Last Friday, Princess Anne attended Sandown Park Racecourse. Topping her wide smile was a brown floppy hat with a short brim, trimmed in a pleated band of wool plaid wrapped around the crown of the hat. Where to start with this hat… the plaid band is uneven, rather roughly finished and, in dark green, a completely unrelated colour to the brown hat. The droopy shape suffers from all sorts of structural issues and overall, this hat seems better suited for hillwalking on a drizzly day than an afternoon at the races. Despite all these problems, I can’t decide if this hat is entirely hideous or eccentrically charming. What do you think?
Designer: Peak and Brim Designer Hats
Previously Worn: March 12, 2014
Photos from Getty as indicated
Royal Hats 
Well thank you all as I am the designer of that particular hat and very proud and honoured that she chose to buy and wear it although it wasn’t asked we’re she was wearing it as it is for a country walk or just going out which I assume she did both 🙂
Peak and Brim Designer Hats is my small company based in a Leicestershire were all our hats are proudly “Hand made in England”
Hope you like our other hats xxx
Sophia Kathalina (Designer)
Hi Sophia Kathalina- Wonderful to hear from you! Thank you for contributing your millinery designs to the world of royal hats! I hope we see some of your other designs on Princess Anne in the future.
I have also added Peak and Brim Designer Hats to our list of royal milliners here.
I just went to your website (thank you for providing it!) and saw a similar hat, Jade Tweed and Tweed Leaf Brooch. The addition of the embellishment is lovely! Wish these were sold in the U.S.
Hi we ship to the usa the Jade tweed is £49 plus postage if you email us on tradeboohats@aol.co.uk I can let you have details
Kind regards
Jane
Pss. Anne is entirely her own creature and someone I find almost wholly admirable. In recent years, she reminds me more and more of later photographs of Pss. Louise and Pss. Beatrice, Q. Victoria’s daughters who in old age wore modified versions of ’20s and ’30s fashions that this hat strongly recalls.
I will be putting this hat on my list of Least Preferred Hats of 2015. It is frumpy and has odd proportions. When Princess Anne gets it right, she can look good, in a very country kind of way, but this hat is below her best standards.
Love it! As much as I don’t care for hat , but must admit- princess Anne looks happy and appropriate for country afternoon. Bravo, not to worry about photo shoots and just enjoy lovely day at races .
P.s. This type of hat most common on country side whilst walking dogs, watching ” point – to – point” , shooting or attending open garden ( well at least in early March)
I love it! It looks very comfortable and completely suits her personality.
I love her! The hat is the type to throw on for a walk in the rain and the Princess Royal wearing it in the sun seems so typical for her! I think she looks in the mirror, squints, and just goes about her daily business, like me! If she were one of us peasants I think yoga pants and tshirts would be the clothing for the day for her Target runs!
I like it on her, quite a bit. Most structured hats look too severe on her; she benefits from a softer line.
The hat is very much Anne’s style: very relaxed and casual. It reminds me of something that might have been worn in the thirties, but I love this hat. It is very casual and comfortable and if Lady Gaga or Kate Hudson were wearing this hat, everyone else would be too! This is one that people have strong feelings for, and they either love it or hate it. Great smile and a wonderful funky hat. I would live in it and buy it in different colors for casual outings.
I think if we had a full view of the entire outfit we might get a different perspective. The hat is casual and if that is her style around horses, so what? She has a contagious smile, The hat is quite secondary, (And who says that brown/beige/green do not go together? Depending on the shade or tint, they can be quite complimentary to the entire ensemble and occasion. What determines fashion?
As much as I admire the Princess Royal, this hat is entirely hideous as far as I am concerned. You would have to pay me a lot of money to wear this hat!
We got lucky, the Princess Royal wore it for free!
Looking so country.
I quite like it – very Anne — quite practical, not one that will blow off or be fussy. The shape and colors suit her style.
I think I can see brown stripes in the tweed so not a discordant look on my screen. This hat perfectly fits Anne’s aristocratic approach to fashion – she’s not in the least bit interested and probably sees “fashion” as facile, She runs a farm, rides horses and is busy with good works (ie, meeting the public on behalf of her mother and supporting charities) and uses clothes to work in, not to do photo shoots in. Yes, I’m inclined to cut her plenty of slack. (And yes, all right we share the same birthday so I’ve always quietly admired her for the path she hews. She’s her own person.) Long live Anne!
Your comment was brilliant, I really really like this lady, she has a mind of her own and suffers no fools. Clothes are not the beginning and end of her day at all. As for the hat……..I love it! I would so like a hat like this to wear each and every day during the winter months. I have lots of hats yet this one so appeals to me. This woman would of made a fabulous queen even with her hats.
I quite like it–on her. I think it suits her personality, and I’ve long ago stopped thinking that Princess Anne should be as well dressed as, say, her sisters-in-law; that’s not what she’s about.
The plaid looks to be greys and beiges on my monitor, so not striking a discordant note. Having said that, it would be a lovely hat for a country walk, as has been said – but not for a public appearance, however, informal.
I don’t see anywhere that this WAS a public appearance, simply a public one in which she was seen.
Since I didn’t immediately dislike it, as I do with many of Anne’s hats, I must like it by default. U would rather wear it or see her wearing it on a country ramble, though
Excuse me, this IS a country ramble…
Thank you for pointing that out. Her hat is perfect for this. I would buy and wear this hat for a heart walk on a chilly day
That hat is typical Anne. At least 60 plus years old, worn, frumpy and country.
As are many, if not most, attendees. How thoughtful of her to put other people at ease.
I think it’s entirely hideous!
I think it’s entirely charming. No hat is completely without a single item of redemption. The fact it’s a hat, for one.