Tuesday, May 01, 2012

The Queen's hats

When I was younger, I thought the Queen looked disproportionately frumpy, by which I mean that, even taking into account her age and the styles of the day and her need to dress conservatively, she looked frumpier than she should given all these factors.  But in the past decade or so, I stopped thinking this.

Looking at this retrospective of her hats, I realize why.  Brimmed hats are much more flattering on the Queen than brimless hats, but it seems she's only started wearing brimmed hats in the past decade or so.

Based on what I've read of the Queen's fashion strategy, this is probably for utilitarian purposes. She wants people to be able to see her, and a brimless hat shows her face much better.  Unfortunately, it also adds a dozen years and makes her look mean.

However, in the past decade or so, the royal milliners seem to have solved the engineering problem of designing a brimmed hat that still shows enough of the Queen's face so she can be photographed.  Well done, but I'm kind of surprised that it took 50 years to achieve that.

3 comments:

laura k said...

Maybe she only recently saw the need.

Does the Queen still carry her handbag everywhere? When I was younger I thought that was so funny. Like, did she carry a wallet with ID, so she could get the royal discount at the movies? Now I realize that was probably just fashion - shoes, hat, gloves, bag - the ensemble.

impudent strumpet said...

I read that the Queen doesn't have a passport, because as monarch she doesn't need one to travel. Which makes me wonder if anyone has considered attempting to evade authorities by disguising themselves as the Queen.

laura k said...

My grandmother could have gotten away with that. Some pics of the Queen look just like Dora Ruben nee Farberman, born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. Except the Queen smiles more than she did!