Two days ago, the fortune teller get-up — today, a one-way ticket to scalp sunburn city.  Hope she put some sunblock on her part!  (Excellent necklace, though…)

Also, I think Prince Michael might be mad at you guys for making fun of his mock turtleneck on Wednesday…!

Princess Michael apparently decided to wash her hair right before another event — this time the Elephant Parade Auction at the Royal Hospital Chelsea.  Or maybe she’s planning on telling some fortunes right after the auction?

At least this time the headscarf looks like Hèrmes…?  Oh, who am I kidding — even that doesn’t make it better.

I’ve been waiting all week for the Michaels of Kent to make their big appearance at Ascot, and M-C hasn’t disappointed — this gigantic flying saucer brim with its jaunty feather says, “I’M ROYALTY, DAHLINK!” far better than that dinky white pillbox she wore at Trooping the Colour!  Love it! 

And it looks like she might be able to use that feather as a quill to write on her racing form, too — I love a hat that pulls double duty.

HRH The Prince of Wales and Mrs. Camilla Parker Bowles
April 9, 2005

We’ve reached the finish line, kids: it’s our last hattery flashback post for the month!  Which also means that Crown Princess Victoria’s wedding is only three days away — hooray!!!

Our most recent crown princely wedding in Europe was also easily the most controversial: in 2005, Prince Charles married his longtime partner, Camilla Parker Bowles, with whom he had admitted committing adultery during his marriage to Diana, Princess of Wales.  Both parties were divorced (though Charles, in the wake of Diana’s death, was considered a widower), and so a religious wedding in the Church of England was impossible. 

However, it had become clear by 2005 that Camilla’s place in Charles’s life was non-negotiable, and so the Queen and the Archbishop of Canterbury decided that marriage was the best option.  The solution?  A civil wedding ceremony at the Guildhall in Windsor, followed by a Church of England blessing at St. George’s Chapel on the grounds of Windsor Castle.  There was one more unforeseen obstacle to overcome, however: the wedding had to be postponed by one day when Pope John Paul II died, and Charles had to represent the Queen at his funeral.

But on the day of the wedding itself, things went off largely without a hitch.  Camilla went from being Mrs. Parker Bowles to being HRH The Duchess of Cornwall (she doesn’t use the Princess of Wales title because of lingering associations with Diana).  All of Charles and Camilla’s children were present for the celebration, as were all of the senior royals — and Camilla’s ex-husband, too!  The two celebrated their fifth wedding anniversary this year.

(For those hoping this wedding hattery flashback might be about Charles and Diana’s wedding, never fear: I’m planning to do a flashback post about that event in the future!)

Wedding Hatters

Great Britain
Elizabeth · Camilla · Beatrice · Eugenie · Sophie · Anne · Zara
Serena · Sarah · Birgitte · Katharine · Alexandra · Marie-Christine

Foreign Royals
Anne-Marie · Mette-Marit · Laurentien

I don’t know about all of you, but when I go to fancy architecture exhibits in Zurich, I tend to unwrap the towel turban I put on my head after getting out of the shower first…

Marie-Christine’s giant marshmallow of a hat is a repeat from Trooping the Colour ’08 and Royal Ascot ’08, but we haven’t seen it from this angle before.  And OMG, it’s like a pillbox on steroids!

(It is Princess Michael, though, and I firmly believe that her private personal motto is “Go Big or Go Home,” so it’s not totally unexpected…)

Here’s a right royal event: Princess Michael of Kent, attending the reinterrment of the remains of famous French royal mistress Diane de Poitiers, who also happens to be one of Princess Michael’s ancestors.  (Marie-Christine is also descended from Catherine de Medici, the wife of King Henri II — the same king who kept Diane as a mistress!  What a royal tangle.) 

But her ancestry likely isn’t the only reason Princess Michael is attending this reinterrment; she has also written a book, The Serpent and the Moon, about both Catherine and Diane.  Diane’s remains were moved to a mass grave during the French Revolution, and this ceremony is marking their return to the chapel at Chateau d’Anet, Diane’s former home.

Marie-Christine has chosen some rather dramatic headgear here: a string of pearls, draping like a headband across her forehead.  I suppose this is a nod to Diane, who wears pearls in several of her portraits.  It’s also pretty costumey, but compared to the get-up sported by the current owner of Chateau d’Anet (he’s on the right), it’s pretty mild!

Happy New Year, Mad Hatters!  While I’m sure you’re all quite busy enjoying the bubbly and kissing your sweethearts at midnight, I thought a little hattery fun might be in order tonight as well.

(Well, this is Mad Hattery — I’m sure you’re all actually lounging on cruise ships in your Sunday best, wearing construction helmets and sipping champers just like Queen Silvia up there.  You are, aren’t you?  I knew it!)

Anyway: everyone’s doing year-in-review posts right now (heck, I just did two: The Top Ten British Royal Events of the Decade and 2009′s Royal Romance Review — check ‘em out!), so I thought we’d join right in.

And so, without further adieu, I present: the Mad Hattery Awards of 2009, recognizing the wackiest, zaniest, and most completely out-of-control hattery worn this year!

And the winners are (drumroll please)…

Read the rest of this entry »

I think this may be the first time I’ve seen a hat with a — pompadour.

So what we’ve got here, from what I can tell, is a hat with feathers sweeping one way round the brim and then “brushed” back over the top.  It sort of does look military, in that way that military hats with ridiculous and enormous plumage sometimes look.

But can I ask another quick question?  Marie Christine hasn’t … cut her hair, has she?  Surely it’s just tucked back.  It’s difficult to think of Princess Michael without that long blond mane, but now I’m imagining her with a lovely bob, and it’s quite a nice mental picture.

The first photos of Lord Frederick Windsor’s wedding guests are finally popping up on the web, and it’s as I feared, Mad Hatters: an evening wedding seems to mean a sad lack of hats on many.

But at least the mother of the groom wore a hot pink floral headpiece attached to the side of her head!

Lady Gabriella looks thoroughly amused by it, too, doesn’t she?  You’ve got to love Princess Michael.  Probably not many mothers-of-the-groom would have the chutzpah to wear a giant technicolor flower to their son’s wedding, but leave it to Princess Michael to get the job done.  Ooh la la!

(Non-royal hattery side-note: that’s Lady Annabel Goldsmith, one of Princess Michael’s close friends, in the black ostrich-y fascinator on the right.  I think my ruling on fascinators on women who have grandchildren still applies here — not a fan.)