Here’s a hatter we haven’t seen in a while!  It’s Chelsy Davy, the long-time law-student girlfriend of Prince Harry.  (Or, at least I think she’s still Harry’s girlfriend — the tabloids can’t seem to decide!)  Either way, she’s got herself a pass into the royal enclosure, a glass of champers, and quite the hat.

I don’t really love this one, but I can’t exactly put my finger on why.  The black is fine — quite a statement with the red dress — and I do generally like the beret styling.  But I think there may be too many feathers and embellish-y things circling the back of this chapeau.  And it looks a little like she forgot she needed to wear a hat, styled her hair the normal way, and then just plopped the topper right on her crown, doesn’t it?  And we all know that loose hair at Ascot can be quite the challenge:

Watch out — save the champagne, darling!  (Why won’t any of these royal girlfriends try an updo — I know people don’t just walk around with their hair all done up these days, but it’s Ascot, for heaven’s sake!)

We didn’t get a sighting of the other British royal GF, Miss Middleton, at the races, but then the always-reliable Mail on Sunday told us this week that she and Wills have moved in together in Wales, so it might have been quite the journey to travel over from the land of Tom Jones.  But we did get to see one of her hats!

Hey, it’s Carole, Kate Middleton’s mum!  How’s it going, Carole?  Enjoying Ascot?  That’s great.  By the way, I think this hat is too young for you — it’s Kate’s hat from last year’s van Cutsem wedding.  Maybe something with a brim for you instead?  I think that would be loads better.  Have a great day, Mrs. M!

Another weekend, another wedding for Kate Middleton, and yet another oh-so-close hattery moment…

Kate’s recycled another outfit for this weekend’s wedding — the jacket was worn to Peter Phillips’s wedding, the dress to several events, including Laura Parker Bowles’s wedding — but she didn’t recycle a hat this time.  In fact, she barely wore any headgear at all:

Think how much lovelier these flowers would look bedecking her tresses if only she’d worn her hair up instead of hanging in her face.  Please, Richard Ward, if you’re reading this, start experimenting with the occasional up-do!

Another weekend, another wedding appearance by Prince William and Kate Middleton.  This time they’re in St Andrews, the town in Scotland where they met as university students, to attend the wedding of their former flatmate, Oli Baker.

We’ve seen both the hat and the coat before; Kate wore the coat to Laura Parker Bowles’s wedding way back in 2006, and the hat is the same fascinator she wore to Peter Phillips’s wedding.  The coat continues to be lovely, but just like last time, the hat looks like it would have been more appropriate at Thursday’s Dutch memorial unveiling than at a wedding.  Oh, Kate — surely there’s a happy medium between funereal and fire-engine red?

Prince William and Kate Middleton attended a wedding this weekend (nope, still not their own!), and Kate did something rather unusual: she wore a fascinator that I don’t like.  Usually Kate’s just about the queen of fascinators, but I think that the orange-red, flower-and-netting fascinator paired with the orange-red dress is just too over the top.  (Also, wouldn’t you be ticked if you were a bride and the possible future queen of England showed up at your wedding in a bright red dress?  I like Kate, but I’m just saying.)

I think even a black fascinator like this one would have been a better choice; I know I knock Kate a lot for wearing mourning hats on non-mourning occasions, but I think it would have made this look less … Vegas, for lack of a better reference.  I’ve said it once, and I’ll probably say it again: Kate needs to confab with Princess Alexandra, and stat!

The royal ski holiday season has gifted us with a long-lost hatter: royal girlfriend Kate Middleton, who has been absent from the world of hattery since last August.  Welcome back, Kate!

Kate and her longtime squeeze, Prince William, were out on the slopes in Courchevel this week, and she chose this Nordic-style ski hat, complete with puff ball, for her trip down the mountain.  I don’t mind the hat at all, but I’ve got to say, what is with royals and their pals skiing this year without helmets?  If Kate wants to make it to wear a tiara one day, hopefully she’ll plunk a more substantial safety helmet on her crown for her next ski run!

I’m not sure exactly what Kate is trying to conjure up in this particular photo (maybe an engagement ring? or a potion to make tabloid writers nicer to her?), but it’s great to see her back in hattery mode again!  And I must say, she’s looking particularly royal in this photo.

The hat itself is pretty nice, honestly.  It’s a little forehead-monstery for me, but not too much.  I like the white/black/blue contrast.  If only it didn’t have the weird pattern of crystal-ly flowers on the top, I might be really enthusiastic about it.

Now, if only we could get Miss Middleton three things: that big sparkler, a schedule of princess lessons from Princess Alexandra, and a sandwich…

Prince William’s girlfriend, Kate Middleton, has officially emerged back into the spotlight wearing … the same furry thing she wore last year on the Sandringham pre-Christmas pheasant shoot. Sigh.

She and her mother have both been photographed in this interesting little fur number in the past. I mean, I guess it’s slightly more PC to keep recycling the same fur instead of buying new ones over and over, but really, she’s already out killing animals. Couldn’t we have seen a snappy new hunting hat for the occasion? Even Prince William showed up with a new accessory — a ginger beard.

Kate may be waiting for a ring, but I’m waiting for a shiny new chapeau for the longtime royal girlfriend!

K. Midds has gotten so much coverage this weekend, half the world’s population probably thought that she was the bride at this wedding. I’m sure she didn’t mean to steal the spotlight, but when the girlfriend of the second-in-line to the throne shows up at a royal wedding, tongues will inevitably set to wagging.

I wasn’t a huge fan of the dress itself today — the whole thing was sort of meh, way better than what she wore to Peter and Autumn’s knot-tying, but overall, she’s looked better. And the fascinator’s pretty run-of-the-mill for Kate. But how fab is her hair with this hat? Richard Ward deserves a knighthood. Volume and curls with a fascinator in July? Amazing!

When K. Midds didn’t show up to Royal Ascot as the tabloids had tipped her to do this year, we knew she had to be mad hattering around somewhere else. And, via this paparazzo’s long-range lens, here we have her. In … oh, how it pains me to say it … a baseball cap.

This, when she could have been swanning about the royal enclosure in some fabulous giant-brimmed monstrosity swimming with rhinestones and feathers and curly thingys. I guess Kate’s appearance here at a polo club in Gloucestershire for her beau’s birthday instead shows that she really is after the man and not the monarch, because any princess-wannabe worth her mettle would have jammed a feathered fascinator onto her pretty little crown and posed in the enclosure like nobody’s business.

But … couldn’t you at least have gone with that brown cowboy hat you used to wear, Kate? This is just so — utilitarian. Or maybe you and Wills just decided to be twinsies for the day. We won’t judge.

So, as predicted, our bet for future Queen, Kate Middleton, showed up today!

She looks smashing, in our opinion. Smart, cool, and appropriate. The suit fits her impeccably and doesn’t draw too much attention from the boyfriend in the spotlight. (Of course, Kate Middleton steals attention wherever she goes by virtue of her place as not-yet-engaged royal girlfriend, but there you go.) And the hat … well, it’s better than that ghastly funereal thing she plopped on her head for Peter Phillips’s wedding. The 1940s style of the hat works with the overall silhouette, and I like the size of it. But good lord, is there a single milliner in London who doesn’t put random curly junk or feathers on the top of a hat?

(We apologize if Phillip Treacy is reading this — we know 95% of these hats are probably yours, and you could also have us killed in a suspect millinery accident, we’d wager.)