WEDDING FLOWERS: hats
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Showing posts with label hats. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hats. Show all posts

Royal National Day (and Tiara Watch!) of the Day: June 24

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Let's spend a little quality time with the Luxembourg grand ducal clan. They've been celebrating National Day with big hats (lucky us) and plentiful tiaras (even luckier us). The festivities kicked off the day before with a surprise balcony appearance and some visits, including the traditional trip for Prince Guillaume and Princess Stéphanie to Esch-sur-Alzette.
Their outfits were pretty tame (as usual) but also they were pretty cute (as usual).

The whole family - the Grand Duke, Grand Duchess, and all five kids plus assorted spouses - kicked National Day itself off with a ceremony at the Philharmonie Luxembourg.
@CourGrandDucale
Some basic outfits here, but I think they were saving themselves up for the Te Deum.

The Grand Duke and Grand Duchess
Maria Teresa elevated her Armani suit with a sculptural black topper, and Henri clearly approved of the addition (speaking of cute, ahem).

 Prince Sébastien and Princess Alexandra
I did not know that there was such a thing as a costume Te Deum, but I'm here for Alexandra's flapper flair.

Prince Louis and Princess Tessy
Tessy got the memo, apparently, carrying us forward in time to the glamour of the 30s and 40s with her red lip and saucy 'do.

Prince Félix and Princess Claire
A big hat and swinging earrings and polka dots and a Dolce & Gabbana dress with a flippy skirt? That's, like, 75% of my favorite things. Don't distract me, Claire, I'm determined to give my jumpy claps to someone else this time.

The Hereditary Grand Duke and Hereditary Grand Duchess
Jumpy claps for Stéphanie! Finally, finally, I have some jumpy claps for Stéphanie, and they are long overdue. A truly classic appearance with a cheery color to keep it interesting and a little personality courtesy of the hat. Fab-u-lous.

And just to add an extra fabulous cap to the day: the National Day gala, featuring more tiaras in one shot than some countries pull together in a whole year.
Palais grand ducal/Tageblatt
Maria Teresa in the Belgian Scroll Tiara, Stéphanie in Grand Duchess Marie-Adélaïde's Tiara, Claire in what I believe is a new little bandeau piece (with an impressive set of ruby or red stone earrings and necklace to go with, and an elegant red dress), Tessy in what looks like the amethyst and pearl bandeau, and Alexandra (wearing, if I'm not mistaken, the Elie Saab that Stéphanie wore to Princess Madeleine's pre-wedding dinner) in the Topaz/Citrine and Pearl Tiara. And that's how you do a tiara appearance, folks.

For more on National Day, here's a huge gallery including a few more gala pics, and you can always turn to Luxarazzi.
Big Royal Hats of the Week: June 23

Big Royal Hats of the Week: June 23

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Ascot doesn't have a monopoly on the big hats, you know.

The Duchess of Cornwall took time out from Ascot to toss a mop on her head and head out with the Prince of Wales to continue the work they started in Belgium, leading the royal party at a St. Paul's Cathedral service to commemorate the bicentenary of the Battle of Waterloo. (Cams is wearing her Four Strand Pearl Choker with Small Diamond Clasp and a badge from the Rifles, by the way.)

A big group of royals and other dignitaries gathered in Belgium to do the same, including the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess of Luxembourg, the King and Queen of the Belgians, the King and Queen of the Netherlands, and the Duke of Kent.
'Twas a standard appearance for two of the Ms - Maria Teresa and Máxima, though I am a little concerned that Máx had an altercation with a road line painter on the way to Belgium - and a gorgeous appearance for their royal hostess.
This is the second time in a week I've looked at Mathilde and thought nothing more than she looks goooood. So let's keep that up.

I like to imagine that Queen Máxima realized she missed an opportunity for a big hat there, because she returned home and promptly donned this monster, to open the Design Derby Netherlands:
It takes a lot to overshadow a chapeau like this, but my attention was diverted by what I genuinely thought might be a lobster slung 'round her neck. (She would wear one too, you know she would.)
Honestly, I'm a little disappointed to find out that wasn't the case.

Photos: via Getty Images as indicated
Royal Fashion Awards: Royal Ascot 2015, Days 4 & 5

Royal Fashion Awards: Royal Ascot 2015, Days 4 & 5

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The last two days of Royal Ascot did taper off in terms of royal attendance, but they also gave us the most Ascot-y of our royal Ascot hats this year, so it's a trade off. Let's finish this party up: 

Best in Coordination
The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh (Day 5)
Check that tie-to-outfit coordination. Not too matchy-matchy, just right. Awww. (You can of course see Her Maj on Day 4 as well as all brooch info at the Vault.)

Best Comeback
Zara Phillips (Day 4)
Bouncing right back from a yellow number that made people ask all the wrong questions earlier in the week, this is simple but just the right silhouette for Zara. Lovely. Also, bonus grandmother/granddaughter hang out time:

Worst Step Back
Princess Beatrice (Day 4)
And she was doing so very well on Day 3. Alas, Beatrice - here with her mum and sister - stepped right back in that pile of tooooo muchhhhh that she got stuck in on Day 1, overdoing this skirt (which is already patterned and flared and wrinkled) with a fussy top and ankle straps and koosh ball flowers on her head. Princess Eugenie did it better on Day 3, and is doing it better retro-style here too.

Best Ascot Spirit
Lady Helen Taylor
Let it be known that I do not like bugs on my hats anymore than I like them on my jewelry. But it's Ascot! Someone has to have a little millinery fun. We've seen some big royal hats this year, but I think this is the only one that's really brought the whimsy that one can pull off at the biggest hat parade of the year.

Now that we've reached the end of the Ascot fun, it's time for the final question:

What was your favorite Ascot outfit for 2015?
(Voting for the Yorks on Day 3, myself.)

Photos: via Getty Images as indicated

Royal Fashion Awards: Royal Ascot 2015, Days 2 & 3

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We took a day off from our Ascot coverage, so let's play catch up with a big roundup of royal racegoers:

Best in Gents
The Duke of Edinburgh (Days 2 and 3)
Ascot is my annual time to give the dapper Duke his due. His top hats are "antique", as the Royal Hats Blog explains, which in this case means they're his from fifty years ago. (Princess Anne: "SEE?") For her part, the Queen delighted me with another amazing brooch from Queen Victoria, Prince Albert's Sapphire, and then did an abrupt 180 the next day in a probably modern and hardly as lavish piece, the Shamrock Brooch. I like to think she just wanted us to save up our jumpy claps, knowing that the Duchess of Cornwall was about to pile on pounds of diamonds that evening. Her Maj is gracious like that. (Oh yes, Camilla had a BIG tiara appearance and it is covered at the Vault!)

Best in Comebacks
Princess Beatrice (Day 3) and the Princess Royal (Day 2)
We might as well call this the Triumph of the White Dresses category, because both of these ladies used that simplicity for accessory success after accessory semi-disasters on Day 1. Beatrice continued to play with color - and with handbags - and I adore it. I also adore Anne with a scarf draped gracefully over her shoulders.
Beatrice's dress from Beulah London, hat from Laura Apsit Livens

Biggest Statements in Patterns
Princess Alexandra (Day 2) and The Princess Royal (Day 3)
Alexandra will win you over to her festival of paisley with her cheery smile and her festive hat trim; Anne will simply dare you compare her to a luxury carpet with her steely gaze. But they both come out pretty well in the end.

Biggest Statement in Feathers
Princess Michael (Day 2) and The Countess of Wessex (Day 3)
Positively swashbuckling, these two - in other words, perfect for Ascot. Well done. (The Countess of Wessex Blog explains that Sophie's Jane Taylor hat looks like a slight remix from a previous Ascot appearance, with some extra stuff added. Can't ever get enough extra stuff to stick on your Ascot hat.)

Best in Couture
Princess Haya (Day 2) and Princess Marie-Chantal (Day 3)
Princess Haya continued her couture Ascot run in Chanel Couture with a Philip Treacy hat, and on Ladies' Day, Princess Marie-Chantal of Greece joined in the fun also in Chanel Couture and Philip Treacy. I have to say, it's a good combo.
Haya's suit modified from Spring 2015; Marie-Chantal's jacket from Spring 2011

Best in Forehead-Bolters
The Countess of Wessex (Day 2), Autumn Phillips (Day 2), and Princess Eugenie (Day 3)
I was expecting to like this latest batch of Ascot fashions so much. (It is Friday, perhaps I'm feeling generous.) I don't even mind a round of my least favorite sort of hat, the one that doesn't cover much of your head except for maybe parts of your vision because hey who needs that. I like all these three! Sophie's all stripey, Autumn's all springy, and Eugenie's all swingy.
Emilia Wickstead for Sophie; Hobbs for Autumn (h/t Countess of Wessex Blog); Peter Pilotto dress and Helmut Lang blazer for Eugenie
Bonus points to Eugenie for picking just the right shape of blazer to add to that dress. I think this is my favorite Eugenie outfit in a long time, which makes the York sisters my day 2 and 3 faves, which is also something that hasn't happened in a long time. Stranger things have happened at sea...

Who's your Ascot Best Dressed for Days 2 & 3?

Photos: via Getty Images as indicated / Beulah London / Laura Apsit Livens / Style.com / Instagram / ModaOperandi / Hobbs / Saks
Royal Gathering of the Day: June 18

Royal Gathering of the Day: June 18

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Various royals were among the dignitaries gathered in Belgium yesterday for a part of the events marking the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, a day that included a stop to meet with the King and Queen of the Belgians for some of them. The photos from the meeting are titled in part, "King Philippe and Queen Mathilde Receive Warlord Descendants," and you know something, I really think we don't do enough talking about warlords around here.
You can scroll over the photo for the line up of said warlord descendants, but what I'm concerned with is Mathilde's white dress. How excellent is this?! I'll always love a great white dress, but the little splash of embellishment on one side is really doing me in. A daywear highlight for her for the year so far.

Our friends the Hereditary Grand Duke and Grand Duchess of Luxembourg were there too.This is not the best angle on Stéphanie's suit, but she's got a little purple going on, and she's trying.
The tall one in this photo is the Prince Napoléon (go figure).

Charles and Camilla traveled to Belgium as well, attending the reopening of Hougoumont Farm. They also visited the site of the battle with the current Duke and Duchess of Wellington (here's a video).
That's Princess Astrid of Belgium, King Philippe's sister, rocking the fedora and colored shoes. Her outfit may have had more personality, but Cams was class personified in - believe it or not - Christian Dior Couture, with a Philip Treacy hat.
She took an official tour of the French atelier when she made a solo working visit to Paris in 2013, and she's popped up in a couple of couture Dior outfits since then. This cream coat was specially made for her trip to the D-Day commemorations last year in France, and it's no mistake that she chose it for a trip to Belgium - Dior designer Raf Simons is Belgian. She paired it with a triple strand of pearls from the Queen Mother and a badge representing the regiment of her late father, a World War II veteran.

A good day for cream outfits all around, I'd say.

Photos: via Getty Images as indicated

Royal Fashion Awards: Royal Ascot 2015, Day 1

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Ascot's first day was a day of statement pieces - the occasional successful one, and then some other statement items which...were also present. Let's discuss:

Best in Surprises
The Queen
I was going to tell you all about how much I love Lilibet in this vibrant cerise from Peter Enrione with an Angela Kelly hat, but every time I look at her I get lost in that brooch and can't find my way out again. This is a VERY EXCITING brooch selection, and you can obvs read all about it at the Vault (Ascot post here, full brooch post here).

Worst in FrankenHats
The Duchess of Cornwall and The Princess Royal
I'm pretty sure Camilla's hat is a perfectly plain brimmed number that just sat right down on top of another, more interesting hat, which is now trying desperately to free itself from below. (Maybe this is why the Duchess of Gloucester's hats always grow those weird stems: safety precaution! No hat's gonna risk sitting on that.) Its saving grace - on top of a busy top half to the outfit underneath - is the single color, but I still can't condone this type of hat-on-hat violence. Which is precisely why Princess Anne's hat gets the real worst in show here.
How many hats had to die in a millinery cage match to make this single mishmash of a chapeau? Somebody needs to put down the glue gun and walk away. Kudos to Anne for still fitting into an outfit from 1980 and all, but please try again in the headgear department.

Most Adequate in Black and White
Lady Sarah Chatto, Autumn Phillips, Princess Michael of Kent
Okay, Sarah Chatto's is brown too, but whatever. It matters not. These are all okay. Mostly, I'd just like to know why Princess Michael didn't go all in with a half black/half white eyepatch.

Most in Need of De-Fussing
Princess Beatrice
This is a bold skirt for her, and I love it! I just wish she'd cut back some of the extra fuss on the shoes and the hat so the skirt could shine, instead of being the third piece in the outfit fighting for your attention.
Roksanda Ilincic skirt

Best Runway Omission
Princess Haya
I wouldn't have thought to turn a couture gown into an outfit for the races, but at least she left off the boots, which were thigh high and vinyl and all over the latest Dior couture runway. Princess Haya (daughter of the late King Hussein of Jordan, and wife of Sheikh Mohammed, ruler of Dubai) usually stops my heart at least once with her Ascot couture parade each year, but we're not quite there yet on Day 1.
Christian Dior Spring 2015 Couture

Best in Statement Pieces
The Countess of Wessex
Yessssss. This is how you do it! Sophie's white Emilia Wickstead dress is simple enough to let the hat take center stage, but isn't boring on its own. Second place to only Her Maj in my eyes.

Best in Gents
Prince Harry and Mike Tindall
On the one hand, the long reign of terror of Prince Harry's infamous yellow waistcoat, worn to all things for all time, is over - or, at least, temporarily interrupted by a dashing new blue number. (It won Zara Phillips' approval, saying hello in cheery yellow from Paul Castelloe.)
On the other hand, Mike Tindall's curtsey game is strong. So I'll call it a tie.

Who takes home your Ascot Best Dressed Crown for Day 1?

Photos: Via Getty Images as indicated, Moda Operandi, Style.com

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