Michael Pick, whose Hartnell biography has just been published. “The hat is a substitute for a crown,” he adds. “People probably read far more into it than is intended.”
Here are some other examples of royal hats that have raised eyebrows. The helmet hat
Shaped like a helmet and embroidered with pearls, the Queen’s Tudorinspired hat for the 1969 investiture of the Prince of Wales was designed by Hartnell and milliner Simone Mirman. It was quite a look. “Hartnell was very keen on adapting historical dress to suit modern times, particularly for the royal family,” says Pick. “The dresses they all wore for that were quite short for the time, and he had to have something which balanced with the outfit. He wanted something that reflected the history of Caernarfon castle, so that’s where the Tudor motif came from.”
Despite the historical influence, some members of the public were reportedly unimpressed with the queen’s choice of headwear, having expected her to wear a crown for the occasion.
The pretzel hat
Perfectly symmetrical, beige and glittering slightly, the infamous Philip Treacy creation was perched on Princess Beatrice of York’s head at the 2011 wedding of Prince William and
Catherine Middleton. Chaos ensued: her headwear was called everything from a toilet seat to a Turkey Twizzler to a pair of antlers, and a Facebook group dedicated to the hat accrued tens of thousands of likes in a matter of days.
“There was a moment where I thought I would find myself with my head on a spike outside the Tower of London,” Treacy said of the backlash on BBC Radio 4. “But it was a very modern hat and modernity is always unusual things.”
Princess Diana, not wearing a hat The Princess of Wales was known to ditch royal fashion rules when she saw no sense in them. Royals are supposed to wear hats and gloves at every formal occasion, but Diana was often seen without them when visiting towns or hospitals. Eschewing hats and gloves meant appearing more approachable, as she once reasoned: “You can’t cuddle a child in a hat.”
The hat of the union
In June 2017, while the Queen delivered her speech to parliament, detailing how the government was going to complete Brexit, all eyes were on Her Majesty’s head: her hat, by Stella McLaren, was a bright blue, five blue flowers with yellow cores stitched to the front. Could the Queen be a remainer?
Apparently not: “It never occurred to Stella and me that people might think we were copying the European Union flag,” the Queen’s dresser Angela Kelly writes in her new memoir, The Other Side of the Coin. “It was a coincidence but, boy, did it attract a lot of attention, and it certainly made us smile.” The Queen wore the same hat to tea with President Trump in 2018, but the flowers had been replaced by a ribbon ... The beanie
Angry Twitter users expressed their disgust when the Duchess of Cambridge was photographed wearing a beanie by designer Eugenia Kim with what looked like a fur pom-pom during the 2018 Scandinavian tour. Things quietened down quickly, though, when Kensington Palace explained that the fur was faux. “Today’s luxurious faux furs are fit for a queen – or a duchess,” said Elisa Allen, director of the animal charity Peta.
A hat in Fiji
Hats can be synonymous with tradition – or the breaking of it. On a 2018 royal tour, Meghan and Prince Harry were welcomed to Fiji with a traditional ceremony known as Veiqaravi Vakavanua. “No one is allowed to wear anything on their heads or have anything above their head, like an umbrella,” the journalist Rebecca English had tweeted before the ceremony. The Duchess of Sussex attended wearing a
Stephen Jones hat, setting off a Twitter storm of disapproval and multiple articles.
Jeans and a hat
The Duchess of Sussex was also frowned upon for wearing jeans and a straw hat at Wimbledon to watch a Serena Williams match in July 2019. She wasn’t allowed to watch from the Royal Box (though it’s not clear if she wanted to) because jeans are not permitted there. The same goes for hats: the dress code dictates that spectators shouldn’t wear them out of respect for the people sitting behind.