Mad Hattery!: Royal Ascot 2008, Day One

OH, THANK GOD.

Royal Ascot is always sort of like Crazy Hat Christmas, and we’re proud to say that our favorite York girls BROUGHT IT today. We’re starting to think they’re reading…

Warning: MAJOR image-heavy Mad Hattery below…

Where do we start? How do we choose? Well, Princess E. is the one who’s been all over the news lately, so we’ll give her a tap on the shoulder first:

She looks so pleased watching those ponies in her ridiculous hat, doesn’t she? But let’s assess this, shall we? The “hat” part of this is a little bit beret, a little bit skull-cap. But then — then! — it’s topped with an explosion of blue satin roses and a spray of matching feathery thingys. (Watch out: many more of these feathery thingys to come. We suspect Treacy.) It’s like a bad Picasso Blue. It’s glorious. It’s gleeful. If it were also covered in insects or maybe barnyard animals (or, like the Mensa-esque Playboy Bunnies at the Derby this year, My Little Ponies), it almost might give the butterfly hat a run for its money. But, alas, it falls short:

So, could Beatrice make a run at her own record today?

First, can we say that her hair is an absolute excellent shade of red right now? We don’t know if she enhances her natural ginger-ness, but if she does, she should double tip her colorist for this one. We also like the black and white. Looks quite smart, Bea.

But now, for the hat. Where to begin? It’s definitely firmly in fascinator territory, but instead of growing out of the side of her head, this one seems to be emerging straight from her forehead. Also, we suspect that if the Jolly Green Giant played the guitar, this hat might be of use to him. He would have to pull off the protrusion of feathery thingys (again) and random curly junk before he could strum away to his big giant heart’s content:

We even have Zara today!

Poor girl looks stricken for some unknown reason. We’re assuming it’s not the hat on her head that’s rubbing her the wrong way, but we must say, the hat itself does look like it’s on the wrong way:

It’s … we’re just … so, is it just us, or is the hat part of this hat sideways and super-glued to the side of her head? We’re so confused by this. And whatever it is, it’s apparently infected with the same giant rose and feathery thingy disease that got Princess Eugenie’s chapeau.

Hat aside, Zara looked fab today, and her presence in the Royal Box led to this moment, which had us laughing out loud for several good minutes:

Hahahahaha. It’s so funny and unexpected when the royals are affectionate with their family members. Uncle Charles looks so uncomfortable. But, on second thought, maybe he’s just trying not to run into the thing on the side of his niece’s head. Which, for its incredibly saucer-like appearance, rates a:

And, just because the mad hattery level today is making us so giddy, we’ll give this:

an enthusiastic:

The POW’s non-Princess also showed up for the hat stakes for an impressive three of the past four days:

Here we find the larger cousin of the small bunch of feathery thingys, the Giantus Featherus Thingyus. It’s like a level red combined with a level yellow, but that would cause a tear in the Mad Hattery universe, because the offspring of those pair isn’t anything like a level orange. Oh, hell, it’s just as ridiculous as Kate Middleton’s fur Russian-in-Winter hat, so we’ll give it an equivalent rating:

Equaling Camilla’s three-for-four feat were the Queen (who is, of course, in a hat league of her own and shouldn’t be allowed to compete, like a pro athlete in the Olympics) and the Countess of Wessex. We’ll start with HM:

Yay, she looks like she packed in a good eight hours! Good for you, Your Majesty! As for the hat: understated and pretty, with minimal feathery thingys. We could have done without the matchy-matchy-ness of the hat and coat together, but overall, we like it. And the hat gets an appropriate:

And finally, in her nuttiest hat of the month so far:

Oh, no, she’s caught Beatrice’s guitar-pick-forehead problem, hasn’t she? And why doesn’t her protrusion match her outfit — at all? We do not get the green, Countess. At least you’re mildly original here for going with actual feathers instead of feathery thingys. But, one major question — and this could just be our love of horse racing coming through — when you go to a horse race, don’t you actually want to be able to see the race without tipping your head back and looking down over the top of your nose? She looks uncomfortable here, and we blame the hideousness of this hat.  She’s in York territory here at:

Good God, could we hope for more in the coming days? We feel like greedy little children here. Dare we hope that Chelsy, Kate, and Autumn make royal entries into the hat stakes? Stay tuned.