Attention all hatters in the Greater London area: there's an exhibit at Buck House this summer that absolutely cannot be missed!

Check it out -- it's a display of HM's Ascot hattery!  It's like a numbered, centralized version of the Mad Hattery! archives.  Here's a fun game -- identify which year we've seen each hat on HM at the races!  (I identify five here that we've seen on the blog...)

The exhibit, which also features some of HM's beautiful gowns and Prince Phil's naval uniform, opens up on Tuesday.  Unfortunately, I'm too far away to make this particular pilgrimage -- but if any of you hatters make it over there, be sure to give us a full report on how these toppers look up close!

Photo Credits: BEN STANSALL/AFP/Getty Images

Going through royal wedding withdrawal, hatters?  Fear not -- we've got a date and location for our next royal nuptials!

Several sources, including King Constantine, have confirmed that Prince Nikolaos of Greece and Denmark, the second son of the deposed king and queen of Greece, will marry his fiancée, Tatiana Blatnik, on August 25, 2010, on the island of Spetses, near Porto Heli, Greece.  Theirs will be the first royal wedding in Greece since Nikolaos's parents, King Constantine II and Queen Anne-Marie of Greece, married in Athens in 1964.  After the wedding, Tatiana will be known as HRH Princess Nikolaos of Greece and Denmark (though I'm sure she'll be called "Princess Tatiana" by the media).

Nikolaos's father may no longer be a reigning king, but the wedding is almost certain to draw significant royal guests.  Nikolaos's aunts and uncles include Queen Margrethe II and Prince Henrik of Denmark, Princess Benedikte and Prince Richard of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleberg, Queen Sofia and King Juan Carlos of Spain, and Princess Irene of Greece and Denmark.  His first cousins include Crown Prince Frederik and Prince Joachim of Denmark, Prince Gustav, Princess Alexandra, and Princess Nathalie of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleberg, and Prince Felipe, Infanta Elena, and Infanta Cristina of Spain.  He is also related to the Swedish and British royal families.

I've reset the royal wedding countdown -- only 63 days until the big event!  To get us geared up for the day, I'll be doing flashback posts from three of the most recent Greek royal family weddings: King Constantine and Princess Anne-Marie of Denmark's 1964 wedding in Athens, Crown Prince Pavlos and Marie-Chantal Miller's 1995 wedding in London, Princess Alexia and Carlos Morales Quintana's 1999 wedding, also in London.  Look for the first two flashback posts in July, with the last to follow in early August!

We've only got eleven hours until Crown Princess Victoria walks down the aisle of Storkyrkan Cathedral!

And you can celebrate the wedding here with your fellow hattery enthusiasts in our very first...

Join me here tomorrow morning at...

7:30 AM EST

(that's 1:30 PM Stockholm time)

... to watch the live feed of the wedding, chat about the dresses and the pomp and circumstance, and bask in the happiness of a big fancy royal wedding.  Bring your tiaras, your snacks, and (for my fellow North Americans) your best pajamas!  (Or, heck, it's Saturday -- everyone show up in your PJs!)  

I'm super excited, and I hope you are, too!  The royal wedding starts at 3:30 PM Stockholm time, which translates to 9:30 AM EST in North America.

Some Helpful Reminder Links

SVT website with streaming video of the ceremony
Pictoral royal guest list
Tiara guessing post
Blog post with wedding times, info, etc.

See you in the morning (or afternoon)!

We're almost there, everybody -- the royal wedding, according to our handy blog countdown, is only a day and a half away!  Pre-wedding events have already started, with a dinner aboard the Götheborg for the county governors last night and a private dinner for family and friends tonight.  No tiaras yet -- but I'm holding out hope for tomorrow's government events -- and we'll definitely see them on Saturday!

In anticipation that biggest of events, I've been working to compile a tentative guest list to Crown Princess Victoria's Wedding, based on various credible sources that have been released, including press releases from the Swedish royal court, newspaper releases, and confirmations from various royal courts. 

Since there are going to be a boatload of royals there -- some of them quite unfamiliar -- I thought I'd put together a pictorial guest list with a little bit of info on each guest, just to help us all keep everyone straight.  For those of you who are new royal watchers -- or for those who just want a little refresher course on who's who in the royal world -- click below to view the pictoral guest list ... and maybe print it out to use as a handy royal scorecard for Saturday!

Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to the latest edition of Hattery News, everyone!  It's Memorial Day here in the US, a day when we remember our fallen soldiers and kick off summer by having barbecues, opening our swimming pools, and generally enjoying the first holiday of the season.  What better day, then, to do some catching up on what's new with the blog?

-- Only a few days now until Crown Princess Victoria gets hitched in Stockholm!  Hattery photos from the publishing of their wedding banns will be up later today.  And in case you've missed any of the Hattery Flashbacks to crown princely weddings, so far we've reviewed Prince Philippe's wedding, Crown Prince Haakon's wedding, and Prince Willem-Alexander's wedding.  This week, we'll be looking at the mother of all hattery weddings from the last decade: the Danish wedding from 2004.  Because it included so many tiara events, I'll be posting a Hattery Flashback extra of pre-wedding events later today -- and look for the blingy wedding itself later this week!

-- Also in honor of Crown Princess Vic's wedding, I'm giving away a copy of The Young Victoria this month over at my blogging home base, Royalty with Ella Kay.  The film features the wedding of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, Crown Princess Victoria's great-great-great-grandparents -- quite appropriate for this month, no? :)  The DVD is a Region 1 copy, so readers from the US and Canada, head over to enter the contest!  (Readers from elsewhere -- apologies -- we'll get a giveaway you can enter next time!)

-- I know you all love a good tiara, and if you want more to read about the sparklers owned by various royals, check out the new "Tiara Tomes" widget on the blog sidebar.  I've gathered up all the best tiara books from Amazon.com and put them one place for your perusal.  Any purchase you make at Amazon after clicking through this website sends a small referral fee my way -- it's a great way to help support the blog and add more books to your royal libraries!

-- Okay, I can't resist tooting my own horn a little: I was quoted in an article in the New York Post last week about Prince William and Kate Middleton!  No big deal, LOL!

Pardon me, hatters, but I'm allowing myself to post this totally swoon-worthy photo of my favorite royal dreamboat, Prince Carl Philip, as a birthday present for the blog.  Yes, that's right, Mad Hattery officially turns two years old this month!  (Oh, lord -- the terrible twos!  Actually, that's probably a really good thing for a ridiculous hat blog: the more terrible, the better!)  I just know that CP was smouldering as a way to wish the blog a happy birthday (well, either that, or he had just discovered that his sister invited his ex-girlfriend to her wedding!).

I began Mad Hattery as a series of posts about Peter Phillips's 2008 wedding (in particular, that absolutely classic butterfly hat up in the corner) on my first royal blog -- and look how it's grown over the past two years!  Thanks to all of you who have helped to make this place a rockin' good time -- let's hope for even more fun and frivolity in future!

In honor of the big birthday, here's a few more hattery news items for your entertainment:

-- Today marked the 136th running of the Kentucky Derby in the US, which is the closest we Yanks get to Royal Ascot.  It's also one of the few events in the US where the spectators come en masse wearing hats.  Here's a sampling of some of the chapeaux sported at Churchill Downs today.  (And hello to the readers from that site -- someone linked to Mad Hattery over there, and we've been getting quite a bit of traffic this way.  Welcome to the royal hat madness!)

-- Twitter follower LouiseGhislaine tweeted me the link to a wonderful Billed-Bladet tiara gallery from April's birthday festivities in Denmark.  Check out some of the great up-close photos over here!  (And if you're not following me on Twitter yet, head over here!)

-- Put down your wine glasses before clicking on this link, hatters: lovely reader Kristin sent in this link to a site featuring King Carl XVI Gustaf in the craziest hats imaginable.  Words can't describe it: just go!

-- Finally, a big thank you to the readers who have been sending in photos and information about royal events recently; it's the end of the academic term out here in the US, and my time has been a bit crunched of late with grading.  I can't tell you how much I appreciate all of you kicking in a bit of time to help me out by sending me links and things -- it really is great!  I haven't been able to reply to all of the e-mails I've been getting, so let me take this chance to say one big "thanks" to all of you!

-- Happy Valentine's Day to all of my favorite hatters, both royals and readers!  Trust me, unlike the little hatter above, I'd be more than "satisfied" if you'd all be my valentine this year!   Hope you have a great weekend with the people you love, and lots and lots of chocolate hearts to snack on.

-- Most of you have probably read about the sad death of fashion designer Alexander McQueen. Reader Matthew sent in the following piece of related info: "Princess Beatrice's butterfly hat outfit was designed by Alexander McQueen who died recently, and apparently he collaborated with Philip Treacy on the butterfly hat as well."  So true, Matthew -- McQueen inadvertently had a major hand in the launching of Mad Hattery!  Best to his family and loved ones.

-- Reader Hans has been sending me some excellent pictures of historical royals indulging in some serious mad hattery, and he's inspired me to start occasionally including some of these great antique chapeaux on the blog.  Look for Historical Hatters soon -- and if you have any favorite historical hats, please send them along.  Remember: the crazier, the better!

-- Have you noticed the new "Royal Wedding Countdown" feature on the blog sidebar?  I'm counting down the days until June 19, 2010, when Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden gets hitched to Daniel Westling.  It promises to be one of the zaniest days yet at the blog, so I hope you're all getting as excited as I am!  (If you didn't get a chance to weigh in on the tiara choice for the big day, head over here!)

-- And finally, for those of you as addicted to the Olympics as I am, stay tuned -- we're promised that some royals will be dropping in at various events, including ... wait for it ... my favorite, Prince Carl Philip!  Here's hoping we see some team hats on the royals' crowns!

How often does it happen that royal charity work and royal hattery combine in one?  In Copenhagen on October 5, Princess Anne and Crown Prince Frederik joined together to launch the "Knit a Hat" campaign for the Save the Children Fund, which will aim to provide hats to children in impoverished areas of Africa.  The goal is to help keep children warm and, in return, reduce infant mortality rates.

The wonderful blog over at The Royal Forums reports that although Frederik brought a hat along to the campaign launch, he hadn't actually crafted it himself.  Blogger JessRulz writes, "The cap brought by Prince Frederik was not made by him though. 'I would love to have knitted it myself. But it is not true,' he said in the press conference."  Too bad -- we could have had a royal milliner on our hands!

For more information on the campaign, check out The Royal Forums Blog.

Thanks to Kirsten for the heads up on this hattery news!

The master milliner speaks! The Financial Times's Nicola Copping has an article about the Victoria & Albert Museum's new hattery exhibit, Hats: An Anthology by Stephen Jones. Brownie points to any mad hatters who go visit and can give us a report back on how mad the hattering really is at the V&A! For the rest of us, here's a link to the exhibit at the museum website -- I would pay money to see Beatrice swan out in some of these at Royal Ascot this year.

Copping's article talks about the place of the hat in the modern world and how the economic downturn has affected the millinery business. Shocker: hat sales are holding steady! And, no surprise, it's all because of the royal family:

“Around the world, hats are perceived as an English thing, which comes from the royal family,” says Stephen Jones. Go figure: the Queen barely leaves the palace without a pastel confection gracing her grey waves; the Duchess of Cornwall pole-vaulted from fashion nobody to fashion somebody, courtesy of a splendid Philip Treacy feather hat worn to her wedding, and even the young royals – Beatrice, Zara, Eugenie – experiment with more accessible styles, including the cloche and the beret, on and off the regal circuit.

"Experiment." Indeed ... though funny that the butterfly masterpiece wasn't mentioned as one of the more accessible styles.

The Daily Mail's Sophie Borland has an article today all about the fascinator, that most confusing and intriguing of all the many forms of mad hattery. Borland claims that a craze for the hats-slash-headbands-slash-explosions has been set off by HM The Queen, who wore the above number to her favorite grandson's wedding in May.

One slight quibble with the article, however; Borland claims that The Duchess of Cornwall wore a white fascinator to her wedding, when we'll all remember it was made of spectacular gold feathers. Exhibit A:

All those fascinated by the aptly-named fascinator will get a kick out of the article. But, woe, the source quoted from Debenham's maintains that the not-quite-a-hat has become acceptable for women of a certain age because of the Queen's example. I don't know - while they are pretty fun on Bea and Eugenie, if I see another Camilla-Trooping-the-Colour extravaganza, I'll be alternately disgusted (because, awful) and pleased (because, blog material!). Fascinators make me so torn.